Do you want to get rid of your shooting flinch? You know, that one that makes you shoot low and left (if you are right-handed) consistently? Who wouldn’t?
I contacted two good friends, Steve “Yeti” Fisher of Sentinal Concepts and Chuck Pressburg of Presscheck Consulting, who are excellent pistol shooters and top-rated trainers. They both told me that I sucked and then gave me some great advice, shoot ball ammo and dummy rounds. A lot….
Disclaimer: There are a TON of types of flinches, not just one. This drill focuses on you noticing the flinch, not diagnosing what kind of flinch you are displaying.
As much as shooters poke fun at other shooters for having a flinch, many times it isn’t because the gun scared us, but instead, it has a lot to do with bad habits formed after thousands and thousands of rounds shot over several years without formal instruction. Maybe you are trying to mitigate the pistol’s recoil before the shot breaks like I was.
Before we go any further, you will need a couple of things to make this drill a ton easier on you:
- Dummy rounds – I prefer the Glock brand ones since they are really cheap, and I tend to lose one or two each time I do this drill. You can find them on Brownells for about $37 per 50 with an included box, but they can go for about $15 cheaper if you happen to catch them on sale.
- 3″ Bullseyes or Target Pasters – I normally get mine from Amazon, where a 25-sheet package with nine targets per sheet will set you back $14.99 for the 3″ bulls, or you can opt for the 1″ paper dots that run $10.00 for 1,000 little brown dots.
- Cardboard Targets – You can also use scrap cardboard if you like, but I prefer using IPSC/USPSA targets since I have several hundred Action Target brand ones tucked in the garage.
Something that I have struggled with for years as a handgun shooter is flinching just prior to the shot breaking. It wasn’t until Rob Letham showed me exactly what I was doing in a pretty unconventional way. He told me to take aim at the target and then proceeded to pull the trigger for me. The result? It was a nice, tight group that I couldn’t have replicated if my life depended on it at that time in my shooting career.
Now, there are a ton of really old targets out there that will “diagnose” your flinch, but they are really centered around old-style bullseye shooting.
When I asked Steve Fisher about the “diagnosis target,” he replied, “Junk.” When I pressed him for more info, he explained it in more detail, saying:
“It’s a carryover from one-handed pistol shooting taught by the military around the same time that bullseye shooting was popular and has little bearing on the modern defensive and ‘gaming’ techniques taught today.”
The Shooting Drill:
So I already told you that ball and dummy is the name of the drill. As you might guess, it involves some ball ammunition and some dummy rounds loaded in random combinations. The idea is to have someone load your magazines with dummy rounds loaded randomly so that you have no idea where in the magazine they are.
The goal is to have no idea if the round you are pulling the trigger on is live or a dummy. Now, if you are by yourself at the range like I often am, take a ton of magazines, load them all at once randomly, and mix them up so you have no idea what is in each mag.
Once you get all loaded up, head to the 3-yard line and start shooting at the 3″ bull or paster. As you come across a dummy round and flinch, clear the gun and perform ten dry fires, then reload the gun and continue.
Make sure that every time you flinch on a dummy, you take that ten dry fire penalty.
That is about all there is to the drill. It isn’t super hard, but the benefits that I saw with my shooting were incredible after two full-range days and 1,000 rounds of 9mm.
A few hundred bucks is worth taking your shooting skill to a new level.
I want to thank Chuck and Steve for letting me bug them for advice. I strongly encourage you to look into both trainers and see if there is a class in your area, you won’t regret it.
About Patrick R.
Patrick is a firearms enthusiast that values the quest for not only the best possible gear setup, but also pragmatic ways to improve his shooting skills across a wide range of disciplines. He values truthful, honest information above all else and had committed to cutting through marketing fluff to deliver the truth. You can find the rest of his work on FirearmRack.com as well as on the YouTube channel Firearm Rack or Instagram at @thepatrickroberts.
