T97 Safety and off hand placement for short range, tactical shooting

harbl_the_cat

harbl_the_cat

BANNED
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
BANNED
Rating - 100%
53   0   0
If I can ever get around to shooting the darn thing instead of playing around with it in my garage I'll probably verify - but has anyone else noticed that the T97 safety engages while rotated 1/8-1/4 counter clockwise from the firing position?

I'm thinking if you're of the opinion to engage the safety while doing run downs or otherwise on the move (which I am) or if you actually wanted to use the safety in general and be able to quickly engage a target, I think the most practical solution is to keep your support hand on the butt stock approximately where you'd rest your cheek while keeping your thumb on the safety and engaging/disengaging it rotating it partially.

If you are doing snap shooting, you'll essentially have to shoot it one handed unless you return your support hand to the hand guard (a very large, time consuming motion - compared to simply thumbing up a safety on an AR), but baring having a massive optic clamped to the front of the barrel (like me) the gun feels balanced enough with most of the weight to the rear that it wouldn't be too awkward to do.

I don't know about speed either, but I think if you used your support hand like a pivot, bracing the rear of the rifle, while pushing up with your strong hand you MIGHT (might) be able to go from a low ready to shouldered position slightly faster than with mag in front of trigger style rifle. Furthermore, with your hand closer to the rear, you should be able to access and change the magazine faster - which (I concede is the most awkward part of the T97). If you think about the muscle motions involved in doing just that compared to a mag-forward style rifle, that is a lot finer motion (pushing slightly up and forward with your strong hand while bracing with your support hand as opposed to raising your entire extended support arm upward).

If you're doing 3-gun style shooting at targets closer than 25 yard this seems to be the most reasonable approach to operating the T97 and of course, if you're shooting 25 yards+, you could always just revert to shooting it with support hand forward.

Again, I can't say how the recoil would be as I haven't shot mine yet - but I'll probably try this out at the range when I do finally get around to shooting it.

Experimentation remains to be had...
 
Last edited:
Now that I think about it - why would you think to operate a bullpup the same way (in terms of hand placement) the way you would a mag-forward rifle?

The centre of gravity of both rifles is wildly different, with a mag-forward rifle having it more towards the centre, while a bullpup is closer to the rear - meaning in theory, with a mag-forward rifle, your support hand would need to be more forward to compensate for the greater gravitational force being further forward.

It's pretty evident that the centre of gravity with a bullpup is closer to your body, so the area where the greatest support is needed is closer to that centre of gravity.

Realistically, why couldn't/should't you place your support hand closer to the rear, where the greatest support is needed?

Practically speaking, it's weird and awkward if you need your support hand to serve some other function, but in terms of simply operating the rifle, in terms of the physics, it would seem to make more sense from an operational perspective to have more support toward the rear of the rifle than forward. Reinforcing that point is that the big move these days is to free float barrels to mitigate the interference/turbulence introduced by having the barrel having direct, physical contact with an object further down the barrel length as the bullet travels through it - such as a human hand.

For the T97, you conceivably could wrap your support hand around the magazine well of the rifle and be better able to operate both the magazine release and safety (if you adopted a "hug the rifle"/"bipod mounted machine gun" sort of posture). i.e:
800px-Canadian_C9A1_LMG.JPG


This of course is all theory craft of course, coming from a geeky engineer who likes to overthink things... Man - this is the most I've ever wanted to shoot any gun I've ever had...
 
Last edited:
So , if I'm following you correctly , you suggest that one would be better off shooting with the front of the rifle unsupported and having one hand always at the rear dedicated to switching the safety on and off ? Hows this hand at the rear going to affect your cheek weld and wouldn't you maybe be better off taking the extra fraction of a second to just engaging the safety "traditionally" and actually getting shots on target? Please let us know hows it works out for you.
 
Beniw765 said:
So , if I'm following you correctly , you suggest that one would be better off shooting with the front of the rifle unsupported and having one hand always at the rear dedicated to switching the safety on and off ? Hows this hand at the rear going to affect your cheek weld and wouldn't you maybe be better off taking the extra fraction of a second to just engaging the safety "traditionally" and actually getting shots on target? Please let us know hows it works out for you.
Click to expand...

Well, the first IDPA match I won, I won by 1/10'th of a second - so those fractions of a second do, from time to time, count for something. I'm thinking more from the perspective of doing short range, tactical style shooting, not static bulls-eye.

The down zero/A-zone on an IDPA/IPSC target is pretty big after all.
 
Last edited:
From the video's I've seen the Chinese Army keeps their older version QBZ-95's rifles in condition 3 (empty chamber, magazine in the rifle). They charge the rifle when they need to get in in the action, must faster. NOTE: I'm not recommending this practice, just stating what I've learned.

That probably won't fly in competition though....
 
Clobbersauras said:
From the video's I've seen the Chinese Army keeps their older version QBZ-95's rifles in condition 3 (empty chamber, magazine in the rifle). They charge the rifle when they need to get in in the action, must faster. NOTE: I'm not recommending this practice, just stating what I've learned.

That probably won't fly in competition though....
Click to expand...

P.S. If you are going to compete, just use your Norc AR, especially if you are concerned about your times......
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom