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Posted: 5/28/2014 4:47:15 AM EDT
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First, I'd like to say I hope this is in the right place. I was thinking of posting in General>General discussion, but decided that was too detached from guns, so hopefully this is okay...
Anyway, the point of this thread. I may or may not have a flinching problem when shooting firearms. When I originally discovered it, I tried increasing my hearing protection. At first, it solved the problem, but someone told me it would only be a temporary fix. I'm pretty sure at this point they were right. But, now, I'm not even sure I do, because my(very potentially incorrect) idea of a "flinching problem" is when you anticipate the noise and/or recoil of the weapon before you pull the trigger, flinch, and aim the weapon slightly off your target. But, what I'm almost positive I do is not that, but I will involuntarily blink AFTER the trigger has been pulled and the shot fired. I have had dummy rounds randomly placed, by someone else, in a set of magazines, and when I unknowingly pulled the trigger on a dummy, I would not blink or "flinch," but if I remember correctly I would very slightly move the weapon. This may have just been a coincidence, but I'm not sure either way. It was some time ago(Due to time and money, I have had a very sad amount of time shooting in the past few months.  )
So, questions: Is this a problem that will not go away with practice shooting? If so, is it what is commonly referred to as flinching, or something else? Flinching or not, how do I get rid of it? I never flinch when dry firing and do that quite a lot. Sorry for such a long post. Any help would be appreciated. |
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I know this doesn't really pertain, but I've found that flinching is the #1 obstacle people face to achieving pistol accuracy. I prescribe dry firing to my guys (and gals) and that normally helps them overcome the problem. I've caught myself doing it with hot loads in small pistols. That's why I try to avoid combinations that are painful to shoot.
I've also found that I flinch occassionally when firing one of my ARs that's fitted with a terribly brake design that directs blast back towards the shooter. My solution to that was eye pro and doubling up on ear pro. Sounds like you've already tried that. You might see if you can get some instruction from a professional who might be able to offer more helpful advice. Good luck! |
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my(very potentially incorrect) idea of a "flinching problem" is when you anticipate the noise and/or recoil of the weapon before you pull the trigger, flinch, and aim the weapon slightly off your target That is exactly correct. So, questions: Is this a problem that will not go away with practice shooting? If so, is it what is commonly referred to as flinching, or something else? Flinching or not, how do I get rid of it? I never flinch when dry firing and do that quite a lot. Sorry for such a long post. Any help would be appreciated. It will only go away if you do the proper practice. If you "practice" as you've been doing, you will only increase your flinching problem. You see, back in the day when we resolved our differences with rocks and sharp sticks, EVERYthing that wanted to kill us did the same thing: The enemy warrior, the panther, the bear, all ROARED at us and then JUMPED at us. Now, you have this dangerous machine that ROARS at you and JUMPS at you. The 'unlearned' reaction is to try to push it away. When you push your gun away from you, you activate a bunch of muscles that screw up your aim. But because the gun immediately recoils, you don't feel the 'flinch.' The recoil masks the physical sensation of your arm muscles pushing the gun away. The 'learned' reaction would be more like what a karate student would do; that is what this post is about. The best way to practice is to recognize what's going on. (You are way ahead of the game by realizing you ARE flinching.) You do this by loading your weapon with 'snap caps,' which are rubber-coated, inert bullets. When your hammer falls on a snap cap, you will see and feel your arm pushing the weapon off-center. The drill is most easily performed with a revolver, but it can be done with a semiauto pistol. With a revolver, you just put one snap cap in with 5 live rounds. With a semiauto pistol, you must effectively blindfold yourself so you don't see which bullet is the snap cap. Load bullets from a pile of 5 live rounds and one snap cap. You want to surprise yourself when the snap cap fails to fire. First drill: Load 6 rounds. One round is a snap cap and is randomly loaded into the mag. With a revolver, simply load one snap cap with 5 live rounds, turn your head, and spin