Flinching

[Pact-Man]

True or false: Some shooters are so good that they "flinch" at every shot.

I say BS.

Any thoughts?

[tightloop]

Why would it be good to flinch...? and No I don't think good shooters would flinch at each shot

[Steve Anderson]

Flinch may be the wrong word...maybe they anticipate recoil?

I know my gun will drop if if I get a jam or if I run dry unexpectedly in practice.

I know I don't flinch shooting groups or stages. I do flinch if I shoot an unfamiliar gun for the first time.

SA

[Pact-Man]

Flinch may be the wrong word...maybe they anticipate recoil?

I know my gun will drop if if I get a jam or if I run dry unexpectedly in practice.

I know I don't flinch shooting groups or stages. I do flinch if I shoot an unfamiliar gun for the first time.

SA

Steve- this is at the heart of the argument in favor of this phenomenon- the idea that "anticipating recoil" is OK and is not the same as flinching. I submit that it is flinching, and that it is NOT OK. I understand that many high level shooters do this, and that they can obtain good results in spite of it. I believe that this is because they "flinch" in a consistent manner that allows good results.

The part I disagree with is the idea that it is OK to flinch if the results are acceptable.

I think that no matter how high the skill of the shooter, they will shoot more accurately without flinching, and that every effort should be made to eliminate it.

[Merlin Orr]

This thread makes me flinch.

[Steve Anderson]

How about if we say that my body is expecting recoil, and not afraid of it.

Does that work for you?

[Pact-Man]

How about if we say that my body is expecting recoil, and not afraid of it.

Does that work for you?

Well, I would call that flinching.

Now, obviously you are getting good results while doing this, sooooo...

Is it something that you will attempt to correct, or will you continue to shoot that way?

[shred]

The big guys do it, so I'm thinking it works.

"Hold the gun on the target until the bullet leaves the barrel" is all it takes.

[Flexmoney]

I don't call that a flinch. It is something else entirely, IMO. I don't mind if you call it a flinch.

Really, to me, it matters not. I need to see what I need to see to make...then call..the shot. (<<<look at me...all rhyming and everything )

[tightloop]

[EricW]

Flinching and...hmmm....shall we say.... "non-concious-recoil-management" are two *entirely* different phenomena. It's worth your time and the few thousand rounds of ammo to explore and discover the difference.

Hint: The latter doesn't involve conciously *doing* anything.

[/C-Class Instructor Mode]

Edited July 3, 2006 by EricW

[Pact-Man]

Flinching and...hmmm....shall we say.... "non-concious-recoil-management" are two *entirely* different phenomena. It's worth your time and the few thousand rounds of ammo to explore and discover the difference.

Hint: The latter doesn't involve conciously *doing* anything.

[/C-Class Instructor Mode]

Would you care to elaborate?

[p99shooter]

See Matt Burkett's discussion on "timing the gun."

Flinching is semi-conscious: you think the gun will hurt you, so you react. The big difference is that a true flinch happens before the shot breaks (hence the poor shot). Recoil control, or timing the gun corrections happen *after* the shot breaks. Your conscious mind can't possibly react fast enough after the shot breaks to take corrective action (minimize recoil, bing the sight / dot back in line). It's a subconscious activity.

[EricW]

Flinching and...hmmm....shall we say.... "non-concious-recoil-management" are two *entirely* different phenomena. It's worth your time and the few thousand rounds of ammo to explore and discover the difference.

Hint: The latter doesn't involve conciously *doing* anything.

[/C-Class Instructor Mode]

Would you care to elaborate?

I'm not sure I'm capable of doing so. Even if I were, I think this is something you need to explore personally on your journey as a shooter. Talking about it really won't help. Master slowfire first. I'm talking really MASTER it - as in shooting ragged holes inside of 15 yards and virtually all 10's on a Bianchi target at 50. This won't happen in a weekend. Pie plates or Bianchi cup targets are indispensible for this.

Then go to MattBurkett.com and read about his Timing Drills. Go to the range and master them. Do Brian's trick of just shooting your gun into the berm and observe your front sight. Develop those skills and you'll know the difference.

Hopefully someone more accomplished than me (hello...Pat?) will post about the mechanics of what's going on.

Edited July 3, 2006 by EricW

[P.E. Kelley]

The big guys do it, so I'm thinking it works.

"Hold the gun on the target until the bullet leaves the barrel" is all it takes.

Shred's got it.

Flinch = gun movement after ignition but before the bullet leaves the barrel, thus altering its "sighted impact" point. It can begin before ignition and carry through the shot. Or, as you may have noticed, that you feel it “well up” and then stop it before you break the shot.

Recoil control response= gun movement after the bullet has left the barrel, done to improve one’s ability to return the gun to the sighting point.

Difficult to distinguish by feel but the target tells no lies.

Patrick

[spook]

If the gun is pointed at the target at the instant the bullet leaves the barrel, the shot is good. What you do before or after that doesn't really matter, right?

[Pact-Man]

Thank you all, I think I understand the difference, although I expect I won't be able to experience it for myself for some time.

