Posted: 5/24/2010 10:07:29 AM EDT
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Hi Ladies,
I could use some help. I have a woman friend who is a probation/parole officer. She is about 5'3" and 105 lbs with a very petite frame. She selected a Glock 19 9 mm as a carry gun after shooting mine extensively. Last summer she was drawing from a holster, performing administrative, tactical and emergency reloads and clearing failures to fire. I was very proud of her. She is a safe shooter and very good student. I have been teaching her since last March (2009) and she was doing very well. Last week we were out at the range and she has developed a flinch anticipating the recoil and she told me that she has begun to shut her eyes as she is pressing the trigger. She never used to do this ! I told her to practice her trigger press via dry fire method and to concentrate on not closing her eyes. The next time we can get to the range, I will be bringing my Glock 17 with the .22 conversion kit already in place. This is what I started her out on. We'll return to the beginning so to speak. She is going to be going to her four day concealed carry class that our state's Department of Corrections runs for probation/parole officers. I do not want her to go to the training and fail. Soon she will be managing the sex offender case load in her county. It is a rural county, which means police back up may be a long time coming. I also told her that if she want to, before she heads to her training, if she wants to spend the day at the range to let me know and I will use either a vacation or sick day. My background : Former military and current Corrections Officer. I deal with the "barbarians" everyday in the cell block. I have trained under some very good instructors and I practice as much as possible. Before I retired from the National Guard, I was the battalion pistol instructor even though I was a medic. Any suggestions you ladies have for me would be very greatly appreciated. Medicguy |
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If she didn't do this before, what caused the change in habit? Seems like something happened to make her fear recoil.. Does she have an injury or hurt herself while shooting sometime? I used to not flinch until I broke some bones in my right hand, now it hurts to fire and I can feel myself flinching from time to time... I work through it, because I know a b/g isn't going to stop because my hand hurts. Some people don't think that far ahead on this sort of thing. |
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I think your advice is right on. She's thinking about it too much, and dry-firing will help.
Also - What helped me a lot in my training was having another guy load my mags with two dummy rounds and 8 live rounds randomly placed in each mag. That way, I knew I had two or three dummy rounds, but didn't know when it was coming. It really helped me concentrate more and also brought to my attention the times that I did anticipate the recoil. I was able to work through it and became a much better shot by the end.  Just something to consider.
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It may not be fear but she is "anticipating" the recoil.
Several things. First Double up on the ear protection. Two have her mentally focus on slowly spelling saying P-R-E-S-S... and pulling the trigger randomly before she gets to the end of the word. Also practice practice practice. In fact take her pistol and only load one round. Let her shoot. Turn your back... put an empty shell in the chamber without seeing it. Let her shoot. Randomly swap between a bullet and a shell until she pulls the trigger the same each time. Dry fire 100 times a night. Seriously she isn't using the gun enough to feel comfortable with the bang. This is from someone with the WORST startle reflex ever. I too anticipate the recoil. You HAVE TO USE THE GUN or it won't ever go away. |
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Know what? I do it, too..but depending on her reasons for shooting, you might be making too much of it. Does she still hit the target effectively..ie: can she hit an area center of mass even with the flinch? She may be concentrating so much on aiming and anticipating that she's missing a whole forest full of trees. I know its counterintuitive and I'm not an expert by any means, but if I'm standing in one place trying to hit a target, I have a flinch..if I'm shooting and moving, as I'd likely be doing in a defensive situation, I hit COM 99% of the time. My groups won't fit on a dime, but they will fit on some asshole's chest.
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Quoted: I think your advice is right on. She's thinking about it too much, and dry-firing will help. Also - What helped me a lot in my training was having another guy load my mags with two dummy rounds and 8 live rounds randomly placed in each mag. That way, I knew I had two or three dummy rounds, but didn't know when it was coming. It really helped me concentrate more and also brought to my attention the times that I did anticipate the recoil. I was able to work through it and became a much better shot by the end. Just something to consider.This is what my boyfriend and I do with each other when one of us starts to develop a flinch. It shows us how bad our flinch is and makes us realize that that is the cause for us hitting low on the target. Then we practice firing with a snap cap while we're at home. We place a nickel (or other coin) on the front site and attempt to dry fire a couple times without letting it fall off the site. It keeps you very steady and becomes second nature.
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Thank you for the additional tips.
We are heading out to the range tomorrow. Tried to yesterday, but the weather did not cooperate. When I talk her through her sight picture (what she should be seeing) she does great. The last time we were at the range she shot the hell out of the target stand, not so much the target though ! She said she has been dry firing more and concentrating on NOT closing her eyes as she presses the trigger. We are going to practice tomorrow and again on Friday. We should be able to get about 4 hours of practice each day. Monday she reports for her four day training course. Thanks again for the tips. Medicguy |
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If she is closing her eyes that is anticipating the noise more than the recoil most likely so doubling up hearing protection is a good idea.
What I've found that works well with flinching is a .22 conversion and dummy rounds. I purchased a .22LR conversion for our deparment Sig pistols on my own dime because it works very well at conditioning a shooter without developing bad habits. The dummy rounds just re-inforce the same thing but they are nice because the shooter needs to shoot full power loads to get used to the gun as it will fire in combat. If someone is flinching I usually start with the .22 and fire several hundred rounds. Then I move to magazines with dummy round randomly dispersed. Then I move to drills with all standard ammo. If you start to see the flinch come back, start putting dummies in again. The advice to focus on dry fire is also good. Dry practice is a terrific muscle memory builder. |
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Quoted: An update on my lady friend. She just called me not more than five minutes ago. She passed. She was one point shy of a perfect score. Needless to say, I am very pleased. Thank you again to all who offered their suggestions. I'm glad everything worked out for her! Just encourage her to continue shooting and she'll get better and feel more comfortable with it! |