Its official, I'm a flincher!

P

Pvt. Joker

New member
Hey guys,
My name is Jared, and I have a problem with flinching. :rolleyes: I am 19 years old, and haven't been shooting rifles that much for the past 9 years that I have been shooting. Mostly shotguns. Here's my story...
Last year, for my first rifle, I bought the beloved 10/22 on the advice of the TFLers and the folks at AR15.com. I really enjoy shooting it, as well as tinkering with it. I played around with the trigger contact points and made it pretty smoth. I liked the end result. I can shoot it all day, from the bench and pull off a nice, smooth trigger break. I recently have shot about 1000 rounds through the gun, and have been happy with the groups I have been getting with bulk pack Remmington Golden Bullet.
The problem I have, is when I pick up my buddies .270. I have the uncontrollable urge to flinch when firing his rifle. I know its not going to hurt me, and its EXTREMELY hard to fight off the urge... It seems when I do, I can get a decent group, execpt it seems I pick up my head before the gun is done recoiling. I did take a hit from the scope, on my forehead, another time while shooting the gun, I don't know if this has influenced me, or not.
The question: What can I do to get rid of this terrible habbit. I really like the idea of long range precision shooting, and was thinking about getting an LTR for this purpose, but I don't want to spend the money, if I'm not going to be able to perform. So, I am open to all your thoughts and suggestions and hope that I'll be able to break myself of this. Thanks!

-Jared
 
Hi Jared, my name is Jack and I'm a flincher too! Apologies to AA members.

After 39 years of shooting I suddenly developed a flinch just over two months ago. It was my first time to flinch and I have no earthly idea where it came from.

I have been advising people how to get rid of flinches for years--not from personal experience but from reading about it--and I have to tell you the old advice works.

Go back to shooting the .22 lr. for a while. Practice dry firing with the gun that you are flinching with. Concentrate on the front sight if you are shooting iron sights. Concentrate on the reticle if you are shooting scopes.

Do not practice for less than 10 minutes or over 30 minutes of dry firing for any session. Make every sight picture count!

Wear eye and hearing protection every time you fire live ammo or are near anyone who is firing live ammo! Go to a public range and get used to people firing around you.

Make sure you have the rifle settled into your shoulder snuggly and keep a good cheek weld when you practice. I promise you can overcome this flinch.

Mine came out of the blue with handguns only--the same ones I have been shooting for years. I am happy to report that it seems I overcame my flinch in a few weeks. However, it required a great deal of dry fire and concentrated precision shooting on my part.

Best of Luck and let me know how you are doing! jack
 
Rest it on sandbags, get a good grip and pull it into your shoulder. Put your cheek to the stock, make a good weld. Sight the rifle in steadily. Have your friend squeeze the trigger. That surprise you feel when the rifle goes off is what you need to duplicate. Nest step graduate to having your friend close the rifle bolt on either an empty or loaded chamber so you dont know if its loaded. Duplicate the above process with you squeezing the trigger. (Note: safe gun handling a must, always treat it as loaded) You should almost feel surprised when the rifle goes off, that will help tame the terrible flinch.

Other thoughts would be to work your way into bigger calibers. If 270 seems heavy try and get a 223 to shoot first. This can be hard unless you maybe know someone whose rifle you can use. Definately avoid the big boomers until you are mucho comfortable shooting the standard calibers.

Also, what kind of rifle is the 270? Some rifles are stocked so horribly as to make it hard to not be punished by the recoil. Short stocks, straight combs, and no recoil pads are all problems that can make shooting even lighter calibers unpleasent.

Keep working at it. Mike
 
Hi Jared!

All good advice here. I would add two additional ideas.

Try shooting the rifle from the standing position. I find that position makes recoil a lot easier to take so you can concentrate on a steady trigger pull. The standing position is the least accurate so don't try to hit the bullseye; you're only working on the flinch.

The second thing, like Jack said, is to be sure you have good hearing protection. I would recommend plugs and muffs.
 