[EricW]

Thank you all, I think I understand the difference, although I expect I won't be able to experience it for myself for some time.

You should be able to get a handle on it in a month or three. It's something I have to relearn at the beginning of every season. I most certainly have to relearn it whenever I change guns. You might as well just saddle up and get it over with...

You have an incredible advantage of knowing a (as opposed to "the") successful path beforehand. The actual mechanics should be left up to your subconcious based on your intent observation of what's going on before you. It's hard to overstate the importance of allowing yourself to become an objective observer of your shooting. It's the foundation of how you will progress in IPSC or any other shooting sport. Give 'er a whirl.

Edited July 4, 2006 by EricW

[ampleworks]

I believe the flinch is only happening when you run dry or have that jam as Steve suggested because your brain is saying "the gun didn't go off, pull a little harder" thus you eventually flinch the gun in trying to get it to fire.

Even if you have someone load dummies in a mag on you, you know the dud is coming so unless you're just hammering through rounds as hard as you can go, you probably won't flinch the same as if you were shooting.

Dummies are nice for tap & rack drills.....but they lose their usefulness when you know they're coming.

[Steve Moneypenny]

This is something i really fought with at one point. Here is how to tell if your flinching or if it is reaction to recoil. Get a gun you KNOW is sighted in. shoot a rapid fire group. with some dummy rounds in it.. now if you have all of the rounds in one spot. (which corresponds to where you were aiming with the sights) and if the gun moves when you hit the dummy. that's what your looking for.

for this to be accurate you need a neutrally sighted in gun. (one not tuned in for a flinch) I have seen a lot of shooters very consistantly flinch the gun to the same spot.

Flinching happens before the round leaves the muzzle and from a 3rd person/instructor stand point it can be observed. What Steve A., others, and myself are talking about happens as a reaction to recoil. our guns hit the same place with that motion or without it. however it allows us to shoot faster by returning our gun to target sooner. The down side is if we pick up a gun with different timing it takes a few rounds to not put rounds different places. Sometimes it 2 or 3 shots other times it's something we never get as familiar with.

This isn't one of those skills it takes a long time to find. usually most new shooters will do it within a few hundred rounds fired at a successive pace. Many instructors in properly diagnose this as flinch also.

[Skywalker]

Timing the gun is what I always have heard it called.

It's not a flinch, since it's a totally different thing.

Timing the gun means that you know how your gun recoils, wait that split fraction of a second for the bullet to leave the barrel, then apply a downward force on the gun to contrast muzzle rise.

It doesn't affect the hit, since it starts after the bullet has already left the barrel, but it might (if properly executed) help in reducing the time the front sight takes to go back into the notch and onto the target.

Of course, it needs to be properly executed, otherwise the front sight will track inconsistently, and the time you save in getting it back into the notch will be lost because of it diving too deep into the notch, or because it doesn't track a straight path, but rather ends up way too left or right.

What happens to me (but, beware, I'm no top dog or GM) is that if I pull the trigger on an empty chamber when I'm expecting a shot, the hammer falls, I can clearly hear the click and see the sights steady on the target, but immediately after this I start camming my wrists, and the muzzle of the gun dives a couple of inches.

The only time I consciously don't do it is when shooting groups.

[bountyhunter]

Flinch may be the wrong word...maybe they anticipate recoil?

I know my gun will drop if if I get a jam or if I run dry unexpectedly in practice.

I know I don't flinch shooting groups or stages. I do flinch if I shoot an unfamiliar gun for the first time.

SA

The key is do they ANTICIPATE recoil (ie, move before the shot) or after the trigger pull?

After, it's OK. before, it screws up the shot.

[chad allred]

flinch=low left shot with me!

[konkapot]

I've heard this referred to (during a Kimber Instructor/Armorer class in 1999, I think) as a "PIP" a Post Ignition Push.

Manny Kappelsohn was teaching the course.........don't know if he orginated the term, but it fits.

FY42385

[gino_aki]

I've recently been shooting a "new" gun that I acquired and have run into this phenomenon in that Ican hold steady all day while dryfiring, yet start shooting a group that's about three inches low at 16 yards (which coincidentally was where I miked shots this past weekend...ooh 4 no-shoot headshots) so I was checking my zero on Wednesday and every time I'd run the gun dry and drop the hammer on the empty chamber..."Boy, that's SOME flinch." Try to consciously control it by really focusing on a surprise break, keep that dot on the money and the dot flies way up off the target in recoil. Hmmmm. Steady it back on the bench, ok zero is still good. Stand up and do some one-shot, present the gun from waist level, get the dot in the black (NRA slow fire target) and pull the trigger as fast as everything looks right...hmmm, three inches low, but the dot isn't flying off the target and is settled nicely back in the black on follow through.

Run a few more mags before and after resighting in about 2- 1/2 inches high...off the bench and standing slow fire, it's high. Mimic my presentation minus the draw from waist level and it's on the money.

I know I could use way more live-fire practice which would probably help me get this more closely dialed in, but for this weekend I'm going to try the high sighted in gun.