rutilate Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 (edited) I watched a video today about watching the muzzle rise. I've never seen it do so. I'm blinking, and sometimes in anticipation of the shot! How do you go about conditioning yourself to avoid that blink? Edited December 10, 2012 by rutilate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toothguy Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 I watched a video today about watching the muzzle rise. I've never seen it do so. I'm blinking, and sometimes in anticipation of the shot! How do you go about conditioning yourself to avoid that blink? The loud noise causes a lot of it so wear ear plugs and a head set. Dry fire and a .22 will help with sight alignment and trigger control without the expense and recoil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Got Juice? Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 .22's work great. Also, benchresting your pistol works as well. Crazy Glue is the bees knees, but a bit too hardcore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatsEye Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 Wearing ear plugs and muffs takes away a lot of the noise and really helps. Another tip is to shoot at "nothing". Don't use a target, just shoot at the backstop while watching your front sight. It takes away all the other stuff you are trying to concentrate on. Just focus on slowly pressing the trigger without disturbing the sights. It's amazing what you can feel and see when you're not trying to hit anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mlmiller1 Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 I second (or third) using plugs & muffs & also shooting at nothing but the back wall of the berm. MLM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All-Gator Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 Also, the old...but good..."ball and dummy" exercise: Just mix inert cartridges with live rounds. A-G Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dwight Stearns Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 The blink is a subconscious defensive reaction. The human mind does this to protect the all important eyesight. Several years ago I came up with a trick to stop the reflexive blink. Try pressing your tongue to the roof of your mouth as hard as you can as you fire. This distracts the subconscious and the blink doesn't occur. This trick usualy works by itself but sometimes shooters needs to add the extra trick of just shooting into a berm (no specific target). While shooting into the berm visually focus on seeing the front sight lift and see the brass rejecting. Shoot at a pace of about two shots per second. The combination of the two tricks has worked for everyone I've used it on. Let me know how it works for you. DWIGHT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daves_not_here Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 There is an explosion two feet away from your face. It's natural to flinch. The trick is to override the reflex. I periodically do the dummy round exercise. It's great and you can't lie about it. The gun goes down and you KNOW you flinched. I still feel embarrassed when it happens. .22 practice. The savings in ammo paid for my .22 pistol. Also it's just plain fun! You have my permission if you need an excuse to buy another pistol. I'll even write a note to your wife. Focus on the front sight. By keeping my mind busy on keeping that front sight in focus and saying "front sight" or "maintain" to myself during trigger press I get the "surprise" break. I might still flinch afterwards but I will be getting good hits at longer ranges. Double up muffs and plugs especially shooting indoors. I use electronic ear muffs turned way up with ear plugs. I can hear better with that set up than with plugs alone. The guy with the .500 S&W in the booth next to me can't get me to jump like before. DNH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motosapiens Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 lots of good suggestions here. it also really helped me to do an exercise i read about here on enos. i start every range session by shooting 8-10 rds, 1 every 2 seconds, focusing hard on the front sight. Then another 8-10 rds shooting 1 round every second. then 8-10 rds shooting every half-second (or as close to that as I can follow the sights). This is from 10 yards or so, trying to keep everything in the A zone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rutilate Posted December 10, 2012 Author Share Posted December 10, 2012 Great advice, thanks to all for helping out a noob! I'm going to double-stuff the ears, shoot at the berm with .22 snapcaps at a rate of 2x/second. That way I'll never hear or notice people making fun of me for not shooting anything. Or when I do, for missing the target completely. Seriously though, thanks for the advice. I'll give 'em a try shortly. I'm currently recovering from knee surgery and I'd need a doctor's note to hit the range, otherwise my wife might come after me with my own pistol! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ummm Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 The advice above has been helpful to me as well -- sounds like I'm not far from the OP's level. Something in addition to the excellent suggestions offered above that I've found helpful is the addition of a rifle...an AR with a booming comp, or something bigger, like a 308 or etc. Fire that for a bit, then switching to your handgun you'll feel like you're shooting a BB gun. Your brain, eventually (and it may take several rifle sessions with the occasional rifle maintenance session) ups it's tolerance for what is classified as a "big, scary, flinch-worthy explosion". