Shoulder Tension

[Nuthatch]

Okay, with my equipment running better, I'm turning my attention to the goofball behind the gun. I've only been playing around with flintlocks for about a year so I'm still rather new. I dare not hunt big game with them yet since my accuracy is only so-so. In my recent test of ignition time, I took some video footage of me shooting about a dozen shots with my trade gun. Part of why I took that footage was to look more carefully at my form & my flinch. I was focused on the front sight. But in that moment between the time that the trigger breaks and before the ball exits the barrel, my shoulder tenses up ever so slightly. It's barely perceptible from the video and I can usually only see it by watching (frame by frame) my elbow raise just a tad between the time that I see smoke rising from the pan and the time that the flame is exiting the barrel. It's enough to throw the shot completely off target at 75 yards (10" gong). I start each shot with about medium tension in my shoulder -- firmly planted but not hard. Apparently, my subconscious knows that impact is coming and braces just a little more before the shot actually goes off.

So my question to the better shooters out there, what do you do with your shoulder before the shot? Do you start with nearly full tension? Completely relaxed & try to stay relaxed through the shot? Somewhere in the middle? What tricks or tips can you suggest to get the subconscious flinch out of the shot? In archery, I use a clicker to give my brain something else to focus on -- pulling through the shot. But, with a flintlock, the goal is to NOT move anything except the trigger finger. The mechanics are different but I'm sure there's some similar way to change the focus of my brain away from the coming impact after the trigger breaks.

 

[necchi]

Excellent question. There are several techniques, I hope this thread stays alive and on topic for a long time.
But beating that darn flinch can be a life long need for continued practice. It is a head game of trying to control the body's natural reaction.

One I found that helps requires a partner or second person. Load the gun(or not), but then your partner will "prime" the pan behind your back and hand the "ready to shoot" gun back to you.
Only the partner will randomly "Not" prime, handing back to you a closed frizzen with no powder in the pan.
Or, no load with a primed pan,, Get it?
The shooter has to be a blind to the rifles condition to fire or not.
The drill will demonstrate to the shooter just how much of a reaction there is, creating a situation for the shooter to control those reactions

 

[HSmithTX]

The short answer is yes, to all of the above. Very high level shooters in every discipline shoot with very high levels of tension and others very high level shooters will shoot with relatively low amounts of tension and it has to do with each person's own unique needs. I shoot everything with very high levels of tension, my body will do that without tremors or other motion. I learned to do this in action shooting competition and I was decent at it, all of the top teachers I trained with and all that I am aware of advise to shoot with 100% of the tension you can muster without disturbing the sights or impeding the trigger pull and the more you shoot the more tension you can develop and the more tension you will shoot with. My son is a very good shot and he has to shoot with relatively low levels of tension because his body will not allow as much tension without involuntary motion, it can be overcome but I think it's a bit more difficult than it is for someone that can create a lot of tension. Lighter trigger weights and heavier guns tend to help people that can't create a lot of tension without involuntary motion.

Another point maybe? Very rarely (if ever) will you find a high level shooter that doesn't know exactly when the shot will break and they force the break when it needs to break. This is not to say they don't do that smoothly and absolutely they do follow all the way through the shot. The notion that you should be surprised at the shot I think contributes to a flinch, and hang on for all the comments about how wrong I am. Oh well. If I were to tell you I was going to punch you in the arm so get ready, I pull back and punch you in the arm fairly hard, you would be fully tensed, braced, and it would be relatively not an event at all. Now, I tell you I am going to punch you in the arm in the next little bit, and I wait until you aren't looking or expecting it my punch is going to have a lot more effect on you. Now, we are going to do this stupid exercise 20 times in the next hour. If you're ready for the punch each time yeah your arm is going to get sore but nothing like if you aren't ready for the 20 impacts. The other thing high level shooters do that shooters not at a high level don't understand at all is 'drive the gun' and forcing the break when the shot presents itself requires driving the gun. When you drive the gun you can remove quite a few conscious thoughts from the process and that is a good thing. Your brain is smart and it doesn't want you to experience unpleasant things, like big booms and getting smacked by a rifle LOL. Demand and command control of the entire process with as much tension as you can muster and see what happens, it might help you a lot.

