Beat the Flinch

[Paladin132]

Alright, I see this mentioned alot, and I have experienced it on occasion myself as all shooters probably have. We have excellent diagnoses methods, but I never see anyone talk about good ways to beat the flinch... So lets hear the ways you have tried or read of to break a person from flinching.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Mtbiker]

An empty shell casing on the slide of unloaded gun. Keep pulling the trigger until you can do it without dropping the brass.

[SIXTO]

Dry fire dry fire and then do it again.

[HowardCohodas]

This is what I use. Pistol-Training.Com » Blog Archive » Drill of the Week: The Wall Drill

[pgrass101]

.22lr shoot it at the begining and end of every range session

[David in FL]

In order to fix a flinch, you need to first know that you're flinching.....

The easiest way to do that is to have someone else place a dummy round randomly in the magazine or cylinder. If you're flinching, you'll know it as soon as you hit that dummy round.

Very few people develop a flinch fr shooting a .22........many develop one from shooting larger calibers before they're ready for them. Shoot small, comfortable calibers and work up to the more macho stuff, and never shoot to the point of fatigue.

[Rob P.]

Dry fire. A lot. BUT, no "pow, pow, pow" with simulated recoil. Point, steady, slowly squeeze the trigger and hold/follow through.

NOTHING else will improve your control as quickly. It takes about 1000 trigger pulls to build muscle memory. Then it will take 1000 actual shots without problems to solidify that into something you can rely on. Your shooting will also include some backsliding so you can figure another 1000 rounds before you actually start to see the finish line.

I had a flinch develop last year. Nothing horrible but it was there. It took me a lot of dry fire practice and almost 500 rounds over 5 shooting sessions to get rid of it to the point I don't worry about it anymore. It still shows up 2 or 3 times out of 50 shots but I can usually suppress/correct it in the next shot. Each shooting session is better than before at this point and my 4 inch @ 25 feet groups are returning to 3" like they're supposed to be (with the occasional "flyer" increasing them out to 4-5 inches in one or two groups of the 5 groups I shoot each session).

[Sig 210]

".22lr shoot it at the begining and end of every range session"

Very good advice for both pistol and rifle shooters who develop a flinch. I shoot some heavy recoiling centerfire and muzzleloader rifles. It the flinches set in, out comes the .22.

[AZ Husker]

A laser while dry-firing will tell you a lot. My girlfriend has a S&W 642CT and had terrible flinching problems (understandably). I sat her down with an empty gun and laser. Withing a week of shooting bad guys on TV, her flinch is gone.

[pgrass101]

I have to shoot about 100rds of 22lr to get rid of the flich caused by 20rnds of 7mm Rem Mag.

[Rob99VMI04]

The best way of getting them is again to have them see the flinch and what actually is occuring. The most effective tool I've found is the Crimson Trace Laser grips. Or you could just tape a cheap laser to the front of the gun. The laser being zeroed isn't really relative; however, the laser gives them a visual image of what and how much there flinch is effectiving the impact on the paper. They see the laser jump when they hear the CLICK!
I've used the ball and dummy technique before and find that new shooters don't understand it nor are they watching the front site anyway. With the laser once you show them how much the flinching affects the impact on the paper they understand what there doing wrong. Now the trick is just getting them to focus back on the front sight. I.E. Turn the grips off.

[Rob99VMI04]

Dry fire. A lot. BUT, no "pow, pow, pow" with simulated recoil. Point, steady, slowly squeeze the trigger and hold/follow through.

NOTHING else will improve your control as quickly. It takes about 1000 trigger pulls to build muscle memory. Then it will take 1000 actual shots without problems to solidify that into something you can rely on. Your shooting will also include some backsliding so you can figure another 1000 rounds before you actually start to see the finish line.

I had a flinch develop last year. Nothing horrible but it was there. It took me a lot of dry fire practice and almost 500 rounds over 5 shooting sessions to get rid of it to the point I don't worry about it anymore. It still shows up 2 or 3 times out of 50 shots but I can usually suppress/correct it in the next shot. Each shooting session is better than before at this point and my 4 inch @ 25 feet groups are returning to 3" like they're supposed to be (with the occasional "flyer" increasing them out to 4-5 inches in one or two groups of the 5 groups I shoot each session).

It is not just practicing dry firing its practicing and being able to identify the symptoms of a problem. Just because you did something 1000 times dosn't mean it goes away. You could have very well just programmed differn't poor fundamentals. In your case you didn't however, somepeople maybe this is true.

Perfect Practice.

[Paladin132]

Has anyone had one of the professional schools and seen what they have to say on the subject?

[HK Dan]

I've had luck by giving the shooter enough other stuff to think about that they forget to flinch. Usually that's a trigger prep/shot recovery drill (holding the trigger back during recovery and resetting carefully after the shot). We add calling the shot and telling me which way the sights go in recoil. If that doesn't do it, I have them shoot a Bill Drill (they can't flinch fast enough)

Dan

[MR D]

revolver - load as usual except load a a couple of the chambers with empty cases and fire on the line as usual - you will notice the flinch when you hit the empty chamber

bang- bang- click- bang- click- bang

practice, dry fire and practice some more

shooting 357 - mix in some 38...

use a variety of powers (especially in semi-autos) mix up the loads