BOOM! The crack of a rifle at the moment of truth is a jarring contrast to the calm of the wilderness. Placing a bullet at crunch time requires suppressing primal excitement in favour of composure. Failing to do so can lead to a miss, or worse, a poor hit. However, excitement isn’t the only instinctive urge that can spoil an opportunity. There is a boogeyman that most long time hunters face at some point – a flinch.
What is a Flinch
Flinching is when the shooter begins moving before the shot in anticipation of recoil. Even a slight jerk before the trigger breaks will shift the crosshairs and introduce inconsistency. Depending on the position of the shooter and severity of the flinch, this can have differing degrees of an effect on target.
Rifle shooting carries machismo expectations. Everyone wants to believe that they can handle the biggest, baddest cartridges around without issue. Furthermore, due the blast and movement caused by these large cartridges, mistakes are disguised and it is easy to convince oneself that one can. However, targets don’t lie and if the impacts aren’t consistent with the accuracy of the rifle, a flinch is often to blame.
Diagnosing a Flinch
The first step to addressing a flinch is diagnosing one. If your gun isn’t shooting as well as you feel it should or others shoot it better than you, these could be signs that you have a flinch. One surefire way to diagnose a flinch is when the trigger is accidentally pulled on an empty chamber or when the safety is on. This same test can be artificially created by having a friend load your magazine with a dummy cartridge mixed in with the live rounds. If you flinch on the dummy, you were almost certainly flinching on the live rounds.
Treating a Flinch
So you’ve got a flinch, now what? While shooting mixed magazines of dummy and live cartridges can be helpful to diagnose a flinch, it doesn’t do much to fix one. However, there are some other strategies that can successfully be used to retrain your brain to shoot more accurately.
Shooting Smaller Cartridges
The first step is shooting smaller cartridges. A 22 LR is an invaluable training tool. This is even more pertinent when combatting a flinch. Getting trigger pulls without intense recoil will help reduce the anticipation and is a good way to improve your fundamentals along the way.
Additionally, shooting lighter recoiling cartridges does not need to stop with the 22 LR. I rarely hunt anything larger than deer with my 6.5 Creedmoor. On the other hand, the majority of my centerfire practice is with the 6.5. It allows me to have similar ballistics and shooting positions to my other hunting rifles. The recoil is ideal, providing enough oomph to practice staying on target while still being light enough to hoot all day without developing a flinch.
Dry Fire
Another great tool for combatting a flinch is dry fire. Dry fire works well because apart from the blast, noise and recoil, everything is identical. Sight picture, trigger pull, stock fit, and sight picture is the same as during hunting season. Also, unlike shooting smaller cartridges, dry fire is free. This means that you can afford to get a ton of repetition.
As an aside, some people will tell you not to dry fire your rifles. On certain rimfires and old guns there is potential for damage from high volume dry fire. On the other hand, modern centerfire rifles are virtually all fine to dry fire without snap caps or dummy rounds. Through thousands and thousands of dry fires I have yet to damage a centerfire rifle.
Doubling Up on Hearing Protection
Also, the noise of the gunshot plays an important component in triggering a flinch. Sometimes shooters will even flinch on low recoiling rifles if they have a muzzle brake or a short barrel, increasing blast. Doubling up on hearing protection is an easy way to avoid the portion of a flinch that comes from the blast instead of the physical impact itself.
Managing Practice Duration
Finally, you can manage your practice duration. Certain hunts necessitate a certain level of horsepower and no one wants to be under gunned. You can still practice with your magnum, just don’t overdo it. Instead of shooting a box in one sitting, make two trips to the range on separate days.
Most shooters can only tolerate around 20 ft/lbs of recoil energy over the long term. For reference, this article has a chart with popular cartridges an their recoil. That means that shooting a 375 H&H day in and day out will almost certainly eventually cause flinching. There’s no way around it, some of the medium and large bore cartridges damn near knock your fillings out. So spread the abuse over multiple practice sessions. It may eat up more of your time, but ultimately that big bullet is only effective when it hits the animal.
Prevention
Above are some of the tactics to eliminate flinching. While remedies are great, proactively avoiding a flinch in the first place is that much better. The most important step to avoiding a flinch is not gunning up too fast. If you are buying your first hunting rifle, don’t get a 300 Winchester Magnum. Learn the fundamentals on a 243 Winchester or a 7mm-08 so when you do get the 30 caliber magnum you are able to handle it. Stock fit and good recoil pads can go a long way towards reducing felt recoil as well.
This advice is not only for new shooters looking to get a new gun. Experienced hunters need to do the same for those they are mentoring. The 30-06 is an exceptional cartridge, but giving a 10-year old dad’s 30-06 for his first deer hunt is a recipe for problems. Too much gun too soon takes the fun out of hunting and can leave long lasting marksmanship problems.
Closing Thoughts
Flinching is a common problem that can be very difficult to shake. Oftentimes the flinch can be traced back to when a shooter began learning to shoot. Prevention is preferrable, but through carerful practice and repetition using the strategies mentioned above, a flinch can be overcome. So next time your eyeing that hot nasty magnum, be honest with yourself about if you are ready for that much recoil.