Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Flinching and how to cure it

I developed a flinch after a head injury last year. In addition to the good advice others I'd emphasize:

- drop way down in blast and recoil. Since this is posted on the LR forum I'll assume you do that. Consider a fast twist .223, or I think the suggestion for a heavy .243 might be cool. Personally a 7-08 was very useful to me when things were especially bad.

-run your triggers light

-be very cognizant of fatigue. If a shooting session is ten rounds, then it's ten rounds.

-don't practice failure. A flinch is a learned behavior. Don't keep learning it.

Good luck!!!!

You can dry fire and all the other stuff until you are blue in the face. The moment of truth comes when you know the rifle is loaded. You need to block out everything and concentrate on a slow, constant, trigger squeeze and wait to be surprised by the recoil. If you can�t brake it on your own, as stated have a friend load it for you not letting you know if there is a round chambered or not and continue the slow constant trigger squeeze concentrating on believing it is only going to go click.
I don�t flinch but I still practice to avoid it by practicing the above trigger control. When I want to break the shot I don�t let my brain tell my finger to snatch the trigger like a shotgun shooter. I continue to concentrate on adding more pressure to the trigger and wait for the recoil.

A standard weight 223 would even be fine as there really is not recoil. Keep the trigger at 2.5 pounds and creep free and relax your grip. Be sure the LOP is perfect for you before you get started. It's easy to slide the scope, but not much you can do if the stock is wrong for you.

Something else you can do is get your crosshairs on target then close both eyes and let your body just feel things. Focus on a nice smooth consistent trigger pull. I would do this s few times before you actually start looking at the target.

When you get ready for live fire, be sure you are not waiting to long to let it rip. If you end up holding your breath to long, that can also cause excess anticipation. Get you and the rifle in position first, get the scope on target, focus on your breath, then touch it off.

IMO, light crisp triggers are key. If a rifle has a rough, tough trigger, that just increases stress in your hand and will lead to more anticipation of the shot.

No, the above is BS. This will certainly DIAGNOSE a flinch, but it won't do a damn thing to cure it. Repeated dry fire, with mega hearing pro as described, followed by loading the rifle yourself, feeling the recoil, watching the crosshairs rise, and learning to call the shot, is the only thing that will cure it.

Sorry take knee, bet it helpful in curing a flinch also, especially when they think that they are empty and make a perfect squeeze. I have help several cure a flinch using that method

As have I

I think this is great idea...nothing shows the importance of alignment, calling shots, follow through,trigger, breathing control and general good habits like a 22 rimfire.I'd start shooting from a steady rest,calling each shot("seeing" alignment of reticle as the rifle goes off).Then move to less steady positions,and controlling the rifle and sight picture while coordinating trigger let off.

Gradually, move up the scale in recoil and blast(223?)with the same practice but at extended distance...watch results of each shot or group...call shots, follow through...check results....analyze misses or shots wide out of the group(what did you do wrong?)

If troubled by recoil,simply never let cartridge choice become a challenge...things like a 257,7x57,7/08,260's etc keep recoil manageable and have a lower level of blast than even a 270,06,or 280,yet are ample for most everything.

Sounds like the OP is running away from the scope(psychogically)...rifles seem to recoil less with irons because our reaction to a scope ,mixed with troublesome recoil,is the same as someone tossing a baseball at our heads unexpectedly.....we take defensive action, try to get out of the way or throw up hands to block the threat.

We are hardwired to protect ourselves against trauma;when a scope flies back toward our face, our natural reaction is to get out of its way...we flinch.Iron sights present no such threat,so rifles are easier to control.

Also, we see less "wobble" through the irons,do not fight the rifle for alignment as badly and there is less tendency to snatch a shot as sights float by the target.

IMHO the solution is something lower powered,long eye relief....try a 2.5X Leupold mixed with the low recoil centerfire....but no higher than 4X from unsteady positions....more eye relief,less apparent wobble..we do not fight the rifle as much and stay more relaxed for correct sight alignment, let off, and shot calling,and follow through.The long eye relief eventually convinces our minds the scope is no longer a threat.

Yep. More good ideas. E

I believe the way to cure flinching or any problem is to first understand the essence of the problem being faced and then developing a plan to overcome the problem.

as others have touched upon, flinching is a physical manifestation of a psychological fear of pain/discomfort or whatever you want to call it. and as others have pointed out one can train away the fear beginning with guns with little recoil to prove the point if you will. i also think proper ear protection is critical as pain in the ears is often a big component of flinching. another factor to consider is stock fit. a poor fitting stock can exacerbate the perception of recoil while a well thought out and good fitting stock can minimize the perception of recoil.

ultimately, flinching is in the mind and can be overcome.

best of luck!

.... nothing will illustrate that to a guy more clearly than NOT having a flinch, injuring said mind, then hey lookee here, I've got a flinch!

