Originally Posted By 3ACR_Scout:
We teach it now. However, the main principle is getting your support hand out as close to the muzzle as possible, as others stated above - not specifically the extreme elbow-above-bore-axis C-clamp that you see in some examples. Now, "as close to the muzzle as possible" is all relative when you're shooting an M4 with a short handguard and traditional front sight assembly. The main thing that I stress is to get away from the hand on the front of the magwell that some guys still seem to gravitate towards, which creates a fulcrum where the rifle is kind of teetering on your closely spaced hands, with a lot of weight out forward of your support hand. To expand on the broomstick analogy, try balancing a broomstick on your two index fingers with them spaced 6 inches apart, and then try it again with your fingers two feet apart. It's really the same principle that Soldiers have been taught for decades when shooting from the prone, unsupported position: you extend your support hand out as far forward as possible to control the wobble of the muzzle.  If you bring it back in closer to the receiver, the muzzle is going to sway around more and be harder to keep on target.

The problem with using "the Army" in any context is that you're talking about a huge organization of half a million Soldiers, but shooting is taught at the company level (usually 50-100 Soldiers at a time). A lot of what determines what is taught is based on the knowledge and experience of the individual instructors. We have advanced marksmanship classes, but those focus mostly on ballistics, developing a training program, and other overall principles of marksmanship and training. Improving individual shooting technique and performance, like physical fitness, comes down to pushing training beyond the basics and the minimum requirements. As a case in point, we recently invited our local FBI SWAT team to give our guys a block of instruction on short range marksmanship (SRM). It gave them an opportunity to practice their instruction techniques and provided our Soldiers with exposure to aspects of shooting that many of them had never seen before. For example, all of the shooting was done at distances of 10 meters or less, so they started the class by explain the concept of sight over bore axis - the separation of about 2 inches between your point of aim and point of impact when shooting at close range. That's not a concept that is normally covered in Army marksmanship because we zero at 25m and engage targets at 50-300m during qualification. They also demonstrated the concept that is the topic of this discussion - moving the support hand as far forward as possible - and encouraged our shooters to use that technique throughout the class. It was a fantastic training opportunity for both our organizations, and something that we plan to continue in the future.

As I alluded to above, equipment also impacts your grip. Sometimes the C-clamp method works well with an M4, because the thumb over the top places it on the activation switch for the PEQ-15, which we normally mount on top (although some guys prefer the tape switch for activation). At the same time, that's a big thing to wrap your hand around - the RAS plus the PEQ on top - so some of us prefer to cup the hand under the front end of the handguard. Some guys put an AFG to the front end of the handguard (that's how the FBI guys had their rifles configured) and grip that, while others like a VFG. I personally prefer a stubby VFG as a handstop. As another poster mentioned, it gets tiring to keep your support hand all the way out there for an extended period of time, so I treat it more as a grip to use when expecting to or actively engaging targets. While patrolling or searching a building for weapon caches, etc., I find it easier to carry a rifle with a VFG that I can use to direct my weapon light or just control the rifle in general. I tried an AFG on one deployment, and it didn't work for me at all for those sorts of tasks. The FBI rifles are equipped with them because, in my opinion, they are focused on short, intense missions that involve actively searching for and preparing to engage hostile targets, such as entering a house to conduct a high risk arrest of a suspect. They won't be using their rifles to patrol for hours at a time like Soldiers do. Anyway, I see the extended support arm grip as something that you transition to as you prepare to engage a target. While using a VFG as a handstop at the low ready during a patrol, I can easily transition to bring the rifle up and pushing my support hand forward a couple inches.

One last point: as someone else mentioned, a big part of shooting is physical conditioning. None of this is something you can just do comfortably for an extended period of time. I noticed that while shooting my personal rifle with a civilian friend at the range, he quickly got tired from holding the rifle out and engaging targets over the course of an hour or so. I'm not an extreme athlete by any stretch, but apparently I'm more used to / conditioned for this sort of thing, and it doesn't wear me out as quickly. If you don't maintain some level of fitness and train on these specific things, it won't be comfortable for you.

Again, all of this takes practice and training, and it won't necessarily be found in an Army manual. We focus on training these techniques at the platoon and company level and then continuing to practice them at the individual, team, and squad level. I'd recommend getting out there and trying these different techniques yourself.