Good Idea's.

Thanks for the quick info guys, Keep in coming!


The rifle is a Savage, not sure of the model, but he payed <400 for it with the simmons scope, that I swear has about 1/4" of eye relief.. I think part of my problem is that I can't get comfortable on the gun, the grip seems funny to me... Oh well, as I said, keep the info coming!

-Jared
 
Don't let the rifle hurt you.

Sometimes simple posture helps. I see lots of guys at the range all hunched over, with their spine parallel to the ground. This posture makes your shoulder move parallel to your body under recoil. It is not designed to move this way. Get upright. Use a higher rest or lower chair. You shoulder wan designed to move perpendicular to your spine. Makes a significant difference.

Don't shoot so many rounds that you start to be sore.

A buddy just got a .338 mag. I asked him how many rounds he could shoot without flinching. He said three. I think he was being honest.

If you need to shoot lots of rounds out of the rifle, and it starts to bug you, take a break. Shoot something else, (.22) then go back to the big gun after resting up.

Don't let a flinch continue. If you catch yourself flinching, stop what you are doing immediately do not reinforce the flinch.

Sometimes just focusing more on the target can help. But don't let a flinch continue.

That's all the advice people have given me over the years. Sometimes works. I usually flinch when I get tired or sore, but hopefully not much when I'm fresh.
 
Like Dave said, work on your stance, hold the gun tight to your shoulder and just let the shot happen. Most recoil isn't that bad until you start shooting ridiculous stuff like .458 or something. A lot of it is a head game you have to play with yourself. with pistols I tried a little adverse conditioning, as in I shot somebody's .454 with hot handloads. After that .45 +p was rather tame feeling. Best thing to do is keep shooting often and concentrate on every shot.
 
A while back, I finally finished one of my long term projects, The Springfield Express. Basically, a '03 Springfield .30-06 sporter stocked like an old british express rifle without the stock drop- the thing weighs 10 pounds even. The first time I shot it off the bench, an electric pain went right through my shoulder. I couldn't even finish the magazine... Long story short, I read Coopers Art of the Rifle and noticed my stance and elbow were way off. I raised my right elbow high to create a better "pocket" and the pain went away. I put a rest under my elbow to keep it high and off the bench nowdays...

1/4" Eye relief? That's bad real bad. Your friends rifle might be set up wrong for you, maybe he had the length of pull modified...

After firing 2 boxes of .308 Match at the range recently, I set my rifle aside to cool and picked up my .22- I noticed myself flinching a bit...
 
Posture...

I've experienced the problem about which Dave writes. At the range where I most often shoot, the tables are fairly low and require that you hunch over in an awkward position in order to get a good cheek weld and sight.

Being a veteran tinkerer, I came up with a solution that works for me. It's a simple benchrest custom fit to my sandbags. It pivots in the middle so you can lower and raise point of aim, and it's got a couple of threaded rods with nuts that let you "set" this POA. The front bag will slide in order to accomodate different length rifles. Most importantly, this gizmo lets me sit up straighter when I'm sighting in a rifle. I'm more comfortable over the gun, and I feel like I have greater control over it. So I'm less likely to flinch. I'm still fooling around with it, but it works pretty well so far.

You could do the same thing by standing to shoot (as Mal point out) or you could raise the rifle on the bench with added sandbags. Or you could go out to the workshop and tinker like I did.

RifleRest.jpg
 
The cure...

Private Pyle, you will follow through, do you understand?!?

"SIR, FOLLOW-THROUGH, AYE-AYE SIR"

Sounds like you're talking about two problems: flinch and follow-through. ("its EXTREMELY hard to fight off the urge... It seems when I do, I can get a decent group, execpt it seems I pick up my head before the gun is done recoiling....")

For the flinch, follow the advice above. A .270 isn't much rifle; there's no need for it to cause you to flinch. Just work on concentrating on the proper sight picture and the "surprise" break of the trigger.