Necchi has given the same advise I did in an earlier thread, having the rifle loaded or not for you 'blind' is a tremendous training tool. If you don't know whether or not it's loaded you will have to buckle down and prepare to get hit, or flinch for the whole world to see and laugh with your buddy. Drive the gun through the shot loaded or not is a learned experience, and you learn it a whole lot faster by doing this than by shooting poorly executed shot after poorly executed shot. Dryfire is a great tool as well, the more reps you can get in without getting punched by the gun the easier it will be to take the hit when you do shoot. In the end, you have to be willing to align and maintain alignment of the sights knowing your are going to get punched to be a good shot. You can also be punched audibly, double hearing protection is also a good idea at the minimum while you sort it out but 100% of the time while shooting it's a good idea.

The last thing I think you HAVE to do to be a good shooter is call your shots and even though all these things tie together I think this is the one thing you can never relax on the importance of, if you don't know exactly (within reason) where that shot landed without looking at the target you will never achieve the highest level of shooting you are capable of. If you don't know that the last shot broke slightly high and left without looking at the target you weren't in the shot, your focus was elsewhere when it needed to be on the front sight, or you would have seen that it was slightly high and left when the sight started to lift in recoil. You have to see this, there is nothing that can take it's place. When you get good at this you will find that the shot breaks when it needs to, and everything slows way way down during the shot, your shooting will elevate dramatically and it will elevate dramatically with ANY gun you pick up.

Not everyone will be and I don't think everyone can be an exceptional shooter, just like I think some people despite all of the training and desire and practice will ever be an exceptional painter of portraits, but everyone can get better at everything with training and desire and practice. I do think that everyone can be a solid shooter and among the people shooting that will put you in the upper tier for sure.

Hope this helps.

 

[64Springer]

Pull it TIGHT. Keep it TIGHT.

Squeeze the trigger slowly until the gun goes off by surprise. Don't anticipate and yank the trigger back. Don't think about recoil at all.

Follow through. Keep the gun shouldered for a couple of seconds after the gun goes off.

Most importantly is to ignore the fact that a 1,700 degree flame is erupting nine inches from your face.

If you can't ignore that flash in the pan, you're shooting will not improve.


PS: Learn how to shoot accurately at 25 yards. 75 yards is WAY TOO FAR when you're trying to learn a new rifle. Solid hits at close range will help to build confidence in both you and your rifle.

 

[andy52]

I'm turning my attention to the goofball behind the gun.

That is by far the hardest part of becoming a good shooter.
Some are born with that ability, and some learn it very early as a child. It becomes more difficult as you get older. Depending on what age you were when you started shooting it may be a mental thing you'll have to overcome, rather than an innate feeling of learning as a child.

 

[hanshi]

Starting with my very first flintlock rifle in the late 1960s I never particularly noticed the pan flash and never looked at it. I easily focused on just the front sight and was a good shot. Now with my physical problems I'm not even close to that kind of accuracy.

I've never given any thought to shoulder tension. I always just snug the butt plate to my shoulder and fire. I'm sure a good bit of shoulder tension is there I just never gave it a thought.

 

[kansas_volunteer]

We used to teach in the army, assuming a right-handed shooter, the left arm was for holding the rifle up and the right for firmly pulling the butt into the shoulder pocket. Doing this -- firmly -- ought to give proper shoulder tension. One needn't raise the right elbow to ear level to do this, as some shooters do, to have a good kind of tension in the shoulder. The rifle will shove not kick.

 

[DixieTexian]

I'm not a particularly great shot with a flintlock (yet, I hope), but I've found I shoot best when I hold the butt firmly against my shoulder, but more relaxed. I think the biggest key is finding the right position so that the recoil doesn't drive the toe into your shoulder. Find that position where it just pushes you instead of kicking you and shoot it enough that your mind doesn't worry about the recoil and you can relax your body and squeeze the trigger and follow through.

Years ago, I read an old USMC, I think, field manual on sniper training and it pretty much said that you want to find a position where your bone structure supports your rifle to aim at your target and relax so that your body doesn't have any chance at throwing the shot from involuntary movements. They even suggested putting a pad between the shoulder and stock not for recoil reduction, but so that your heart beat wouldn't throw off your aim.

