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

Ok, let me say straight up here, I don't need or want, a bunch of hogwash on how your cuzin Jeb drank sum likker and shot himself a crow at 4 miles cuz it solved his twitchin...I don't want stories of how you smacked some private in the Marine Corp in the back of the head with a rock until he stopped flinching, I need good, solid advice.

I am an older guy that has had problems with flinching all my life. As anyone knows, a mm off at the barrel can mean a yard (or more) off at the target.

Most of my problems happen with louder or heavier recoil guns, it doesn't seem to happen at all with .22 or similar. I suspect it happened when I was first starting out, the old man was always in a hurry and breathing down my neck.

I am interested in how those of you that might have personally experienced it, cured yourselves of it, and am willing to try almost anything so I rid myself of it. I would rather have the Tijuana trots for a week than live with this, but I can't seem to fix it myself.

Thoughts, suggestions?

A muzzle brake and and good ear protection. From the mental aspect concentrate totally on the sight picture while constantly increasing pressure on the trigger until it just goes off

Shoot shoot and more shooting ! Will cure it !!!!

Not if the shooting is hurting. A flinch is not easy to cure and the causes must be eliminated or at the very least reduced

jwp: good input, for now I will have to go with the ear protection, the brake isn't something thats in the budget at this point.

Capt: I will be honest, I have shot a fair amount in my life, and have switched big game calibers hoping that it would solve the problem. As you might have guessed, it didn't. I ran up and down the spectrum and tried everything from 243 to 338 to 7mm RUM to 444. Oddly, I had the least problem of all of them with the 444, and interestngly, it was the only lever action out of all of them, too...which led me to wonder, is LOP a key part of my problem?

I know I have always felt most comfortable with guns with cheek rests (keep in mind, I started most of my hunting back when cheek rests were a luxury, not the norm) but it never changed the flinching issue.

So...

Best way to cure a flinch is to practice dry firing your rifles.

I have also helped a few guys cure their flinch by loading their rifle for them when we were at the range, leaving the chamber empty every once in a while. The first few times they dry fired the rifle they flinched. After a few times of flinching on the dry fire, they would concentrate more on their form knowing that a dry fire may be coming. Eventually they had no flinch.

Ear protection while practicing is the best bet for starters, then dry firing a lot. Don't overdo the heavy kickers at any one time. miles

Dry firing is an excellent practice to learn proper trigger squeeze

All good input. I definitely found that the bigger mag cartridges didnt do ANYthing to alleviate the flinching.

Doing the majority of your shooting with an accurate 223 that is set up like your bigger rifles will help. Also, a good trigger, and keeping trigger characteristics as identical as possible throughout the rifle battery makes a difference.

Good suggestion re: trigger settings. That definitely could throw a guy off, different "crispnesses" of pull.

When it's all said and done, its all about me and breaking my habit, BUT the adjustments, settings, and other related factors will help. I don't expect there to be a magical "fix."

I will mention that I am much more comfortable with open iron sights than scopes, and I don't know why that is...but this part is an absolute vs a variable.

And make sure its double hearing protection, not just plugs. Use plugs and muffs together and I wouldnt be suprised if the OP saw a reduction in flinching.

Here's how you cure a flinch.


Go to the range with a buddy. He either loads the rifle, or leaves the chamber empty, and then you shoot as normal. If it clicks on an empty chamber, you will be able to see how much you are flinching. Concentrate on a perfect follow through, i.e. you are striving for a perfect sight picture after the click if you have an empty chamber.

If usually take just a couple of session of this to cure a flinch, even one developed over decades.

The above info is great info......

Also, get you a heavy barrel 243 and shoot the hell out of it.

I also found that noise made me flinch, so i wear ear plugs under a set of ear muffs now....i can barely hear the gun go off and my shooting has gotten much better.

Soothing with low recoil rounds on hard to hit situations - say Pdog shooting.

219Zipper,

I didn't read past the first response. I couldn't agree more with him. There is one thing I would add, rather two. 1. Get a good trigger job. 2. Do lots of "shooting" with no ammo in the firearm. That's how I do most of my practicing. It's free and you can do it from your bedroom or living room. Just make sure you ALWAYS check the chamber EVERY time you pick up your firearm.

This way you can call your hits and misses. The sight is either on target or it is not when you hear the click of the firing pin strike.

I developed a flinch many years ago when I was in my teens. I did alot of .22 rimfire shooting with a rifle with a really rough trigger and some "blind" shooting, that's having someone else "load" the rifle, before it was gone.
From those experiences, I've always been on the lookout for any signs that I am flinching. Do you shoot consistant groups ? Even more important, can you call your shots ? If not, you are flinching or not using the proper technique.
What I've also found is that while I can shoot some pretty nasty stuff, like a 7 1/4 lb. 12 ga. with magnum slug loads, I do better when I shoot the more reasonable stuff. This is especially true when I am under pressure or in a hurry to make a hit.
Do you handload ? I do alot shooting with my '06's loaded with reduced power loads. Use lighter bullets and the faster burning powders. Adjust the load to shoot near your zero or use a scope which allows this to be reliably changed for practice sessions.
Don't do alot shooting from the bench. I insist on ending my bench rest sessions with some off hand shooting. Do double taps and make yourself hurry. E

Send the hard kickers down the road and go get a 243, 7-08, have a timney or similar installed. Or have a smith work over a factory trigger to a light, crisp feel.

You have not mentioned your rifles but obviously you have exceeded your recoil toloerance with some of them.

CLB: agreed on recoil. Right now I am pondering what to build, I have two very nice short action Rem 700 stocks so I can start from ground level and work my way up on whatever caliber I want, really.

I am thinking of building a bull barrel 223 with balance weight in the rear and as mentioned, good hearing protection and going with that for the moment. Heavy so it absorbs any recoil and the bull bbl to help with the initial instinct of flinching.

Thoughts?

Dry fire every day and BRICKS of 22LR.

This cured my son.