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.

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 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.

Just use a trebly as your go to gat.Works for me

I have not read this thread but when i first got my T3 7mil rem mag i lightened off the trigger pull to almost as light as it would go ,dunno what it actually is but bloody light and for awhile thought trigger was too light for me but then i spent 25yrs using a Browning BLR which has a truly horrible trigger, it must be around 4 lbs with a fair amount of creep thrown in for good luck!! but gee i still love that gun .
Anyway i spent alot of time dry firing my rem mag ,concentrating on my breathing and squeezing off the "shot" without any discernible movement of the retical on whatever i was aiming at.
Now i am used to the trigger its one thing i really like about my Tikka and dry firing practice has improved my shooting a lot .

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.

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....

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.

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 .

Sent from my Nokia 7 plus using Tapatalk