Starts with F and rhymes with grinch

Well we have threads about how good we shoot,how far we shoot,what animals we shoot...so why not have one about how poorly we shoot at times???
For benefit of those starting out,and maybe even an old salt who suddenly finds cant hit side of barn door from inside barn,there may be wee nigget of info or tip that may help get past it.
Im the first to admit Ive battled with this many times over the years..some forum members have seen it at its worst (much to my embarassment) but I have to suck it up,accept it and move past it.
my first bout of it came when swapped a 30/30 for lightweight .270w waaaay back when I was still a teenager.
the 270 was still basically new,had less than box of amunition put through it,but its owner was pighunter and I wanted to get into deerstalking..so we swapped.
I tried to check zero on .270 and found myself chasing tail all around target till my last scope adjustment put it back where had started out..OH SHIT we have a problem. got rifle home and my experienced brother looked it over.. all good. shot a few goats with it and was doing OK but knew it wasnt ideal as it was...three biggest issues were
#1 my piss poor technique..the soft shooting 30/30 had allowed it,big rifle not so much
#2 thin rubber buttplate..no way did it absorb any recoil
#3 factory set trigger that was over 10lb..this was shocking for anything but snap shooting.

I did 3 things
changed from hard hitting and booting Norma 150grn to 130grn loads
replaced buttplate with a bisley shotgun pad
got trigger adjusted down to about 4lb
and was happy for 20 years

spent a day out at pleasant point range with @waimo and another young NZDA member Nathan K.
we had three 270s
my winchester...cant remember what Nathans was and Chris had brand new left hand Ruger (oh how he should have kept that one)

I got my rifle sighted in..fired the 10 shot every type ammo load then had shots walk off to left of page before end of scope fell out!!!!
by this stage shoulder knew it had fired 20 plus rounds from bench.
Chris had trouble with the Ruger as it still had heavy trigger
this was my first and only time Flynch hit me in this way...I tried to fire his rifle..and couldnt get trigger to fire..unloaded it and it went click fine..put round in and I couldnt physically put pressure on trigger to make it go bang...
tried it 4-5 times..no dice...my brain KNEW I was going to get booted again so didnt let me do it
funny looking back on it...piss poor ear protection wouldnt have helped either 3 rifle were pre suppressor days.

since that time I havent really had it bad...yip odd occurance where I shoot like shit for a bit till pull socks up...
the easy miss can be put down to it.
remington put out a hypersonic load for shotgun..it BOOTS LIKE BUGGERY no other way to put those horrible green candle sticks of pain...found myself shortshucking the pump action if used them...they hurt.... put them away till had soft shooting semi to use them in.... the flinch was causing short shuck..that and timing difference with heavier recoil.

my .45/70 is great to shoot with mild loads....flinch inducing with hot loads..so I pulled all my loaded rounds and made them milder...I had got caught up in the speil they HAD TO BE FAST to kill well...yeah right,a .45calibre hole though stuff kills just fine without velocity.

my way to cope/get past an attack,is to get really steady on target and slowly squeaze off while holding gun firmly....I dont shoot a lot of paper.....and using wee rifle in 22lr 222 or 223 really gets me back on track..my brain get reprogrammed to know its not going to hurt again.
you just need to know its going to push and be loud,accept it and work through it,and never say the "F" word out loud..thus the title LOL

HOPEFULLY this ramble helps someone.

Thanks Micky Duck. Been practising dry firing my 30-06 out my bedroom window (not visible to neighbours!) each evening, and using my .22 as much as possible.

Bought a piece of railway iron in 1975 which was then called a BSA CF2 270. Yes a 270 can flatten deer and at a long distance and it can also flatten your shoulder. Subsequently Sako 243 with 12lbs recoil v 17lbs. 27 1 shot deer on trot but sold it because started to hate wood stocks. My pig hunting mate followed my advice and bought an X Bolt 223.Just slays deer up the Coast. Yes biggest is a 320 DS stag and just last week a huge 12 pt stag. All shot with the humble 223 and no flinching .

yep know about that one.
in my 358Win with pistol loads at 50 mtr (158 bullet at 1650 fps) I can get clover leaf 3 shot groups but at 100 with full power loads I struggle at times to get 1.5" groups. Must focus on Techncque. If I don't it all goes to pack.
Yet pull out the 243 once a year, point it at the small gong at 200 mtr, one shot, smack it and back in the bag it goes.
Z

Definitely helped. I've always been chasing the fastest loads. After reading your post, I need to rethink my requirements and reload accordingly.

It's reassuring when I read other's stories about things that didn't always work out. Otherwise, this forum becomes like social media: I feel crap about my own hunting and shooting because I mostly see success stories.

