How do I break my flinching problem??

[JohnKSa]

Stop in between each shot for awhile.

Take a comfortable (and correct) shooting stance, pick up your gun and fire a shot.

Put the gun down (safely) and stand up straight. Relax your neck/shoulders/back and stand comfortably.

Now go back to step one.

Repeat as needed.

When you can shoot a single shot without flinching, progress to two shots per string. But be careful not to tense up between shots. Keep your stance as it should be. Don't duck your head down and hunch your shoulders up, etc.. If you feel yourself tensing up, put the gun down and re-establish your stance before continuing.

Every time you tense up and shoot all tensed up you're training your body and reflexes incorrectly. Every time you shoot from a proper stance while relaxed and comfortable you're training your body and reflexes properly.

[SmithWesson357]

I was always told to put a penny on the barrel and pull the trigger for practice. That and just get experience shooting. Eventually you'll stop flinching.

[Dre_sa]

all sounds like good advice to me, i'll be implementing as much of this as I can during my next trip to the range.

[usmcgundog]

Old Grump wrote
Imagine the frontsight is attached to your trigger, when you pull the trigger back you are pulling the frontsight back through the notch of your rear sight. You will be looking at the frontsight so hard you won't have the presence of mind to worry about when that shot is going to go off. When it does it will be a surprise, the bullet is going to go where its supposed to and your flinching will eventually go away. It is one of the hardest habits to break and even experienced shooters develop it and have to go back to basics to get rid of it. Don't try to rush it, a couple of good days on the range isn't going to cure you. It takes time.

This is very good advice from OldGrump.

[Nnobby45]

all sounds like good advice to me, i'll be implementing as much of this as I can during my next trip to the range.

A form of flinching includes pushing forward to meet the recoil. The truth is: MOST OF US DO THAT.

It can't be observed at the shot, because it occurs at the same time as the recoil.

A dummy round inserted into the magazine so you don't know when it's coming will readily expose this tendency. You'll push forward to meet the recoil that isn't there. Kind of embarassing, isn't it?.

Even with experienced shooters, if someone stuck a dummy round into your mag, unknown to you, what are your chances of not pushing forward to meet the recoil? Not very good, are they?



We'll fall for it everytime, and if we didn't occasionally drop the hammer on an empty chamber, we wouldn't know we were doing it. AND IT'S NOT SOMETHING WE DO DURING DRY FIRE PRACTICE, so it can't be corrected there.

It's really different from flinching BEFORE the shot in anticipation of recoil, since we can still get a proper sight picture, concentrate on the sight, and hit the target just fine. We've incorporated this PUSH into our shooting system, and can shoot pretty well with it.


QUESTION: How many of you have overcome the problem, and are steady when the dummy round comes up?

[animal]

It sounds to me like you’re "thinking too much". Concentrating too much on the problem can often compound it. Dunno if this applies to you, but it seems to especially apply to people that are prone to test anxiety unless it’s pure recoil shyness. If you shoot well at quick draw, and it only shows up at slow aimed fire, I doubt it’s purely recoil shyness. Try to "put away" the concerns about performance, focus on sighting the target, and a smooth squeeze of the trigger. If you can get to the point of full concentration on sight & squeeze without caring if you hit the target or feel the recoil .. you’ll do much better.
The old saying "Let each shot be a surprise" fits here.

The random empty chamber of a revolver or a dummy mixed into a magazine, is a good diagnostic tool, but you already know the problem. As an occasional progress check it’s good, but don’t focus on that.

Relaxation techniques, including breathing exercises can do wonders, and you can find several methods easily with a web search. Not every method works well for everyone, so you might have to try a few before you find one that works for you. This sounds odd, but diet can play a role, and chamomile tea actually works well for some people as a temporary step in eliminating the problem.
Don’t expect a magic fix, and don’t "psych yourself up", as both could make things worse.

JohnKSa’s suggestions above for firing line relaxation are spot-on, and a great place to start, imo.
Actually, there’s a lot of good advice in this thread from several people.

[Nnobby45]

Every time you tense up and shoot all tensed up you're training your body and reflexes incorrectly. Every time you shoot from a proper stance while relaxed and comfortable you're training your body and reflexes properly.

I agree with you 100% regarding the type of shooting you describe. Especially bringing along a new shooter and teaching the important basics of trigger control.

