Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire teaching someone to shoot.

Hello, I have been shooting with my wife a bit lately. I gave her a 7mm-08 which she really likes to shoot, and has been doing fairly well on targets. I just realized today that she has been flinching with every shot. The loads are 140 grain bullets at 2250fps, so they are very mild out of a 7.25 lb gun. Apparently she even flinches when she shoots a .22LR, and she says if she is pounding on a nail with a hammer she flinches as the hammer hits the head. I used to flinch alot but never with a 22 or a hammer. I think the noise is what bothered me most, but these are sub sonic 22s we are shooting! I got over it eventually, and now I can concentrate and see the crosshairs jump at the shot. I tried to convince her to try and keep her eyes open and just watch the recoil, she thinks she does just fine. How would you help her to stop this super-sensitive flinching?
Thanks
Ian

Good ear protection (plugs and muff's) and sneak in a dummy round time to time. Tell her to let it suprise her when it goes off.

Load the rifle for her single shot style. Close the bolt on a dummy round or empty chamber at random without her knowing if it is live or not & allow her to dry-fire it. Also teach her to squeeeze the trigger gradually rather than pulling it. It worked wonders for my daughter. (The objective is for her to be "welded" to the rifle & not really know when the trigger is going to break) badger.

First, has the trigger been adjusted? Most stock triggers have a 7lb pull. This is because of legal problems with light triggers.
Get it tuned and that should help a bit. Second, it sounds like she's jerking the trigger. A trick I use with the Boy Scouts was to use
a stick to demonstrate the effect of jerking the tigger and of using too much finger on the trigger. Put an 8 in stick in her fist,
have her put her are out streight, then lock on to her fist with your finger on the stick. Pull the stick quickly like your jerking the
trigger. This will send a shock wave up her arm. Then squeeze the stick back slowly. The difference is dramatic. Then put your
finger on it again frist with your knuckle touching the stick. Pull it back gently. The stick will lean back to the right. Then do it
again with the tip of your finger. The stick will come streight back. The leignth of the stick exadurates the motion but the principal is
the same. The rifle will exadurate any mistake you make in the same way.

jsirm,

The Marine Corps teaches thousands of Men and Women how to shot every year. Way back when, they had a solution to Recruits jerking the trigger or at least my DI did. If he observed a Recruit jerking the trigger he would yell, scream and blow snot and most of the time that would stop the jerking. But in every crowd 10% will be different so he would take the Recruit to the side while in the rear area and have him stick his trigger finger in the chamber of the M14 while he held the bolt back. Then without the Recruit expecting the worse he would let the bolt slam home, HOLY SHI$ you should have heard the screaming! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> He called his method "Tenderizing the Trigger Finger", it worked! Our platoon shot the highest on the range for our training battalion. NOW I don't recommend this for your situation unless you want a divorce and time in jail! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> But you should have her dry fire until she gets over this. Look and see if she is using the tip of the finger and if so, then the trigger pull might just be too much for her. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

jsirm, while 7400's method is interesting, I would not use it on my trainee <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

The cure for this problem is the air rifle. Add to this plenty of The Joy of Hitting by creating easy and fun targets. With a little coaching the kid will soon be able to call her shots (within the accuracy limitations of the air rifle, whatever they mey be).

Slip in the .22 short after a long time of this -- weeks or months. A good trigger will help on any shooting, but it will not cure noise-flinching. A 7mm-08 in a 7.25 rifle is a big recoil for someone who is not accustomed to sizeable explosions and violent acts of physics taking place 6 inches from her eyes and ears.

Good ear protection is paramount, also.

Hello everyone, thanks for the responses. Please keep in mind that these are subsonic .22 rounds and out of the 24" barrel she shoots, are as loud as most air rifles. We wear ear protection but plugs and muffs may help. The reduced loads @ 2250 fps barely kick, she agrees, 2550 fps was a little harsh for her. I will try to get her to dry fire and shoot some dummys. The trigger is also fairly good, a hair over 4 lbs. She is resistant to the idea that there is anything wrong since she hits the target OK at 75 yards and she doesent think that she can stop flinching. How should I convince her that she needs to keep her eyes open? If I put her target out 150 yards and got her to shoot sitting, she would probably miss the target and have no idea where her bullets were going. I think this would also discourage her from learning to shoot. In my own experience, not flinching has been essential to my rifle shooting, I could not hit near as well If I could not see the rifle recoil.
Thanks

P.S. I will definately try some fun targets like clay pigeons or milk jugs full of water. hopefully when she misses out on the action with her eyes closed, she will really want to keep them open and enjoy the show.

Is she shooting off the bench or in any field positions? I guess that's a moot point since she is flinching with even a .22, but standing is easier to bear than off a rigid bench.

I started my boys off shooting a springer airgun at charcoal briquettes. I told 'em that they need to keep their eyes open to see what happens. Later on when punching paper, I got them used to "seeing" the shot appear on the target.

Is she truly jerking the last bit of the trigger, or flinching once recoil has begun? If you have one, you may want to have her try shooting a .22 handgun one-handed because jerking is clearly evident on the target (7 o'clock drift).

At the age of five, my son was flinching and closing his eyes while shooting a Daisy BB gun. I never figured out WHY he was doing that. To cure him of the habit I gave him ballons for targets. He kept his eyes open then so he could see them pop. From that I just made sure he never shot anything that would hurt his ears or shoulder. Once learned, a flinch is difficult to "unlearn". Witness old trap shooters with their release triggers trying to un-learn a habit of flinching.

From the BB gun, I took him to a bolt .22 rimfire with a 4 x scope on the bench first and latter offhand. The next step was my 220 Swift which he killed his first deer with. Then I gave him a .243 with a good recoil pad installed for the correct length of pull. At about 13 he started on a 20 ga. with light loads and hand thrown clays. All the while I was instilling good shooting skills and safety habits. He always had ear and eye protection. Even in the field.

That method of working up from the little stuff while learning good technique and avoiding bad habits worked for him. Heck, the kid killed a full limit of doves on his first hunt.

I believe it's better for new shooters to start with the little guns and learn the skills. Then graduate up to the bigger guns before going into the field. It's a much better approach than "throwing the kid into the deep end so he can learn to swim."

P.D.S., your post reminded me of a short time when I would flinch with a 22LR, it had nothing to do with noise or anything physical. I had been shooting targets at a youth shooting program, and had not been doing well. I flinched because of the anxiety over the shot being bad, that sounds weird but its true, even though there was no competition going on. My centerfire flinching started the first time I shot my mothers 30-06 when I was about 13, i remember that recoil being about what I feel with a light gun in 338 WM these days. thanks
Ian

jsirm, I'm there with you on anxiety flinching. Done it a bunch. Heck, I've flinched more than once with a bow.

When I was a kid, two things I wish I had had are 1) a mom with an '06 (you just gotta like that <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> ) 2) the .223 LH that I am teaching my lads with. What a sweet way to introduce centerfire fun and BIG exploding targets!

Mom did let me run amok with several hundred thousand BBs, though, and kept me in trout fishing in the summer, so I'm not complaining.

Order of preference;
Water guns ---- Learn to point
BB Guns ------ Learn safety, to aim, trajectory, ricochets, and danger.
Pelet Guns --- Learn skill, range and to hunt safely.
22s -------------- Practice all the above with supervision.
223 ------------- Learn distance and scopes.
20 GA ---------- Learn speed and lead.
Ready for hunting. -- no