As a young 19 yo I was gifted a brand new ruger 270w as a bonus while working in the USA. Boss gave me a box of 50 handloads and said head down to the range and get it sighted in.
Not knowing about running in a barrel in any form I started firing rounds at the paper. The more I fired and adjusted scope the bigger the spread of bullets became.
After not achieving any sort of grouping I sheepishly returned to the homestead where the boss was all excited to see my results and greeted me with a big "How'd you get on".
I showed him my A4 paper riddled with holes and the remaining 12 rounds in the box I don't think I even said anything to be honest.
The WTF??? look on his face was something I remember to this day.
38 rounds, a pretty sore and bruised shoulder and a still unsighted rifle was the result of of flyn that day.

Took me a bit to get out of the bad habits. I was lucky to be able to fire 5 shots of the bosses 338WinMag which enabled me to gain the mindset that the 270 isn't that bad.
Tell yourself that the rifle won't hurt you, line up on your target and gently squeeze until the trigger lets go. It's not that hard really. Just get past the fearfull mindset.

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Originally Posted by RUMPY

As a young 19 yo I was gifted a brand new ruger 270w as a bonus while working in the USA. Boss gave me a box of 50 handloads and said head down to the range and get it sighted in.
Not knowing about running in a barrel in any form I started firing rounds at the paper. The more I fired and adjusted scope the bigger the spread of bullets became.
After not achieving any sort of grouping I sheepishly returned to the homestead where the boss was all excited to see my results and greeted me with a big "How'd you get on".
I showed him my A4 paper riddled with holes and the remaining 12 rounds in the box I don't think I even said anything to be honest.
The WTF??? look on his face was something I remember to this day.
38 rounds, a pretty sore and bruised shoulder and a still unsighted rifle was the result of of flyn that day.

Took me a bit to get out of the bad habits. I was lucky to be able to fire 5 shots of the bosses 338WinMag which enabled me to gain the mindset that the 270 isn't that bad.
Tell yourself that the rifle won't hurt you, line up on your target and gently squeeze until the trigger lets go. It's not that hard really. Just get past the fearfull mindset.

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Not when the mindset is imbeded in your skull. LOL. As Charlie Janes would say anout the 270 ..ka flaming boom. Charlie when shooting now uses a Tikka 243.

Had a similar intro to centre fires. At 16 with only shooting with 22 pea rifle, father presents me with a BSA Majestic Feather weight in 3006
and a sock full of 180gr round nose bombs.
Laying prone at the range I squeeze off, (read jerk) and send one down wind.
Should’ve held it tighter! Me ears were ringing, me eyes were filling with blood and tears from the old”weatherby eyebrow”,
and one pair of undies were well past their use by date
Never did develop a flinch, more like a lurch, but did manage to control it after about too many years.
Welcome to centre fires young fella!
Cheers MG

Intro to centre- fire was good old cut down 303 complete with brass butt plate. Developed a bit of a flinch with that m-fkr but a BSA in 270 seemed next level bad. Nothing seemed too bad after that but since shoulder reconstruction I’m a bit wary of many centre-fires, even my old faithful 308’s.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Muttonguts

Had a similar intro to centre fires. At 16 with only shooting with 22 pea rifle, father presents me with a BSA Majestic Feather weight in 3006
and a sock full of 180gr round nose bombs.
Laying prone at the range I squeeze off, (read jerk) and send one down wind.
Should’ve held it tighter! Me ears were ringing, me eyes were filling with blood and tears from the old”weatherby eyebrow”,
and one pair of undies were well past their use by date
Never did develop a flinch, more like a lurch, but did manage to control it after about too many years.
Welcome to centre fires young fella!
Cheers MG

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had almost the exact same experience not quite as bad as it was a 308 180gr round nose did kill stuff good but took a while to get rid of the flinch.

Well I went out walking for an hour or so last night and shot a wild pig! First wild animal ive shot. It confirmed I am a miserable shooter, because it was very poor shot placement. Fortunately we finished it off about 5mins later so it didn't suffer for long. Need to figure out this shooting thing better before I risk injuring animals.
Sure don't notice recoil at all in an actual hunting situation tho, didn't even think about how much it recoiled til later.

It helps if the weight of the rifle or the hand loads are appropriate for the calibre. My 243 is nice to shoot, I had a heavy old 308 and that was nice. But i don't really shoot too many groups so can't tell yah if I flinch but most of the time I hit where I wanted to :on fire:

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Originally Posted by Brad S

Well I went out walking for an hour or so last night and shot a wild pig! First wild animal ive shot. It confirmed I am a miserable shooter, because it was very poor shot placement. Fortunately we finished it off about 5mins later so it didn't suffer for long. Need to figure out this shooting thing better before I risk injuring animals.
Sure don't notice recoil at all in an actual hunting situation tho, didn't even think about how much it recoiled til later.

