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Are you flinching

Annihilator

Annihilator

Emissary
Founding Member
I was watching one of the gun shows on Sportsman channel and saw an interesting piece on flinching. You would aim like you normally would with an empty gun, and they put a dummy round on top of the slide, you then dry fired your gun, if you flinched/jerked, the dummy round would fall off the slide and if you didn’t flinch/jerked it would stay there. The way I found out that I flinched/jerked my shot was to have a friend load my revolver and leave a couple of chambers empty, but I didn’t see or know which ones were empty, and when I fired the gun and the chamber was empty, you could plainly see I flinched/jerked my shot.
 
Right, both things you mentioned have been used by trainers for some time. For the dry fire slide exercise, I just use a spent brass. It will topple at the slightest movement. Good shooting.
 
most people flinch and compensate for it. I flinch a lot and am working to correct with dry fire practice and focusing on the trigger wall and pulling through it.
 
Every time I take new people out to the range to teach them about guns and shooting them I used the half loaded barrel trick. I have a Chiappa Rhino 50DS in .357 it’s a 6 round gun. I only load 4. I also load 2 357 shells in it the rest are 38. The purpose of this is to show how you react to the gun. So the first round is 357 the next one is 38 followed by an empty, then 38, 357 & empty again. I do this twice first round with the gun and last round with the gun. At the end you should see the difference almost no flinch.
 
It's called the "Ball and Dummy Drill" and, despite my many years of shooting, and countless hundreds (thousands) of hours of training, I still find myself flinching. It's something that will creep up on you again and again over time, so it's always good to go back to basics and practice the fundamentals -- even as an experienced shooter.

In addition to that, you can practice this by doing dryfire techniques. Simply getting your sight picture with a close up object and actuating the trigger to see if your sight alignment is disturbed will help. Dry firing with a laser sight is helpful, or using a training tool like the SIRT pistols or MantisX's are a fun option as well.

pistol-training.com

Ball & Dummy Drill

Range: 3yd Target: small (3×5 card, 3″ dot) Start position: any Rounds fired: varies This drill has been used for decades to help shooters overcome problems anticipating recoil and jerki…
pistol-training.com pistol-training.com
 
I saw an interesting bit with Rob Leatham where he put a fired case on the muzzle end of the slide of his pistol and did dry fire practice. It seems to a be a great (and simple) way to practice not disturbing your sight alignment while you are pulling trigger.
 
I'm guilty of flinching, more noticeable on the small subcompacts I own. I watched some videos from some of the ShotShows the past few years on a system that attaches to your pistol/rifle and blutooth communicates with their app on your phone. It monitors and collects data during actual shooting at the range and then shows you how you did. The system is called MantisX, and it seemed very interesting. I believe they also have versions that work with Dry Fire as well. Does anyone have this system? If yes, how do you like it? If positive reviews, I might purchase it myself, if it helps. Below is a link I found to their website.

mantisx.com

Mantis | Dry Fire Training System & Training Aids

MantisX is a revolutionary shooting analysis system that helps shooters of all levels. Improve shooting more rapidly in the home or at the range.
mantisx.com mantisx.com
 
My daughter and I shoot together quite a bit and flinching or "anticipating the shot" is something we work on regularly along with finger placement on the trigger. We've done the dummy round exercise with some success. Of late, we've started working on how to correct it immediately when it happens. For example, we might be half way through a magazine and starting to drop shots. We'll immediately shift our focus from aiming to feeling the trigger...pull to the wall, click (bang), release slowly until the trigger resets/click, pull to the wall, click (bang), etc. This forces us to slow down and regain a rhythm. The flinching stops.
 
I have been doing a lot better since I worked some on my Glock 23. Flat faced trigger and a Black Yikes connector. The connector completely removed the wall. One nice smooth pull.
My Springfield RO was a treat from the first round fired. Nice smooth pull. I shoot some tight groups with it that are
a sincere treat for me.
 
BET7 said:
The system is called MantisX, and it seemed very interesting. I believe they also have versions that work with Dry Fire as well. Does anyone have this system? If yes, how do you like it? If positive reviews, I might purchase it myself, if it helps.
Click to expand...

I have the MantisX 3 and I use it as a training tool for my classes. It's a nifty little piece of hardware with a pretty telling app... what I find most useful about it is the first screen which gives you real time feedback with every pull of the trigger telling you if you jerked/slapped the trigger, if you're thumbing, heeling, or anticipating, and show you how you can correct it.

More useful, on the third screen, there's a shot by shot breakdown of muzzle movement of the muzzle as you're aligning your sights, as you pull the trigger, and the gun in recoil. I find it very helpful and gives my students immediate, visual feedback.
 
If you know it's not going to recoil you won't flinch. Dry fire practive helps a little but your brain knows it's not going to go off. The surprise empty chambers or dummy rounds are great for showing the problem but not so great for correcting it. Leatham says you'll never stop your body from flinching but if you focus and train on pulling through the trigger the flinch will happen after the bullet has already cleared the barrel. Basically his suggestion is don't try to stop your natural reaction, just delay it so it doesn't impact accuracy.
 
All the above tricks are good to help you learn to stop flinching. Laser pistols like the SIRT can help with dry fire practice and once you get it purchased the cost is just a couple of batteries every now and then. Lets you practice just about anywhere. I've heard about the mantis the only trouble is for dry fire it's not as easy but it does let you see what is going on while shooting. Master trigger control and stop flinching and you will be surprised how much better your shots are
 
DelawarePatriot said:
I have the MantisX 3 and I use it as a training tool for my classes. It's a nifty little piece of hardware with a pretty telling app... what I find most useful about it is the first screen which gives you real time feedback with every pull of the trigger telling you if you jerked/slapped the trigger, if you're thumbing, heeling, or anticipating, and show you how you can correct it.

More useful, on the third screen, there's a shot by shot breakdown of muzzle movement of the muzzle as you're aligning your sights, as you pull the trigger, and the gun in recoil. I find it very helpful and gives my students immediate, visual feedback.
Click to expand...
Thanks DelawarePatriot, this sounds like something that would be very useful and I'll definitely look into it.
 
Leatham has a great video on YouTube where he discusses learning to manipulate the trigger without disturbing the sights. The interesting thing about it was he disagreed with the training about hitting the wall and slowly pushing past it. His thoughts were that nobody in any situation would ever manipulate the trigger in that manner, that they would fire as fast as possible, therefore training yourself to slowly push past the wall was pretty much worthless.

He stresses more about being able to manipulate the trigger as fast as possible without disturbing the sights. I watched the video the first time and didn't quiet understand what he meant. Upon watching it the 2nd time everything clicked. I immediately switched my dry fire practice from slowly pushing past the wall, to a fast manipulation while keeping the sights aligned and movement free. The next time I hit the range I noticed a huge improvement on longer shots and target transitions.

He did stress that everyone has different ways of learning, but it absolutely worked for me.
 
Matador said:
My daughter and I shoot together quite a bit and flinching or "anticipating the shot" is something we work on regularly along with finger placement on the trigger. We've done the dummy round exercise with some success. Of late, we've started working on how to correct it immediately when it happens. For example, we might be half way through a magazine and starting to drop shots. We'll immediately shift our focus from aiming to feeling the trigger...pull to the wall, click (bang), release slowly until the trigger resets/click, pull to the wall, click (bang), etc. This forces us to slow down and regain a rhythm. The flinching stops.
Click to expand...
That’s not a bad idea at all I might just end up using this myself.
 
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