C++ Playing/Pausing animations on certain bones?

Apologies if this is covered elsewhere - I’ve had a look but been unable to find any good resources. If anyone has any links, please be sure to share!

What I’m trying to do is to have the player “ready” his weapon by holding down the left mouse button, and then swing it by releasing. Sounds fairly obvious. My game is mostly blueprint-free and as a result I’d like to keep it to C++ to make my system more understandable.

I have the necessary animations, but I’m simply not sure how to do it. How do I make an animation play up until a specific point (and only on certain bones - so that the player could run with his weapon “primed”) and then continue on release of a button?

Thanks a lot