I diagnosed my flinch with a laser. Dry fire with it on, and watch the little dot dance. Still working on recoil anticipation.
buy a 22 pistol go have fun with it get calmed down, then return to your normal , go to have fun. I shoot a 50 ae as my hunting pistol, also carry it as back up in normal season, it has a heavy slide so recoil is two directions ,but I am used to it,have had it since 1988 early 89
most people who flinch, are TRYING TO ANTICIPATE THE RECOIL JUST BEFORE THE ROUND IS FIRED
I’VE DONE IT MYSELF.
now i don’t, anymore i just point and shoot.
so do you take time to line up the top of the front site and the sides? I don’t and I call that point and shoot. When I take time to line everything up, I call it aiming. Just want to know.
When I got my first 1911 about 60 years ago, I was given several hundred rounds of old ammo. REALLY old ammo! 25% of them wouldn’t fire, so I quickly identified my flinch. Interestingly, the WWI pistol came with a wood dowel, and I learned to quickly dissamble it to poke out the squibs. Back in those days firearms were never put away “dirty”, so I got lots of practice cleaning it, also. Now days I always load dummy rounds when teaching, as well as with my own training. It’s always interesting to see the student’s reaction to their first… Read more »
Combat shooting is certainly valuable, but not practical to what actually waits out there.
How is combat shooting not practical? Identify and prioritize threats, present and shoot quickly and accurately. Seems like exactly what one needs for defensive shooting. No question combat shooting is applicable to defense of freedom as well.
Perhaps we have different understanding of what combat shooting is?
I might flinch? I no longer take my time when I aim and line up the sights. I point it up and the second I see the little dot on the paper through the sites I pull the trigger so the bullets go pretty fast because there is no leveling and no making sure the sight out front is perfectly centered. No bullseye with that method but at 7 yards I can put them all on a sheet of paper no problem. When I shoot 30 yards I have to aim and concentrate but I am shooting at clay’s. If… Read more »
Not flinch, but seems like what author includes – I’ve had issues of pulling off alignment while pulling trigger. No need for mixing dummy rounds with live rounds – just dryfire with eyes on the sights. For me trigger finger placement is key – near tip of finger on my S&W, but close to first knuckle with glock. No idea why they are different – but when I switched to glock I couldn’t hit anything.
I’d recommend starting any new shooter with dryfire. Certainly a lot cheaper than expending real ammo in vain attempt to hit something.
I was originally taught to pull with the tip of my finger so I can feel it better for when the round is going to fly. Those were stock triggers back in the day that were about 5 lbs. Today with 3 lb pull I really need to use my finger tip because my hand is so small, if I try and put my finger in up to the first knuckle, it might send a round off. I feel that going to the first knuckle would probably be better to guarantee a pull but I don’t want to take a… Read more »
Need a lesson on how not to flinch with my S&W 500 Magnum. I think I’m doing pretty good as I don’t flinch most of the time but my biggest problem is not settling before pulling the trigger.
Feel like a sissy when I first realized I was flinching. 🙂
A revolver is the easiest way to do this ball and dummy drill. Just load an empty case in one of the chambers, with the remaining chambers loaded with live ammo. Then spin the cylinder without looking at it as you close it up. You won’t know which chamber contains the empty case.
You’ll be astonished how much you jerk the gun when you pull the trigger.
That’s how I always practice with my S&W 500 magnums. Three live rounds two fired ones. And it translates over pretty well because if I can keep from flinching with the 500, I have no problem with not flinching with a 380 or 9mm.Or even a 10mm or .45.
I see many people doing this without intending to do so at our local USPSA matches. Poor reloading skills and lack of gun maintenance are the main culprits.
What in the world do either have to do with flinching?
Unintentional dummy rounds.
I’ve done this with my group. Also added empty shells to (often) cause FTL malfunctions.
It is both fun, practical, and an eye-opener for folks.
FTL? The shells are for use in revolvers. None FTL as they occupy the cylinder and only the ball goes through via the forcing cone and barrel. Are you saying you’ve attempted to load a “shell” into a semi auto?
FTL = FTF is how I interpreted it.