Help with "The Flinch"

[mousegunner]

What gets people is the noise and recoil. Ignore it. Nothing on earth can stop the gun from recoiling or making noise. You can't avoid it. Concentrate on your sight picture and press your trigger to get the surprise shot. Front sight, front sight, front sight, BANG! Rifle or handgun you should focus on your front sight or reticle. When you anticipate the shot you'll jerk the trigger and flinch and throw your shot off. Ball and dummy work great to get your concentration on sight picture and trigger control.

I've also smacked my son in law with a stick everytime he flinched. He didn't like it but he did do better. Practice, practice, practice, dry fire or live. Doesn't come over night.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

I have problem with flinching just before the round goes off, and I end up
Pulling my shot. Any help would be greatly appreciated if you have a suggestion
to help me out

Yeah...stop flinching! LOL!

Only way to fix it is practice. Shoot as much as you can. Focus on the target more than anything else. Eventually you won’t have to think about it. You’ll know you got it when you go to touch off a round forgetting the safety is on and when the trigger squeeze doesn’t ignite the round, you don’t flinch.

Also helps tremendously when you focus on follow through after the shot. When you are zoned in on the target and thinking about the follow through afterwards, it makes your brain focus on that instead of what your brain wants to do before the shot. Proper follow through on a shot is one of the most important aspects in your form to shoot accurately. As a Hunter, proper follow through is extremely important for me. It allows me to see animal reactions to impacts at long range in my scope after recoil and allows for quick follow up shots if required.

 

[mills braswell]

I agree with all of the above, except the earmuffs. I do believe getting good ear plugs of your choice, but to me and my limited experience, (hunting rifles/bolt guns) ear muffs always interfere with my cheek weld to the stock. You have to be fairly comfortable to shoot well, and consistent, IMO, and muffs just ruin that for me when shooting a rifle. Of course I will wear them when not shooting, but someone else is. That's when they are convenient to me. In other words, don't let trying to blot out ALL noise override your being comfortable and consistent. If you are not holding the rifle consistently because muffs are interfering, you might not be following through consistently either. I'm sure there are plenty of precision shooters that use muffs everyday and will say hogwash, but I'm just giving my opinion on wearing muffs shooting a rifle. For me they hinder more than help.

 

[CA_Shooter]

I have problem with flinching just before the round goes off, and I end up
Pulling my shot. Any help would be greatly appreciated if you have a suggestion
to help me out

I recently caught a bit of a flinch after shooting my dads 6.5 lb 30-06. Lots of dry firing fixed it

I also use ear plugs under my ear muffs to dampen the sound and vibration

 

[mousegunner]

As mentioned good follow through also important. Once the shot goes off it's gone, can't call it back so follow through and get on your front sight/reticle and work on your next shot. Some people look at the target as soon as the shot goes off and then they try to make up for a bad shot then jerk or flinch and keep making bad shots. In my experience I've learned to see the shot (for pistol shooting) briefly and then confirm how I called the shot and then concentrate on the next shot without letting a bad shot mess with my mind but that's just me. My point is that I don't let noise and recoil bother me, my concentration is on the other aspects. My 2 cents.

 

[358WCF]

One of my old shootin' buddys was a jarhead. He said the sgt in charge of teaching new recruits to shoot taped a thumbtack to the trigger with flinchers so they would learn to squeeze without knowing when the shot would go off. I dont know if it was just another boot camp story or for real. Take it for what ya paid for it. Hard cases need hard fixes.

 

[CJ6]

I'd get the trigger tuned as a first step.....

 

[Ledd Slinger]

I agree with all of the above, except the earmuffs. I do believe getting good ear plugs of your choice, but to me and my limited experience, (hunting rifles/bolt guns) ear muffs always interfere with my cheek weld to the stock. You have to be fairly comfortable to shoot well, and consistent, IMO, and muffs just ruin that for me when shooting a rifle. Of course I will wear them when not shooting, but someone else is. That's when they are convenient to me. In other words, don't let trying to blot out ALL noise override your being comfortable and consistent. If you are not holding the rifle consistently because muffs are interfering, you might not be following through consistently either. I'm sure there are plenty of precision shooters that use muffs everyday and will say hogwash, but I'm just giving my opinion on wearing muffs shooting a rifle. For me they hinder more than help.