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it will all fall into place soon enough....with a little bit of help (which is on hand) you will looking back laughing in no time. there are only three types of hunter in this world
those that have at some point wounded animal through bad shot placement
those who have never shot at an animal
and outright liars
you found animal and finished it off quick as you could...... you live and you learn mate... we have all been there. I guarantee 100% you WILL do better next time.
we havent even mentioned buck fever yet!!!!! thats the premature ejaculation of the shooting world LOL.
Im quite sure nobody was a casanova the first time they got naked with another human....... but things got better soon enough .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Muttonguts

Had a similar intro to centre fires. At 16 with only shooting with 22 pea rifle, father presents me with a BSA Majestic Feather weight in 3006
and a sock full of 180gr round nose bombs.
Laying prone at the range I squeeze off, (read jerk) and send one down wind.
Should’ve held it tighter! Me ears were ringing, me eyes were filling with blood and tears from the old”weatherby eyebrow”,
and one pair of undies were well past their use by date
Never did develop a flinch, more like a lurch, but did manage to control it after about too many years.
Welcome to centre fires young fella!
Cheers MG

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yes as a young 16 year old Gisborne Full bore club - club 303 SMLE with Parker hale target sights and original brass butt plate ( well I think they brass damn solid metal anyway ) 10 rounds and two sighters =sore 16 year old shoulder

Buy a 223 and use factory ammo, :thumbsup:

First proper centrefire was an annual range shoot at Wanganui with an ancient and worn out 7.62 SLR. Long time ago but I think it was 100 rounds all up.
I was as confident as f... I was going to post a record score before the shooting started. By the time my squad was done I don't think I was even looking at the target.
I was just getting rid of my rounds as fast as I could so I could put that shoulder busting, cheek splitting hunk of British torture away!
When I say cheek splitting, I'm not joking. Some poor sods literally had blood dribbling onto their stocks at the end of their session.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by will.i.em

Definitely helped. I've always been chasing the fastest loads. After reading your post, I need to rethink my requirements and reload accordingly.

It's reassuring when I read other's stories about things that didn't always work out. Otherwise, this forum becomes like social media: I feel crap about my own hunting and shooting because I mostly see success stories.

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When it comes to a hunting rifle I don't chase speed, I chase accuracy, if it's fast and accurate that's a bonus.
Not many will discuss their unsuccessful stories, and if youv'e been around shooter long enough it's always the firearm at fault never the shooter.....lol

My first centrefire was a 308W, I can't remember if I shot any factory ammo in it or not, but I did handload for it and using Hornady 165gr bt I found a load that could group under an inch at 100 so was quite happy.
The rifle, Savege 99, only had that thin rubber buttpad but it weighed in at I think around 10lb with scope, it was certainly easier to shoot than carry lol
While I had that I had a few shots out of a 303 using some nickel roundnose military ammo and it still had the brass buttplate and quite a rough bore, I'm pretty sure a mule didn't kick as much as that rifle, but the 308 was a pussy compared to that.
My next centrefire was a brand new Rem 700 BDL in 270W, I won a box of Remington ammo from Remington. I still have the rifle and the full box of ammo as I've only ever shot reloaded ammo in it.
One of the first things I did was trim the stock and fit a recoil pad to replace the hard plastic buttplate.
The lighter the rifle the more recoil and one of the worst things to do with a harder recoiling rifle is to fire a lot of ammo from a shooting position that doesn't allow you to "roll" with the recoil.

@Micky Duck Maybe your #linch started after you visited me last year ?

You do notice some people's flinching when they forget to cock the hammer double rifle you give them to shoot

Yes not one of my finger moments... Nah hot loads in .45/70 brought on that anticipation lol

finer moments...not finger...plurry autocorrect on phone

I’ll admit right now that I just can’t shoot heavy recoiling rifles anymore , in fact to be honest I couldn’t shoot them back then , but I tried convincing myself I could .
The biggest Caliber I own now is 6.5 ( have a CM and a 6.5x55 ) , but the Swede wears a Suppressor and the CM wears a brake both of which tame the already reasonable low recoil .
The best thing I ever did for my Shooting was to admit I was a “ Big Girls Blouses “ and sell my 7mm Rem Mag etc .
Then quite a few thousand rounds of .223 and even more .22lr really got me back on track .
Even with my 6.5’s I don’t like to have extended sessions and limit myself to 15-20 rounds when shooting targets .
A lot of hard work can be undone quickly if you don’t recognise the signs of Mr Flinchy .

we havent even mentioned buck fever yet!!!!! thats the premature ejaculation of the shooting world ...[/QUOTE @ Mickey Duck]

Once watched a supposed “experienced hunter” line up a stag, then eject the whole magazine of live rounds,
without firing a shot, then asking “did I get it?” That was an embarrassing conversation. Classic buck fever