Thread: Dealing with a flinch

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Flinching wouldnt matter if it didnt make us miss. Norway put up a vid on 'Natural point of aim' a while back. That technique will keep you on target in spite of a flinch.

Yeah i missed an easy one sunday morning. Or not so easy as it turns out..... will look it up

@Nathan F Is that why that pack looked so light on the walk out from the bite the other day? Very photo genic by the way!

Originally Posted by Fireflite

@Nathan F Is that why that pack looked so light on the walk out from the bite the other day? Very photo genic by the way!

@Fireflite na was poaching up ur end. Did you not notice the couple of scrubby heads hanging off the back

I think the art of distraction, technique and kinesthetic awareness is what you are looking for here.

Lots of really good suggestions here already so maybe some retraining is in order (I know I periodically do all this stuff as bad habits tend to grow up over time)

Distraction of the senses : Eyes - Keying in on the quarry watching the fall of shot and knowing its good. Ears, good sound pro in case this is causing an alert response from your brain. Touch - I do trigger awareness techniques when helping others with a visible flinch.

Technique wise - Quite often people grip the rifle too hard with trigger hand. A coach taught me to align my thumb upwards and position behind the back of the bolt. This stops torquing of the wrist and the rifle will sit a lot more upright naturally. This also helps with hand pressure and gets a much better release of the trigger.

Visualise the trigger pull. The smoothest trigger pull involves both the thumb and (inside edge of pad of) the forefinger. Once I show guys this groups shrink markedly and really helps solve a flinch as the brain is worrying about so much other stuff that it often doesn't react and cause a flinch. Think the trigger pull is like squeezing a syringe (thumb to forefinger squeeze) your brain gets better control of pressure from 2 points rather than a thinking about which minor muscle in your single finger is pulling the trigger on its own. -try it it actually works.

Then the bit that I think causes a lot of flinch is the reaction to the break of the trigger. You need to train yourself that when it breaks not to react and to concentrate on the trigger continuing rearwards with consistent pressure to its fullest extent in a smooth motion.

Question can you honestly say when taking the shot that you are relaxed and the rifle is pointing naturally to the target and not being pulled in any way onto the target. If you are this will accentuate the reaction in the flinch as the body recoils from that un-natural position. I'll leave breathing alone for now - but this to me is as much about control as rhythm and a learnt approach to shot release.

Training: Cheapest to do these drill on a 22lr (great to do indoor and one I do every winter as a project for the coming season) and re- train your brain not to react to whatever thing or things are setting it off.
Then move up cals and make it a bit more real world.

Everything starts with good technique as a base, and every problem stems from a slight miss and amplifies over time.

BTW I am by no means an expert on this, and there are a lot better than me out there. But these tips have really helped me when I had problems in the past.

I missed a slow walking yearling last week at 240yds,could only see sholder neck,grrr.Bugger wouldnt stop,so i tryed.Hmmm missed,how could i?so had one more day to go.Thort il checked my 308 at a hundy on a cardboard box i had in the truck,spot on nearly with one shot.Mustv been me,be more carefully ah.Dont know about flinching,just to big a hurry befor yearling disappears.

I've noticed a flinch starting to build, mine is only when shooting centrefire and I think the fact I'm out shooting PCP rifles every day is to blame. My mind is perfectly used to zero recoil and next to no noise when I pull the trigger but it knows to be wary of the big bad centrefires. I think I need to get my .223 out for weekly shoots, it's cheap to shoot and should build up a better sub conscious response to getting behind my bigger centrefires.

I’ve had this problem and a small caliber with a suppressor is good. 243 or 223. For myself the main time to flinch is standing. I deal with it by basically not fu$king around for too long as I think the longer you stand there aiming the quicker you head fu$ks it up. Let’s assume you see a deer inside 100 yards and a standing shot is the only option. Bring the rifle up, when it’s on the should breath out and squeeze off. Of course lying down and all the time in the world, dry fire once or twice them bombs away!

The other thing I’ve done is lighten the trigger right off in both main hunting rifles. Off to the range again tomorrow

trigger pull is a funny thing...2-3-4lb works great..too light and you will stuff it up on quick shots,trigger finger will rest on trigger as going onto target and fire too soon...lost pig on dairy pasture from that...I also found back in my bad flinch days..too light made it worse as I lost control of when it would fire...3lb is pretty good FOR ME.

funny wee flinch story to show how bad it can get.
3 of us on range,all young fellas all wiht 270s .mate had trouble zeroing his ruger so I had a go..trigger was terribly heavy and I had fired a few rounds..I LITERALY could not make it go bang... I too kround out and could pull trigger no worries, pt a round in and just could not do it.. my mind knew the boot was coming and remembered the heavy triggerr thing from back when my rifle was bad for it.... it was that balls up that made me go and buy a thick bisly recoil pad for the old rifle..no limbsavers back then..... I spent next 15 years happily shooting rifle as it was ,with lightish reloads,then fitted suppressor and worked back into hottish loads.
keep at it bud....you WILL beat this.

@nathan they looked liked monsters! Your partner looked great in black!

Need to catch up in there some time!

Originally Posted by Fireflite

@nathan they looked liked monsters! Your partner looked great in black!

Need to catch up in there some time!

Pm me ur number

Well that went better than expected today. Was doing load testing for the .223. Have found my loads I think @Tahr

The targex went unreal. The smk’s we’re going good too

Originally Posted by Nathan F

Well that went better than expected today. Was doing load testing for the .223. Have found my loads I think @Tahr
Attachment 193434
The targex went unreal. The smk’s we’re going good too
Attachment 193435

Wow. Thats excellent. Look out bush dwelling elusive quadrupeds

I started shooting with a 3006 and 8x57 with no recoil pads at the age of 15, that's one way to create a hell of a flinch... when I could I got a howa 7m08, still flinched realy bad put up with it for ages, tried heaps of .22 shooting and no flinch there but as soon as I picked up a full sized rifle the flinch would come back. I ended up buying a 7mm rem mag t3x, suppressed and limbsaver pad on it. Not sure how i thought it would help with my flinch.. I them bought a t1x in .17hmr, I have rifles set up the same even with the trigger weight. After lots of shooting with the .17 I jumped behind the rem mag which feels exactly the same and started shooting. No flinch. Took a while but feels good, nice and easy to practice shooting with a cheap rim fire and can easily transfer those techniques to a much lager Calibre as the stocks, foregrips, pistol grips , trigger weight and scope height is the same. Was a very expensive way of doing it but buy once cry once right????

Lots and lots of dry fire goes along way.

Dry firing at a tiny dot of blue tack on the wall can do wonders.

And as you're squeezing the trigger remember to keep the pull constant and the same the whole way through the squeezing process.

Don't grab at the trigger when it's on target as it'll invariably stuff it up.

Trigger control, sight picture, grip and stance are the four basic fundamentals we ram home for competitive shooting which also apply aptly for hunting.