Agreed. I can’t shoot with muffs either for the same reasons. Never had an issue with plugs not providing more than enough noise reduction.

 

[sapperdaddy55]

Had a Drill Sergeant in basic that use this dry firing excercise. He would have us lay prone, bunk mate would balance a nickel on barrel.
Now break the shot without dropping the nickel.
If you drop the nickel, roll over and knock out 20.

^^^This exactly...I was a Drill Sergeant at Ft. Benning from 2007-2010 and we used "dime washers" to train our Soldiers to not flinch before the trigger breaks...place a dime washer or dime on the end of the barrel just before the muzzle device and squeeze the trigger. If the washer falls off, then knock out a set of 10 to 20 pushups...Repeat as necessary and concentrate on your follow through...just like swinging a golf club or baseball bat...Good Luck!!

 

[acloco]

I agree with all of the above, except the earmuffs. I do believe getting good ear plugs of your choice, but to me and my limited experience, (hunting rifles/bolt guns) ear muffs always interfere with my cheek weld to the stock. You have to be fairly comfortable to shoot well, and consistent, IMO, and muffs just ruin that for me when shooting a rifle. Of course I will wear them when not shooting, but someone else is. That's when they are convenient to me. In other words, don't let trying to blot out ALL noise override your being comfortable and consistent. If you are not holding the rifle consistently because muffs are interfering, you might not be following through consistently either. I'm sure there are plenty of precision shooters that use muffs everyday and will say hogwash, but I'm just giving my opinion on wearing muffs shooting a rifle. For me they hinder more than help.

As much hearing damage occurs from the shockwave (sound) of the round being lit on the OUTSIDE of the ear than thru the ear canal.

Many iterations of our sport produce more than normal LOUD sounds (muzzle brakes) that should require muffs and/or muffs with ear plugs as well.

Even those that run mufflers....there is a HUGE misconception that you don't need hearing protection when shooting quiet - ooooops....the super sonic noise is not "heard" by you, but IS doing damage.

 

[dellet]

Do happen to know why you flinch?

Noise, Recoil, bad experience?

I shoot a lot of different things, light for caliber rifles, rimfire, flinchlock. Never really had a flinch. Then I made a loading error, double charge, and blew an AR to pieces. Probably 4-5 years ago.

A few thousand rounds later, if the trigger does not break when I expect it to, I find my head popping up. Other times jerking the trigger. Switching rifles, working a new load, new load in new rifle are all things that still let worry creep in there and cause a flinch.

Things that have helped are starting with light loads, shooting things with slow lock time like hammered rifles or revolvers, even the dreaded Flinchlock. Any thing that requires a follow through. If you measure the time between trigger pull and bullet exit with a calendar for awhile, it really helps you keep your head down.
You get a dry fire, a flash in the pan then ignition, all in one trigger pull.

The physical stuff like noise and recoil are easy to mitigate, the mental part needs to be identified before you can fix it.

Games like a rack of plates or a dueling tree will probably take your mind off the issue because you get down to business and just shoot. Might give you the confidence to slow it down and realize it only happens when you think about not doing it.

My issue was/is flat out fear that finds it way in every now and then when I least expect it. Sometimes a sighter or two doubles as a confidence or trust builder. I don’t care where the bullet goes(as long as it’s safe) a few in the berm where I can focus only on me, allow me to re-establish the feel of that rifle. Maybe on shot, maybe a dozen. It’s just pointless to shoot at a target until I drive out the gremlins.

Hope that gives you some different thoughts.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

Realizing you’re flinching and being humble enough to admit it is a great first step. I’ve seen so many people flinch while shooting or fail to follow thru over the years. Then they can’t understand why they missed? Won’t listen when you tell them they flinched or didn’t stay in the scope after recoil. A lot of hunters have a bad habit of wanting to lift their head and look over the scope immediately after a shot to see if they hit their quarry. What they don’t realize is that when the habit gets bad enough they are subconsciously making that move to look over the scope ‘during’ recoil

 

[Intheshop]

Most rifle shooters are too stubborn to admit they flinch,and therefore even more reluctant to heed any advice. So good on you for taking it seriously enough to ask.

Check into bullseye,and archery for "shot process" and/or "target panic".

One,of several reasons, dryfire practice is so valuable is it gets you "used to" the process. Which is a stepping stone to eventually,learning cruise control. Good luck with your shooting.

