Thread: Dealing with a flinch

It’s back after many years. It’s subtly returned. Any practical tips on overcoming or dealing with rifle flinch would be appreciated.
Does dry firing on an empty case work ?

Thanks

on game I used to say under my breath [ youre mine ] as I pulled trigger and it worked it made me gently breath out and relaxed trigger pull .

Yes it helps, another thing to do at the range is get someone to load or not load a round for you so you don’t know if it’s loaded or not, generally shows up flinching well and helps overcome it, also do some practice with a low calibre rifle (222) that doesn’t recoil to get back on the basic’s.

wear the best possible earmuffs, much of a flinch is "in your head" and reducing the noise of the shot helps considerably. And shoot your 22 rf a lot.

I had a bit of a flinch years ago with my unsuppressed 270. Went to the range, put in some ear plugs and told myself the rifle isn't going to hurt me if I'm holding it properly.
Held rifle, controlled breathing and gently squeezed trigger till it fired. Also try and look through scope the whole time immediately after the shot. All this helped me.
Biggest part was overcoming my internal fear of nothing.

Lots of shooting with good ear protection. Your head needs to unlearn it.
Are your rifles suppressed ?

Originally Posted by Chur Bay

Lots of shooting with good ear protection. Your head needs to unlearn it.
Are your rifles suppressed ?

Yeah my 708 is and that’s what I’ve been using the most.

Second for shooting Lots of .22

Third breath out,relax for a second with slight pressure on trigger then squeeze.Watch yr cross hairs on target.Try it with a suppressed 300wm and ear muffs on,i hardly notice the shot.

Put one round in a revolver and spin the cylinder. You'll see your flinch and soon overcome it when you start dry firing it.

Originally Posted by outdoorlad

Yes it helps, another thing to do at the range is get someone to load or not load a round for you so you don’t know if it’s loaded or not, generally shows up flinching well and helps overcome it, also do some practice with a low calibre rifle (222) that doesn’t recoil to get back on the basic’s.

I did a similar thing with the young fellas shooting my 308 - slipped in a snap cap every now and then, makes it quite obvious if they are flinching, and helps correct it because they aren't expecting recoil with every shot.

Originally Posted by Chur Bay

Lots of shooting with good ear protection. Your head needs to unlearn it.
Are your rifles suppressed ?

I would second this as a first step. Your 7mm08 may be suppressed but have you used an unsuppressed / larger calibre recently? Flinch is really the body anticipating the felt recoil from the BANG. The mind is an incredible thing- it associates a loud noise with a reaction like a impact from recoil and assumes by itself that the louder the noise, the more the impact. Once it figures out it is coming it anticipates the impact and flinch develops. Another technique I use for new shooters (mostly have a go tyoes as guests) is to get them to pull the rifle as hard as they can into their shoulder almost to the point of discomfort/ pain. The reasons is that if the rifle is part of the shoulder, then the item going backwards under recoil is the whole body- if you try hold the rifle forward to resist the impact, it means just the rifle is coming back rather than the whole of the person.

Think of it as holding your fist against a car and pushing it along.....the whole car moves and you feel pressure but not pain on your fist. Now hold your fist 6 inches from the car and apply one forceful motion hard enough to move the car....its going to really hurt.

So in short, chuck on some good hearing protection, and really really pull the rifle into the shoulder. Once you teach /trick the body that recoil wont hurt again, then work on developing the technique /accuracy again....

I'm sure Bunji would have seen a lot of it while guiding around the world,he would have the best knowledge to correct it may be PM him .

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I'm the worst flincher and agree with all of the above. But key for me is taking time to do some visualization which is a weapon in any sport. I try to imagine squeezing off the shot and watching the projectile arrive through a shit storm of noise.

Greetings,
As mentioned above we teach ourselves to flinch and need to teach ourselves not to. The key is practice. Dry firing will help but only live firing will really kill the beast. If you have a .22 RF start with that. Every time you go to the range shoot 10 or so rounds at a target form sitting at first and moving up to standing later on. .22 RF rifles are brutally honest about flinching. Get a cobber to watch you shoot to see if he can spot anything you are doing sub consciously like lifting your head at the shot. Try to follow through the shot. Make every shot count. Next move up to your hunting rifle. If you are a handloader consider cooking up a batch of youth (light) loads with cheaper projectiles. Only shoot from a bench or bipod to sight in and check zero. As you have discovered we never really totally eliminate a flinch and it is always there waiting to sneak up on us.
Regards Grandpamac.