the cylinder, closing the cylinder without knowing where the snap cap is. Fire till you get to the snap cap. You will then experience the feeling of the involuntary flinching action. Second drill: Unload your handgun. Aim at your target and squeeze the trigger. If you have a flinch, you'll flinch now even though you know your pistol is unloaded. Continue until your flinch is controlled. My suggestion is that you pretend there's a live round in each cylinder, and go through the entire shooting experience: aim, squeeze, recoil (raise the muzzle as if a real bullet had been fired), and return to your sight picture. Third drill (revolver): Put one live round in the cylinder, spin and close the cylinder, aim and fire. If you flinch now, unload the gun and go back to the second drill until your flinch is under control. Hold the sight picture and continue till the gun fires. If you have a companion on the range, have him take the gun and return it to you without telling you if he's loaded the single bullet or not. This can be done with revolver or semiauto; the revolver simply gives you more trigger pulls before the bullet fires. |
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Quoted:
my(very potentially incorrect) idea of a "flinching problem" is when you anticipate the noise and/or recoil of the weapon before you pull the trigger, flinch, and aim the weapon slightly off your target That is exactly correct. So, questions: Is this a problem that will not go away with practice shooting? If so, is it what is commonly referred to as flinching, or something else? Flinching or not, how do I get rid of it? I never flinch when dry firing and do that quite a lot. Sorry for such a long post. Any help would be appreciated. It will only go away if you do the proper practice. If you "practice" as you've been doing, you will only increase your flinching problem. You see, back in the day when we resolved our differences with rocks and sharp sticks, EVERYthing that wanted to kill us did the same thing: The enemy warrior, the panther, the bear, all ROARED at us and then JUMPED at us. Now, you have this dangerous machine that ROARS at you and JUMPS at you. The 'unlearned' reaction is to try to push it away. When you push your gun away from you, you activate a bunch of muscles that screw up your aim. But because the gun immediately recoils, you don't feel the 'flinch.' The recoil masks the physical sensation of your arm muscles pushing the gun away. The 'learned' reaction would be more like what a karate student would do; that is what this post is about. The best way to practice is to recognize what's going on. (You are way ahead of the game by realizing you ARE flinching.) You do this by loading your weapon with 'snap caps,' which are rubber-coated, inert bullets. When your hammer falls on a snap cap, you will see and feel your arm pushing the weapon off-center. The drill is most easily performed with a revolver, but it can be done with a semiauto pistol. With a revolver, you just put one snap cap in with 5 live rounds. With a semiauto pistol, you must effectively blindfold yourself so you don't see which bullet is the snap cap. Load bullets from a pile of 5 live rounds and one snap cap. You want to surprise yourself when the snap cap fails to fire. First drill: Load 6 rounds. One round is a snap cap and is randomly loaded into the mag. With a revolver, simply load one snap cap with 5 live rounds, turn your head, and spin the cylinder, closing the cylinder without knowing where the snap cap is. Fire till you get to the snap cap. You will then experience the feeling of the involuntary flinching action. Second drill: Unload your handgun. Aim at your target and squeeze the trigger. If you have a flinch, you'll flinch now even though you know your pistol is unloaded. Continue until your flinch is controlled. My suggestion is that you pretend there's a live round in each cylinder, and go through the entire shooting experience: aim, squeeze, recoil (raise the muzzle as if a real bullet had been fired), and return to your sight picture. Third drill (revolver): Put one live round in the cylinder, spin and close the cylinder, aim and fire. If you flinch now, unload the gun and go back to the second drill until your flinch is under control. Hold the sight picture and continue till the gun fires. If you have a companion on the range, have him take the gun and return it to you without telling you if he's loaded the single bullet or not. This can be done with revolver or semiauto; the revolver simply gives you more trigger pulls before the bullet fires. I would think that you would want to load 5 snaps and 1 live round making it similar to Russian roulette....eventually you will not jump when the live round is fired. |
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/\ what that guy said.