 

[chop house]

A light recoiling rifle, good hearing protection and lots of practice will get rid of a flinch. Now whatever other bad habits this reveals may take different actions.

it has mostly all been said, but i'll add what i did a few years back. spent almost the entire spring shooting brick after brick of rimfire off the bench. it was eye opening.... literally and figuratively.

epilogue: it held together pretty good as i worked back up through the calibers.... until i resurrected my .300 wby.

 

[kvd]

Old Army training films (all over youtube) about how to accurately shoot a Garand M1 service rifle highly stressed the point that in order to hit what one is aiming at the trigger must be slowly squeezed to order for the shot to break without really knowing when. Anticipating the shot, getting ready for the noise and recoil, and then yanking the trigger was the problem to be overcome and concentrating on the sights, lining up the shot, exhaling 1/2 a breath and holding it an instant while applying increasing pressure to the trigger until the shot breaks eliminated flinching - because one didn't know when to flinch. Assuming a light trigger is already part of the mix, practicing the above should be of help. It helped me anyway.

 

[PronePanda]

Thank you for posting your question!

I've been fighting a flinch for many years and sometimes think I'm the only one who has the problem. Having someone ask about it is soothing - shows I'm not alone.

You have gotten some great tips so far. Follow through, "surprise break", breathing, front-sight focus, and so forth. Concentrating on something other than the shot breaking takes the jerk out of it.

There is flinching from recoil but there is also flinching from trying to "make" the shot break when the sight picture is perfect. Some call it "snatching at the trigger". I see myself do it - the sights are aligned, all is perfect, and my mind is yelling "break the shot!" - wrong thing to do!

At that point the right thing is to relax, open the bolt, put that round back in the box, close the bolt and dry fire a couple of times, concentrating on seeing the sights not move at all when the action clicks. Then load the rifle (maybe with the next round in the box) and proceed.

A guy (really good shooter, High Master) once told me that when he gets to that point he tells himself, "I'm going to dry fire this one." - but he does not take out the live round, he just convinces himself it is a dry fire, and executes it as such, and shoots an X. After he told me that I shot four Xs in a row before I lost focus.

So I have nothing useful to add to the excellent advice you've already gotten, but you may wish to peruse some of the articles at On the Firing Line - especially #29 "Deliver the Shot".

"When the eye is moving the rifle is moving." All has to be still. The sight picture brightens just a tad and the shot breaks. If you intentionally break it at that point is is sub-optimal even if it is a 10. If you'd let your mind break the shot it would have been an X.

It is time for me to go dry fire.

Have fun!

 

[DiffEQ]

As a kid I flinched bad, and my dad had a unique way of solving my problem. He would stand behind me with a stick and every time I flinched. he would whack me with the stick. It didn't take long for me to quit flinching.

Makes me think of my dad.
Lots of good advice here. Especially agree with @Bc'z & @BoydAllen posts, & hearing protection.
I have a Winchester with a trigger that's like dragging a cinder block on concrete, always a surprise when it fires.
If you're young enough with a strong back, make those push-ups inclined plane type with your feet on a table and do lots & lots.

I'll do ball and dummy with a pistol and 30-30 with people I'm teaching. Have someone video you shooting. It's really instructive to see your motion when you fire.

 

[BoydAllen]

Although not specific to flinch, one tip worth passing on is setting up your cell phone to take video of you shooting. You can review the video to get a much better idea of what you are doing. They make tripod adapters for cell phones that are quite inexpensive. Look on Amazon. A side view can be very instructive.

 

[rogina]

Although not specific to flinch, one tip worth passing on is setting up your cell phone to take video of you shooting. You can review the video to get a much better idea of what you are doing. They make tripod adapters for cell phones that are quite inexpensive. Look on Amazon. A side view can be very instructive.

I have found that a surpressor is very good for stopping people from flinching.

 

[Rsadams]

The only cure I have found, if you want to call it that... Practice and more practice with every bit of your attention on the sights and a gentle ever increasing pressure on the trigger till the gun goes off.... After awhile it becomes second nature.... This is one of the hard things about shooting everybody does...As they say if it was easy everybody would be good at it.... In any sport your basic fundamentals are the key.... Shooting , golf , pool etc.... Most of the time when something goes wrong it's that you either think your good enough to cheat the fundamentals or have simply gotten away from them....