How to Kneel and Shoot from Cover

Interacting with cover and concealment and engaging threats from behind it is a hard skill every shooter needs to develop.  This is why we teach it in our Pistol 2 and Rifle 2 courses (you can train with us in-person or watch the digital courses on WPSN).  

How we interact with cover is crucial to surviving a gunfight and eliminating the threat, and whether it’s on a battlefield or in a parking lot the same three principles apply: Mobility, Stability, and Signature.  

Mobility

Mobility is how easy it is to get into and move from a particular position.  It’s how easily we can twist our bodies and make the subtle adjustments needed to open up new lanes of fire to engage existing or new threats.  Whether we choose a knee-up or knee-down position behind cover, we want to easily push out to get the shot and then get back behind cover quickly.

Stability

Stability simply refers to how stable you’ve built your shooting platform.  We want a solid platform for our weapon so we can engage targets quickly and accurately. If you’re working with a team and you get bumped, you don’t want to fall out from behind your cover, or worse, if you get shot, you don’t want to fall out from behind cover as well and get shot again.

Signature

Signature refers to how much of your body you present to your enemy.  We want a low signature when in a gunfight.  Typically, if they can’t see us, then they can’t shoot us. What I always want to be is just an eye behind the muzzle of my gun so the bad guy never really sees me; I’m not giving him my knee, foot, or shoulder as a target.  I want to be mobile and stable without presenting anything for bad guys to shoot.

Mindset on Cover

The guy who is over-timid or over-cautious is usually the guy who gets killed.  Beware of a retreatist mindset; it will get you killed.  If boxing, you can’t even punch without exposing yourself in some way to the enemy.  So, we want to have such aggression that they can’t respond to anything exposed to them in the first place.  When deciding how to position ourselves behind cover, the first thing we need is that strong will and aggression to fight; to fight hard, to fight smart. 

Knee Up or Knee Down?

You’ve really only got two options when kneeling behind cover, and that is having your lead leg’s knee up or down.  Your lead leg is the leg that’s closest to the edge of the cover. 

Knee-Up Option 1

First off, this knee-up option is problematic right away with keeping my signature down. To reduce that signature, I have to lean so far out to engage the threat that I risk getting shot in the knee or shin because I have to kick my leg out for stability.  However, it is a more stable shooting platform, and if I were to get hit, my hips would be oriented toward the cover in such a way that I would have a higher chance of falling behind my cover instead of out from it. 

If I’ve got teammates who would bump me, we benefit from the aforementioned stability, and if I need to take more ground to engage more threats, its a just a tiny step and lunge.  I like this for mobility and stability, but it just sacrifices too much signature for me.

Knee-Down Option (My Preferred Method)

With the knee-down option, I keep sufficient mobility and stability with far superior signature reduction by keeping my body in line with the cover.  If I need more stability, I can inch my knee out (a smaller target for my opponent) and kick my back leg out as a counterbalance. 

Because of this counterweight with the back leg, I’m able to lean much further out while keeping a low signature. This is my preferred method.  However, you have to practice this a ton as it takes repetitions for it to feel natural.  If you’re too narrow or upright in your positioning, your stability will suffer and you’ll end up losing your balance and falling over. 

Knee-Up Option 2

The third stance is another knee-up option, where I keep my hips parallel to the cover instead of facing the cover.  I can then twist my torso over my cover side leg (which is knee up) and engage threats with a reduced signature. 

However, while I’ve got a nice low signature and decent mobility, my stability suffers a bit because I have to twist my torso in such a way that it can overextend my ability to mount my rifle into my shoulder pocket for that good shooting position.  It feels like my body is twisting like a corkscrew. Perhaps if I have to make a lateral sprint, this could be a good option in that my hips are already primed in that direction. 

Conclusion

There are pros and cons to each option, and your cover may — and likely will — play a role in what position you utilize.  Additionally, what is your objective?  If you know you need to advance on target quickly, a certain position may be better for that.  If you’re holding an objective and repelling an enemy force, a different position may be better for that. 

You’ve heard me say it a thousand times; context matters.  That said, for me, the winner is the knee-down option, and that’s why we teach it in our training classes.  There is, however, more than one way to skin a cat provided you follow these three principles: mobility, stability, and signature.  

Remember, Train Hard.  Train Smart.  And keep that knee down.