Guess I developed flinch

I found the same thing with a Benjamin NP air rifle I bought. But it has a CRAPPY trigger. I was amazed at the inexplicable flinch also.

I bet a little more trigger time and you'd be fine.

It's prettty easy for recoil to cover a flinch. Get some dummy rounds and have a buddy load your mag at the range, the good old "ball and dummy" routine.

I find the recoil of spring powered air rifles more obnoxious than almost any center fire. Something about the "pfft boing brbrbrrrrr" of the recoil cycle really annoys me. It's lke nails on a chalkboard for me -- I'd rather shoot sixty rounds from my lightweight 308 than sixty pellets from a spring action air gun. I haven't tried a PCP or nitro piston yet, I've heard they're less annoying.

Like caliper said, many people have a fling and don't know it. One reason people should practice with a 22lr or pump up or CO2 air rifle, not springer.

The Alaskan said:

But what I noticed is that I was flinching (despite absolutely no recoil) and waiting for the recoil.

Pretty weird. I don't flinch with a centerfire rifle.

Click to expand...

I can recall doing it with .22's during competition and practice alike. I don't generally do it with my 7 mag...maybe because I'm more aware that I might flinch...so I focus harder.

It's weird though. I wasn't flinching due to the expectation of a punch in the shoulder with the rimfires, it was just from the anticipation of releasing the shot at the right time.

"I don't flinch with a centerfire rifle."

Bet you do, but don't notice it due to recoil.

Flinch

I know this is an older topic, but I wanted to see if it has gotten any better at controlling your flinch.

I have the same problem with my M70 300 win mag... I flinch... HARD... and didn't notice it until I missed a 100 yard shot on a deer.. (gut shot, but went down).

I'm determined to get over it by using my 22 and air gun... believe it or not, but It seems to be getting better because at first when I shot the 22 I noticed my flinch was bad from the 300. (more of a pull).

Hopefully I can lose the flinch as I walk back up the calibers.

Thank you,
Ron.

Alaskan, you can actually develop the touch so you don't set it off when you touch the trigger. My Annie's trigger is right about 1/2 an oz and I can feel the trigger without tripping g the sear holdi g it offhand

I think very light triggers just aren't the answer for every shooter.

I do better if I can feel some pressure at the trigger before it lets go. Triggers that are so light that are the same as me just moving my finger, provide me no feedback of when the shot will be released.

I am absolutely sure I have no flinch when firing my 30/06. Several times I have closed the bolt on an empty chamber and pulled the trigger thinking it was loaded. Sights never moved. But I flinch like crazy shooting my NP air rifle. The flinch is so bad I have stopped shooting it out of fear I could develop a permanent flinch.

My wife's sister's son won the state air rifle match (high school) several years ago. He had a very nice rifle and I got to shoot it one afternoon. At my first shoot he told me to keep my finger out of the trigger guard. The trigger was so light he warned me"by the time you feel it...you've fired you shot." Truly the lightest trigger I've ever touched.

That big difference, from what we "expect", is probably why that flinch sneaks in.

Mark

I don't know if shooting a nitro piston air rifle, and having it move while tripping the trigger, is necessarily a flinch.

I have a nitro piston Benjamin, a springer Gamo, a CO2 Crosman, and a pump up Crosman.

The CO2 and pump up Crosman are very fiream like when shooting. The triggers trip an air valve which seems to have a short lock time not unlike a striker fired bolt gun.

Both the nitro piston and the springer have a long lock time as the trigger releases a fairly long traveling piston. Plus, when the piston stops, it is slamming forward in the gun. In my mind it is a dual problem of follow through and holding the gun consistently from shot to shot. These guns just bounce when fired.

While firearms recoil, they do not bounce and move like a airgun with a fairly heavy piston slamming to a stop.

A friend of mine built an ultra-light 30-06, I shot it a couple of times and the recoil was ridiculous. As in, it should be illegal to build a 30-06 that light.

I was flinching for my next two range trips.

Really light triggers occasionally make me flinch. I've got an air pistol that does the same for me. I don't know why. I've also got a Freedom Arms in .45 Colt that makes me flinch sometimes even though my various Rugers and S&Ws in .45 Colt and .44 mag do not.

I just heard from a long time hunter and avid shooter how to get rid of a flinch, take it with a grain of salt.

He says dry fire practice is the safest and easiest way to get over a flinch. Use a spent shell (snap cap if you care about your gun) and work on building back the "muscle memory", he went on to say that the sound and recoil is what makes people anticipate the shots (flinch).

I think he has a point, I'm going to give it a try.

For what its worth,
Ron.