Then, after the trigger breaks, roll with the recoil and then consciously attempt to recover your sight picture as the rifle drops back down out of recoil. Never lift your head up or lose your cheek weld on the stock. Looking at the bullet isn't going to guide it on target.

Remember "BRASS"
-Breathe
-Relax
-Align the sights
-Sight Picture
-Squeeze
-Follow-through

I know that spells "BRASSF," but Marines were never known for their spelling ability.

Now give me twenty bends-and-thrusts Private Pyle.

Semper fi,
Bruegger out.
 
One way I kick the flinch habit is to keep a few dummy rounds with me when I shoot. I grab a handful of cartridges with one or more dummies close my eyes and load the mag or cylinder. It only takes a few times of flinching when I pull the trigger with the dummy round to break me of the habit. Good Luck. Joe
 
question

I've noticed that with any rifle besides an M16 or variant, I can almost never avoid letting the stock hitting my collar bone. Ouchies!
 
Hey guys!
Thanks for all the great info! Looks like I'll just have to keep shooting the 10/22 and do some dry firing practice.. Man, The guns in some of those videos are awesome! You know any round of name "T-rex" will put the hurt on you!

NightCrawler, I have the same problem.. Caught the kick of the Ought-six up in the collar bone! Ouchies is right!

Thanks again! Can't wait to get my LTR.

-Jared
 
I guess I'd tell any relative newbie to avoid rifles that don't fit. If the rifle isn't comfortable to hold, or the eye relief is very short, avoid it!

Now, I've been shooting all sorts of stuff for many decades, including sighting in other guy's pets. I'm a lot more used to odd-fit stuff than most guys. Still, I don't like 'em.

About all I can do, though, is hold that misfit tighter than my own rifles. I get my head as far away from the scope as is "reasonable" for a decent cheek-weld on the comb of the stock, and work for a surprise trigger break. That requires enough concentration that I forget to flinch. :)

By and large, though, I've found that a really tight mount to my shoulder when shooting off the bench eases the felt recoil quite a lot. I definitely ditto the idea of getting a comfortable sitting position at the bench. Helps a bunch.

FWIW, Art
 
Nightcrawler and Private Joker -- are you guys lifting your strong-side elbows? If not, maybe that's the problem. When you lift your elbow, it should create a pocket for the butt of the rifle.

Your pectorals and shoulder muscles should absorb the recoil. If there's not enough meat there, start doing some military presses and bench presses (with all the pushups I've had to give you, Private Joker, you should already be built like Ahnold).

I've got to second what Art says about cheek weld and holding that rifle firmly into the pocket. Reduces recoil significantly.

Semper fi,
Bruegger out.
 
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A couple of additional points.

1: Smooth out/lighten the trigger, a gritty, creepy trigger will have you jumping before the letoff.

2: Don't shoot with Wally! Wally is a plesant ol' Range Commando
where I shoot who has a voice like a file on a rusty hinge. Wally's
deaf, and hasn't a clue he's as loud as he is. He talks/screeches incessently...ear protection is useless :rolleyes:One of Wally's jokes can get the whole line flinching...
Gotta love him, but he gets dragged off the line for coffee at the Canteen a lot by the regulars...We take turns:D
 
Fit. When you get your LTR, make sure it is set up for you. That'll help a great deal. Get your scope mounted as far forward as possible while retaining a clear sight picture. If you plan on shooting a lot from prone, set up your scope in that position as it will likely put your eye closer to the scope than shooting from a bench.

[Aside: as a "practical" shooter, I've sworn off shooting from a bench except when sighting in and testing ammo for groups; won't let my kids shoot from a bench, as they'll never have that option while hunting.]

And there's nothing wrong with having a good recoil pad installed.

Guyon, isn't that scope awfully far to the rear on your Marlin?
 
My collarbone collisons happen when firing prone, where I need both elbows on the ground to hold the rifle up. I don't fire prone very much anymore, so I really haven't adjusted myself to find a good position that would make firing my.30-06 not hit my collarbone.
 
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