I think the term "Cure" is wrong. Chances are you will never cure the flinch, you need to practice constantly and every shot you have to talk yourself out of the flinch.

As far as a cure, there are 2 things you can't...the common cold and flinching

It's worked for me with multipe shooters.

The problem with just dryfiring, is they know the gun is empty, so they will not behave the same as when the chamber is loaded.
Keep them focused on the follow through, and they should be able to work through it realitively quickly.

I think it is all muscle memory. To me you have to break it down into small parts and focus on each part till it becomes natural( habit). When teaching a kid to rope it all starts on the "ground work". They can not learn proper form whipping and spurring across the arena. To ME it is the same as a gun going off and rattling you every time you pull the trigger.

YMMV.

A flinch becomes mental, caused by either painful recoil or excessive muzzle blast for the shooters tolerance. If the trigger pull is not learned and mastered from the beginning then yes it could be improper muscle memory. Most people with flinchs that I have seen were more mental.

Shrapnel called it as to what has happened to me over the years. Never had a flinch until one summer took a major recoil hit from a 45/70 in prone and a few weeks later did some patterning of turkey loads off a bench. Neither one conducive to comfort. The flinch has never really gone away, but learned to deal with it.

Had a rem 700 bdl that I no longer used hunting, just targeting and took a file, a new target scope, recoil pad and carved to a perfect fit for me for ultra comfort in shooting. Then proceeded to practice at the bench to practice proper shooting, especially follow-thru. Found that working on breathing, trigger and follow-thru did the trick where I no longer even think about it, though it is still there.

Did buy a savage package deal in 243 a few years back and played with that stock also, still has the $30 scope it came with and is a fun gun, went to a 06 getting rid of my skinny stocked 338 which eliminated a lot of trepidation.

Lots of 22 shooting with a decent rifle also helps to remember proper shooting.

A little parenthetical insertion here with some levity added in. Back in high school my brother was Joe athlete. I was invited to play baseball with the boys. Everytime a curve came I backed away. And of course we all heard, "STRIKE!" My brother tried to help by saying, "Hang in there. It will brake."

I used to wear my watch so the face was on the inside of the wrist. The next time a "curve" came I hung right in there. It didn't brake and took the crystal right off of my watch. Needless to say I didn't flinch, but I also didn't play anymore baseball.

That's a really hard question to answer.

Shooting good is sometimes more about stopping yourself doing the wrong things - flinching is one of them. Not jumping on the trigger is another and can be more a cause of an unsteady hold. My current bad habit with off-hand shooting is to push the foreend up as I fire the shot, because I fatigue and the rifle starts dropping. I thought I'd gotten over that.

I suggest going to a lighter kicker, or using reduced loads, or even shotting off-hand (recoil never feels as bad when shooting off-hand). Try realy hard to concentrate on getting the shot away where you want it to. This will put the focus on keeping the rifle steady and concentrate on trigger control (ie squeezing without a consious effort to actually release it). If you don't know when exactly it is going to go off, then you likely won't be tensing up when it does. If you do feel yourself tensing up, or getting anxious, then abort the shot, give yourself a few seconds to recompose and try again.

Practice is the key, but it has to be good practice and not necessarily large volume of rounds fired.

This is the only way i have ever heard of truly curing a flinch, followed by lots of dry firing afterwards.
Eeven in smallbore competition flinching is common, and one cannot get rid of a flinch unless the trigger break and resulting shot is truly a surprise.
IIRC this is also the way that Jack O'Connor and many others laid it out, and it is a system used by some of the best coaches in the world.
Cat

Best answers so far: lighter kicking rifles (lotsa .22 LR ) and hearing protection. The OP's responses almost indicate he didn't used to wear hearing protection. Bad news if it's true.

Dry fire is of SOME use but true flinching comes from the brain anticipating pain at the shot. Knowing the rifle is unloaded only helps with your trigger squeeze. Also, a bad trigger can lead to yanking but that's not the same as flinching.

The OP needs to retrain his brain that when the gun goes off it won't be unpleasant.

CURE: low recoiling rifle (no brakes-too much blast), excellent hearing protection, and lots of practice. To begin with, I would shoot a lot of field positions, especially offhand.

Another tip: shoot 'fun' reactive targets. It'll take your mind off the recoil (ask any one who has ever shot an animal during hunting).

Get comfortable with an adequate caliber and never go back to the heavies.

PS really makes you want to kick the [bleep] on YouTube who think it's hilarious to have their girlfriends/wives/young kids shoot cannons.

The suggestion of letting your shooting partner load the rifle or not and watching for the flinch is a good one. The best way to measure flinch is to let your shooting partner balance a quarter on the end of the barrel. If you can consistently pull the trigger without knocking off the quarter, your flinch is cured.