Author Topic: Flinching (Read 857 times)

rickyp · « **on:** December 12, 2003, 03:12:45 PM »

Ok, lets all tell the truth. How many of you still flinch from time to time when hunting and how do you avoid doing it? I have done it from time to time, but I have found the best way for me to avoid flinching is to wait for the right shot and then concentrate on the shooting sequence. Yes I do let some deer walk past because they never gave me the right shot.

crawfish · « **Reply #1 on:** December 12, 2003, 04:53:52 PM »

I pratice flinch control at least onec a month. During one of the weekend shoots at my farm I will have one of my sons act a loader for my bench session. He has the option to load or not. You will see very fast if that flinch is hanging around. Plus the boy gets a kick a messing with the old man.

MePlat · « **Reply #2 on:** December 13, 2003, 03:38:26 AM »

I would think that a human not being perfect would answer your question.

To me it would be silly to think that no one flinches from time to time.

But grabbing the trigger to try to get the shot off when presented with a target that is not presenting itself but for a short periond of time is not necessarily flinching.
Flinching is brought on by recoil and muzzle blast primarily even when shooting a target that is not going anywhere even without a time limit.
Many shooters try to time the swing of their sights on target and then try to grab the trigger when they think the sights are going to cross the center of the target in order to try and get the gun to fire at the right time.
This is caused by not accepting your hold not necessarily flinching. But could be agravated by flinching. You have to be able to tell the difference to do anything about it.

Graybeard · « **Reply #3 on:** December 13, 2003, 07:13:32 AM »

I tend not to flinch much these days. I think it is a combination of the fact I'm not currently shooting anything that really slams me enough to induce flinching combined with a few hundred thousand rounds down range to teach me proper trigger control. Now if I get involved in testing and shoot something that really slams me I do tend to get back to bad habits and some times flinch again.

Now ya wanna talk about bad flinches shotgunners sure do develop them and in my competition days with shotgun both did I get it bad. Many trap shooters use a release rather than pull trigger because of flinches. I've done things like call for a skeet bird at station 7 and proceed to shoot a hole in the ground in front of me as soon as I called PULL. I've followed a bird until it disappeared from view never being able to make myself pull the trigger. That too is a type of flinch. Oh yeah I sure had it bad in those days. It wasn't unusually for me to fire 500 12 ga. rounds in a single day back then and when we shot the money games I often used 1-1/4 oz. loads. That's a lot of pounding to the body.

GB

myronman3 · « **Reply #4 on:** December 13, 2003, 12:30:10 PM »

whether long guns or pistols, i use a load that i am comfortable shooting. with my pistols, i have backed off from top loads as they are more than i need anyhow. my casull i shoot 300 grainers at 1155 fps. they are downright comfy to shoot. with my sbhh, i am running 310 grain lead pills just over 1000 fps. plenty easy to shoot; and knowing that it aint going to slam you really lets you concentrate on where you want it to go. there just aint no argueing that a well placed hit is lots better than a high powered miss. now if i can just get a big game animal to stand still for me long enough...

Duffy · « **Reply #5 on:** December 14, 2003, 04:02:19 PM »

I never flinch

and if you belive that.........

Have been working up some turkey loads for the 10 ga lately and a couple of times I could have dug a trench in front of me. I do think it's worse with a shotgun mainly because of the crummy triggers they have. I have smoothed mine up some but the pull is about as long as a DA auto or so it seems.

Ryan

helobill · « **Reply #6 on:** December 14, 2003, 04:43:44 PM »

I was a pistol instructor for the Navy for two years and I've seen just about every kind of flinch, jerk, twist and turn you can think of. Been guilty of some of them too. As instructors we would load each others magazines and occasionally substitute a dummy round in with the live ammo. "with a magazine and five rounds, load..." boom, boom, click. And everyone but you knew it was coming. After about a week of that during the training phase you quit your bad habits. You can relearn them though, so on my revolvers, I'll load 4 or 5 rounds and spin the cylinder. That way I don't know when the empty chamber is coming and I can see if I've got a problem. Nothing helps like seeing you do it. Had a kid who swore he didn't flinch and the gun was bad. So I loaded up a dummy round for number 2 in a 3 shot string. Kid wasn't flinching, but he sure was trying to make that 45 ACP recoil like a hand cannon. Had the barrel pointed at the overhead before he realized it never went 'boom'. Mystery solved.
Helicopter Bill

willis5 · « **Reply #7 on:** December 15, 2003, 02:22:23 AM »

I have flinched when I concentrated too hard. I have since gone through a little routine in my head (when their is time to get optimum accuracy) when I do not have time to go through the routine (a quicker shot) I don't flinch. I have used the empty cylinder/ dummy round trick too.

Black Jaque Janaviac · « **Reply #8 on:** December 15, 2003, 09:29:25 AM »

I'm sure you've heard this common mantra, "I never notice the recoil when I'm hunting."

Well, neither do I notice my flinch when I'm hunting.

If time permits, I will search for an explanation as to why I missed. I follow the bullet's path, find where the bullet landed. This season I found a fragment of rusty fencewire that was between the target and me. It was clipped and curled away from where I was standing. The ends were fresh metal and on one side I could see the traces of my lead ball. Sure explained why I found the dirt from my ball several yards short of the target. Another miss, there just was no evidence. Flinch? Maybe, I just don't remember though.

I shoot a flintlock. After enough shots at the range, the vent starts to foul and missfires show up. That reveals flinches pretty quickly.

I also noticed another type of flinch that isn't really due to anticipated recoil. Shooter's can pull off target if they are trying to watch the target respond. Just like a golfer lifting his head to watch the ball fly through the air, a shooter can lift his head to watch a water bottle explode, or a deer drop, or ...

Tony D · « **Reply #9 on:** December 15, 2003, 09:38:00 AM »

I recently purchased a stainless Ruger Bisley in 45 colt. From reading on this forum and others, I found you can help smooth the trigger action by lots of dry firing. I also concentrated keeping the sights on a target as I did this for offhand practice. Besides improving my offhand shooting, I found when shooting my Contender from the bench with some pretty stout loads in an unbraked 308 Bellm that it really helped my trigger control. My cousing was watching me closely and said I wasn't flinching at all. As in the above posts, having an empty chamber or dummy rounds in a semi auto work, but I sure like the dry firing method also!

Flinch · « **Reply #10 on:** December 15, 2003, 10:44:36 AM »

Guess what? Im a flincher. The name says it all. Mostly when shooting stout 44 mag loads at the range. It takes some mind control and lots of practice to get over it thats for sure.