Flinch, a case study

One of the things that I've found VERY helpful with shooting is taking video of the process and examining key parts frame-by-frame. A $100-150 point-n-shoot digital camera from Walmart can now record 720 or 1080 HD video and dump right into your laptop for immediate review. 30fps isn't quite stop motion, but it's a whole lot faster than your eye can process an entire image.

I took some video of Kay and Karl this weekend with the AR, and they both have a pretty standard flinch. Most of us have it to one degree or another, but it can be controlled with a lot of repetition and a good dose of ball'n'dummy drill.

We'll start with Karl. These four frames are from the same shot sequence, and we'll go through one by one. As always, click to embiggen:

Karl has a pretty good shooting position here. Nose is not-quite to charging handle, not dragging wood, good cheek weld, buttstock is tucked well into the shoulder... I'm not a fan of the magwell grip, but for bench shooting there's nothing terribly wrong with it.


The trigger is back, the bolt is mid-recoil (on the back-stroke), and Karl's just been tapped in the nose by the charging handle. And his eyes are closing/closed.


The rifle is at the back of its recoil stroke, the brass is ejected and the bolt is closed on the next cartridge - but Karl hasn't finished his recoil stroke yet. Full-on face-squinch... but wait, there's more!


That pop in the nose from the CH was enough to break his cheek weld. His eyes are coming back open here but his cheek is off the stock still. In any kind of precision shooting, consistency from shot to shot is the key. Losing your cheek weld (and getting smacked in the nose by your rifle) is not a consistent shooting platform.

Looks like some ball'n'dummy is in Karl's immediate future!

On to Kay:

Due to vision issues, Kay doesn't sit her nose right on the charging handle. Aside from that, this isn't a bad arrangement. An A2 stock is a hair long for her - note the position of the buttstock relative to her shoulder - but that's not something I can readily fix. (An A1 stock would be a big improvement, I think. Sadly, a carbine stock isn't legal on this rifle.)


Kay has just started the trigger pull, and her eyes are already closed...


Brass ejected, bolt is back forward, and Kay's eyes are still closed. She did, however, keep her trigger back like I taught her - so it's not all bad. It's also worth noting that the stock has slipped *up* on her shoulder by a fraction of an inch, which would have the lovely effect of throwing shots low.


Also to her credit, Kay didn't lose her cheek weld through this whole process, meaning she was riding the recoil perfectly.

If you have new shooters - or are just curious about your own form - a video camera and tripod can be a great teaching tool. It's easy to say, "You flinched." ... it's MUCH more impressive to SHOW them their flinch.

Busy Weekend

The weather flipped to Indian Summer late last week, and the weekend was fantastic - the kind of days that change this area from "generally ok" to "wonderful". Nights in the 40s and 50s, days in the 70s without a cloud in the sky. The trees have all started to change, and while we're not at peak color, it's not far off. With the wet summer we had and a couple nights of hard cold I'm optimistic for a banner year on foliage...

Given the weather forecast, and a weekend roughly aligning with MrsZ's, we took advantage of the weather.

Saturday morning I met my new shooter Kay and her son Karl at the range for a bit of playtime. Since it was finally nice out we were able to use the outdoor range, and set up zombie targets at 25m and 100m along with a couple water bottles at 100m.

We started small, after a quick review of safety rules, with my Savage MkII. As always, it performed like a champ and both Kay and Karl were knocking out quarter-size groups at 25m. We switched to 100m, which is well inside the capabilities of the rifle, and they both put a couple magazines worth of headshots into poor Zombie Bob. (For those curious, the come-up for Federal 550 bulk pack .22 is about 6MOA between 25m and 100m.)

Both of them were pretty bored with .22 by that point, so I brought out the AR. We went over the function of the rifle and then they settled right in with it. A couple boxes of .223 later, Bob was well-ventilated and Kay had knocked over the half-gallon milk jug. A few tries on the half-liter bottles were unsuccessful, though...

Last but not least, I got out my .270, showed them the difference in cartridges (with a note about the trope of "high power assault rifles") and let them have at it. My .270 is nothing to write home about; it's a budget rifle with budget glass but it can turn in respectable groups and has a not-bad trigger. Each of them put a few rounds in to Bob, then I showed them the 250m plate we have at the range. Waaaaay back there in the treeline... I smacked it one for three, then let Karl take a crack at it - that young man knocked it two out of four. One of the nice things about those mid-bore rifles is a pretty forgiving maximum point-blank; a 150m zero will give me a 4" MPBR of about 280-300m, with plenty of power for a deer anywhere in that range.

Range trip over, I dumped the guns back in the safe and grabbed lunch with MrsZ and my folks, then it was on to work at BBHIS. Nothing of note there.

Sunday morning we slept in, then wandered over to the "gun" show in a nearby county. Talk about disappointing. The web site listed it as a 350-table show, which would have been well worth the trip. It was on an indoor soccer field, and they used perhaps 1/3 of the available space for perhaps 80-100 tables. Fewer than half the tables had guns of any kind, and those were mostly field guns... bolt- and lever-action rifles, double shotguns, etc. There was one display with modern pistols; all over-priced, and a half-dozen black rifles of various flavors. ($950 for a "Delaware Machine" no-name AR, MSRP for a S&W M&P15-22, and no interest in negotiating.) Lots of milsurp of various flavors, and a LOT of Nazi-ish stuff. (MrsZ came to me after about 15-20 minutes of wandering and asked why there were so many swastikas on display.) A few tables of ammo at ridiculous prices ($10/20 Silver Bear .223). Overall, very disappointing. I'll save some pennies for the spring show in Syracuse, I think.

Sunday late afternoon I put the gable walls into the barn, so that's nearly done. It needs a few more pieces of trim work and such done, but it's weather-proofed and will stay dry for the winter. We watched a movie with dinner and headed for bed early...

And today it's back to work. I'll be working on things outside this afternoon and as many afternoons as possible while the weather holds. There's plenty of cleaning and organizing to get done; bow season starts this coming Saturday, and and and...

On the plus side, we've got a good start on getting things put up:

Vague ideas

After my discussions with my new shooter - particularly about not knowing where to turn for "this is how to start" instructions - there is a vague idea floating around in my head of trying to start something at the range. I suppose getting NRA RSO/Instructor creds would be a good start...

Somewhere down the road ... my own range?

Let me put on my bus drivin' hat

... and watch as the Wall Street Journal tosses the pres_ent under the bus.

What is it that Mr. Obama doesn't like about the United States—a country that sent him hurtling like an American Idol contestant from the obscurity of an Illinois Senate seat to the presidency in a mere four years?

Read the whole thing. And note that through the whole article he is referred to as "Mr. Obama," not "President O" ... interesting.

Damn, kids

Ambulance Driver went and started a contest/fund drive to raise money for cancers last month. And they kicked some major ass... Over eight thousand dollars. Unbelievable, and incredibly generous of all of you: the contributors, the prize donors, and the men who were confident enough in their masculinity to wander around in a kilt. (Thus called because that's what happened to the last man who called it a skirt.)

My hat is off to all of you.