I don't claim to be an expert on real life SD shootings, but those who've had the experience tend to confirm that being relaxed is impossible, and tensing up is inevitable.

That being the case, I have to feel that a very good case can be made for training the same way you'd have to fight. Tight grip and tecnhiquie similar to Ayoob's stress fire.

Yes, there have been men who were cool under fire. Earp, Hickcock, Hardin, and many more modern day warriors who've been there and done that. But that isn't most of us.

Personally, I don't see the wisdom of training for combat relaxed and then having to learn to fight tensed up instantly when what you trained for occurs.

[JohnKSa]

All I can tell you is that when I tense up during a timed shot string I start missing. When I stay relaxed and keep my form proper I make good hits even if I'm shooting pretty fast (for me).

I practice to make good hits and try to avoid doing things that make me miss.

Practicing things that make me miss seems to me to be counterproductive regardless of the type of shooting I'm doing.

[2500ak]

I don't usually have a problem with flinching but a few days ago I put a scope on my Mosin and mounted it way to far back. I'd been shooting light ammo all day, then by mistake tossed in a 180 grain soft tip. I didn't have a good grip on the gun and the scope came back and nearly broke my nose. I think I'll be shooting .22 for a while until the flinching tenancies subside.

[booker_t]

I agree with all the posts about using a .22LR, going slow, squeezing trigger, etc etc.

That said, here's something I like to do every so often, which is 180 degrees opposite of all that advice (sorta). I'll start with a larger caliber and minimal ear pro, just pop off 2-3 rounds of .45 or 10mm. I usually shoot them at a very close target, inside 10 feet. Ok, got that out of the way.

Then I pick up the .22 (for me it's a Ruger Mark III). Feels like a stick of butter, the recoil and noise and flash are nothing compared to the Glock 20, and I'm in total control. Eyes open, crisp front sight, no flinch. Works like a charm.

Same theory as in using a medicine ball or weighted gloves.

[publius]

i've tried all the dry firing and getting a friend to load the gun, dropping back to a .22 techniques. The best solution for me has been to use the gun I'm flinching with and concentrate. When I am aiming I am telling myself over and over squeeeze trigger, don't jerk, squeeze trigger, don't jerk. I say this over and over. Within a couple of cylinders or magazines I have pretty much fixed it. I have also retrained myself to always conciously think about it which prevents the problem from reoccouring.

[nefprotector]

shoot more often?

[Retired15T]

Over my 21 years of service in the Army, I was ALWAYS the one called on to work with difficult people on the M9/M16/M134/M249 range. "Difficult" describing females too "squeamish", males from the city and worst of all, five or six times, I had to work with guys who had either seen a gun blow up in someones hand or had, in at least one instance, scars on his hands from having a weapon blow up on him.

With the M9, since we are talking handguns, I would get five magazines and two M9's. I would go through drills with them. They had to "lock and load" to get the firing pin back, get the weapon to dry fire, drop the mag, then keep going. I had them firing on a lane off to the side of everyone else, but with their own target set up. I would only let them do this while there was firing going on. I would not allow them to look at the weapon except for the sites. I didn't want to see those sites move a single bit with each trigger pull.

Once they were sweating and bored to tears with that, I would take out the second weapon and I told them at some point, there would be a round in the weapon I gave them. I would then sit there and get them to dry fire around 40 something times before they got the gun with the round in it. When they fired this one, it would scare the crap out of them, but there was zero flinching. That fixed it almost every time because they didn't want to have to come back to see their Platoon Sergeant in lanes 28-30.

It's all about stopping the person from expecting the round to fire. By the time these guys would actually get a round out of the weapon, they were so accustomed to a dry fire, they were looking forward to getting the gun with the round in it. I cured many a person from closing their eyes and from flinching using that method. Thing is, that they probably didn't realize, it sucked a hell of a lot more for me than it did for them!!

[zukiphile]

All I can tell you is that when I tense up during a timed shot string I start missing. When I stay relaxed and keep my form proper I make good hits even if I'm shooting pretty fast (for me).

John, how do you square this advice with the advice we see elsewhere not to "limp-wrist" a semi-auto?

I agree about the importance of staying relaxed, but it seems in conflict with warnings that limp-wristing will cause mis-feeds or failures to cycle.

I am pretty sure I "limp-wrist" my handguns very badly, but haven't had a problem with failures to cycle.