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thermobollocks Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 For centerfire handguns, ball and dummy with mixed magazines of live/snap caps helps me out a lot. It works best if you have at least 3 magazines, and around a 1:1 ratio of dummy to live ammo. Since proper aluminum snap caps are expensive, you might look into having a buddy with a reloading bench make you something like 30 reloaded cartridges, without powder. If you have your own reloading bench, that's even better. If you take out the primer as well, it's easier to tell it's a dummy, however there's nothing for the firing pin to impact. Some guns and some shooters really don't like that. Another odd thing I've found is to work on strong hand only and weak hand only slowfire, using the same techniques as two-handed. After a few magazines of weak hand slowfire, even SHO feels like cheating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rutilate Posted December 10, 2012 Author Share Posted December 10, 2012 I like the idea of making my own dummies. I assume that I can use an old, fired primer. Is a new primer enough to dislodge the bullet from the casing and potentially get it stuck in the barrel? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mlmiller1 Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 I like the idea of making my own dummies. I assume that I can use an old, fired primer. Is a new primer enough to dislodge the bullet from the casing and potentially get it stuck in the barrel? Yes, absolutely! Do NOT put in a new primer. Just leave in the used primer & drop in a bullet, maybe paint it red or some other bright color to be sure you never get it mixed in with live ammo. MLM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motosapiens Posted December 11, 2012 Share Posted December 11, 2012 I like the idea of making my own dummies. I assume that I can use an old, fired primer. Is a new primer enough to dislodge the bullet from the casing and potentially get it stuck in the barrel? I just leave the primers out entirely from my dummy rounds. Makes it that much less likely for me to ever confuse them with non-dummy rds. A primer is just enough oomph to push the bullet into the rifling where it will stick. Usually, it won't go far enough to allow the next round to fully chamber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daves_not_here Posted December 11, 2012 Share Posted December 11, 2012 Another benefit of dummy-round practice is that malfunction clearing drills can be added. Being able to react to a "click" is useful in competition or a defensive situation. Just make sure you do the proper tap-rack-assess sequence every time you do a dummy round. Nearly every other match there's someone who does a reload without properly seating the mag. (The "tap-rack-bang" applies to competition, in a defensive shooting situation assess first before shooting again etc...) DNH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinj308 Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Kyle's Flinch Breaker 101, by Flexmoney. Good stuff there. http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=82124&hl=%20kyle%20%20flinch&st=0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sroe3 Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 I always make sure my mouth is shut. The concussion, especially shooting through a port, rattles my brain if my mouth isn't closed tightly. I see some guys hanging tongue like Michael Jordan, but I can't do that. I also double plug. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beacon22 Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 Newbie question: What is "calling the shot"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalNoMore Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 Newbie question: What is "calling the shot"? Try these links here. As a noob, I often wondered the same thing. http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=14025 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rutilate Posted January 6, 2013 Author Share Posted January 6, 2013 Wearing ear plugs and muffs takes away a lot of the noise and really helps. Another tip is to shoot at "nothing". Don't use a target, just shoot at the backstop while watching your front sight. It takes away all the other stuff you are trying to concentrate on. Just focus on slowly pressing the trigger without disturbing the sights. It's amazing what you can feel and see when you're not trying to hit anything. I took my daughter and her friend to the range last week and had the friend "shoot snow" on the berm. It really did take the pressure off and help her relax. Before doing so she couldn't even hit paper at 5 yards. After "shooting snow" she got every shot on the target. She went from, "I suck!" to, "Hey, this is really fun!" Thanks for the advice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miranda Posted January 6, 2013 Share Posted January 6, 2013 this is fun. there is only one mistake you can make that will keep you from fixing all your other problems. If you Blink.... you will never see the others. I know I blink. I also know I heel,yank,push,anticipate and many other mistakes of aim. when I manage to avoid blinking.... I see all the other mistakes I make, very clearly. so when I miss, and I do not know why, it means I blinked . :-) don't blink. Shooting is a lot more fun if you take the time to watch yourself shooting. miranda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smiley1 Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 I have have had trouble with flinching to, so I've found it works well to start out shooting groups with my .22 making sure to do a slow steady trigger press. Another thing i've found helpful is shoot a mag of .22 then a mag of 9mm and keep switching back like this. If I catch myself flinching or even feel like I might I'll shoot a few mags of .22 and go back to whatever I was working on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 Let me add something to consider. Shoot as a team with another person and take turns being the shooter - the other person is the observer. If you have a video camera, you can use it as well. Point the gun down range at the berm and aim and concentrate. The observer will tap you on the shoulder at random intervals. When they tap, you shoot. They should be watching what the gun is doing - to see if it moves before you shoot. Having the dummy rounds mixed in at random intervals makes it even more interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rutilate Posted January 8, 2013 Author Share Posted January 8, 2013 I like having someone else tap on the shoulder as a cue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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