As your flinch starts to disappear, put in more life rounds and less snap caps until you only have 1 snap cap in there. Helps in two ways: - You will see if you pull the gun and flinch when you hit the snap cap - Gives you an opportunity to do a tap / rack / bang or mag change, etc. |
| A buddy of mine use to randomly load snap caps in my mags and when I flinched on the snap cap he would look at me and give me gel, as others have stated dry firing using snap caps is a good training tool, I have still caught myself doing it with large caliber rifle fire and when I do I catch myself and say WTF.... it takes practice and more practice to break bad habits just be patient. |
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Frank has hit it right on the head. I have found that flinching is the most common problem students face when leaning to fire any firearm, especially a handgun. I regularly use snap caps with students and have found them extremely effective. Thus, if you know that you flinch, specifically make a mental note of this on the firing line, and have an instructor, or some friend of yours use some snap caps as Frank described to work on the flinch. Also, have your friend watch the muzzle of your gun upon firing. Especially if the shot is on a snap cap, often the flinch is rather dramatic. Over time and with practice this will go away.
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| For me I found it to be more of a "mind over matter" problem. Once I realized I was flinching I made a conscious effort not do it. If I concentrated on keeping my hands steady as I was shooting, it was fine. Over time as I worked on it and had to concentrate less and less to keep myself from doing it. These days it just comes naturally and don't even have to think about it. |
| Years ago, a shooting coach explained to me that flinching was an anticipated reaction to something that wasn't going to hurt you. Unless you spend your time on the range shooting African dangerous game calibers, it is the noise and the suddenness of the shot that contribute most towards flinching. This is why follow through is so important. You have to learn to just work through the noise, flash and recoil. Like diving into a pool or doing a shot of Tequila. You keep your form and you keep working through and past the urge to react. |
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Quoted:
For me I found it to be more of a "mind over matter" problem. Once I realized I was flinching I made a conscious effort not do it. If I concentrated on keeping my hands steady as I was shooting, it was fine. Over time as I worked on it and had to concentrate less and less to keep myself from doing it. These days it just comes naturally and don't even have to think about it. Same here. I first discovered I was doing it years ago when shooting a friends revolver, not counting the rounds and pulling the trigger on an empty chamber. After that I started to make a conscious effort to try and enjoy the recoil and the noise (with hearing protection), instead of anticipate it in a negative way. As someone else said, it's not going to hurt you. I even started buying larger caliber handguns, seeking out a bigger boom. |
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I've battled an intermittent flinch for years while shooting handguns.
For some shooters, the snap-cap trick will only identify the problem without curing it. I tend to automatically push the gun forward to counter the recoil. The way to stop this is to loosen the grip of your shooting hand and increase the grip of your support hand. It's the other fingers on your trigger hand that "know" what your trigger finger is doing and will squeeze the grip to compensate for recoil. (Some folks call this "milking" the grip). If you concentrate on keeping a fairly light grip with your trigger hand and only pulling the trigger with that hand, you should see the flinch go away. |
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Blinking is a problem. You need to be able to call the shot with precision. If you are shooting with iron sights, you need to see the front sight rise in recoil and fall back into the notch.
Dry fire is essential. Try to distance yourself, calm down and observe what is happening when it is happening during live fire. |
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Quoted:
Blinking when the gun goes bang is involuntary, and you will never be able to stop that. Anticipating the recoil and pulling your gun off target (flinching) can be fixed. Typically if you are flinching you would be hitting consistently off in one direction. Blinking is a big problem. You cannot become a good marksman until you work through that and learn to observe what is happening before, during and after the shot. |
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For me, Front sight; Press Front sight; Press Lots of practice. Worse with the 480 Ruger for some reason 
Doc That right there. I was blessed with a couple of good coaches who ORDERED me to focus on the front sight. With an M-1 or other rifle with peep-sights you get so into the front sight everything else just happens. And, as observed above, if you practice what you're doing now, you are just practicing bad habits. |
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As mentioned above, flinching is a common problem, and very often a recurring one. Making or buying dummy rounds that one loads (without knowing so) can temporarily cure flinch, but the condition can recur at any point.
Most experienced shooters use Berdan primered ammo, run through a press, as dummy rounds, or use pistol cases that are past their prime, as dummy rounds. Why waste good, reloadable brass? The best gift you can give a shooting buddy is some dummy rounds you have made up. There is no shooter that can't benefit from a few dummy rounds. Flinching happens to all of us, Dummy rounds are the temporary cure, to be re-administered as needed. Simple as that, and known good advice for decades. |
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