 

[Don Steele]

I'm struggling with offhand flintlock shooting and following this thread as well. Unfortunately, there's no "live" high level coaching available so I'm reading whatever I can find on the topic, and trying to absorb what others share.
A lot of good information and opinion has been posted here already. I'll add a couple of thoughts from my own experience that seem to help me.
1.) I understand the concept of having someone along who will prime, or not prime the rifle before you take your shot. Seems like a great idea and I'd like to try that.
2.) I find that it helps a bit if I have complete confidence in my rifle's ability to put balls in the X-ring. I'll take a few shots ( 2-3) from a single point rest, that holds the rifle where I grip it. Knowing that the rifle and load combination is "spot on" puts it all on me ( where it belongs) to make my shots do the same, without the rest.
3. If I remember correctly, there used to be a "Sticky" on this forum titled: "Flintlock Shooting Tips". It seems to have gone away. One of the very best tips I remember was to focus on the front sight, and "Hold Through The Shot". That definitely helps me, when I'm doing it and not carelessly/casually trying to shoot without appropriate attention to such fundamentals.
4. I don't know how folks "hold" their rifles on the target. I hear a lot of talk about holding high, holding low, etc.. To understand my quandry..allow me to brag a little. I'm 73 and I make it to my local gym every other day for cardio and weight training. In other words...when I look around at my fellow shooters who are pretty much all in the "mature" age group I'm far and away in considerably better physical condition. That said...I gotta tell you....when I'm shooting offhand, there's no "holding" going on. I'm a fly-by shooter. Not sure how to improve that situation.
I'm looking forward to other shooter's comments, and recommendations.
Thanks.

 

[French Colonial]

Regarding item four above, I do not know what others sight picture looks like while shooting off hand but after shooting for years you can learn to more or less control the "wobble" as the sights move in out and around the X I can pretty much start guiding the wobble (some days better than others) That with knowing when the trigger will break and you can make the two coincide for that winning shot. (dry fire dry fire dry fire)

Learn when the trigger will break, the wobble will be there learn to accept it, follow through (sights don't move)

HsmithTX covered all the basics.
If you want to stop the flinch, have a group of your buddies stand around and watch you shoot a mediocre flinter, when they start hooting and laughing when it klatches and you flinch you stop flinching pretty quick.

 

[DuncNZ]

Shoot off a rest to reduce the wobble until you get used to the flash , put in a wooden "flint " and practice dry firing , shoot with just powder in the pan and the rifle unloaded , I am totally unaware if I flinch or not , I have a titanium right shoulder which doesn't help .

 

[Tumbledown]

Ignore the sound of the trigger/frizzen operating, ignore the flash. Wait for the BOOM.

 

[Sidney Smith]

I shoot my flintlocks the same way I shoot any rifle. I don't even give a thought to shoulder tension. I just place the butt of the gun as I would any other. What you need to work on is being able to control the flinch. You just have to teach yourself to remain steady through the firing procedure. Once you master that, you won't even notice and the flinch will be gone.

It's no different than shooting a rifle in a heavy recoili once you get to understandi g that its going to recoil, you won't subconsciously be anticipating it.

 

[hanshi]

If I'm shooting at a bullseye target groups are better if I'm using a straight barrel with a muzzle heavy feel. A well balanced rifle with a swamped barrel never did as well in offhand shooting. A muzzle heavy rifle moves the front sight very slowly across the target allowing time to fire before it moves away from the X-ring so that the trigger can be pulled and not ******.

A rifle muzzle tends to move in a "figure 8". As the sights cross the X-ring a trigger pull started just before the center of the "X" is reached the trigger will release the shot where it's needed. Practice with an unloaded rifle can cause the figure 8 to get smaller and smaller. This, of course, leads one to becoming a much better shot. A swamped barrel can be as accurate with a tamed figure 8 as the hold is mastered.

 

[SciAggie]

@Nuthatch Congratulations on your willingness to look at yourself for ways to improve accuracy. With either you or the rifle, consistency is the key to accuracy. Firm hold or light - attempt to achieve consistency. I pull the rifle “snugly” into my shoulder. I have no clue how to quantify that in pounds. As others have said letting the gun have a run at you will result in unpleasant recoil. At the same time if you grip things so tightly you have muscle tremors accuracy will suffer. Think about striving for consistency.

It’s interesting that your question is essentially about the basics of good marksmanship. It matters not if you are shooting a flintlock, caplock, BP cartridge rifle, or modern precision cartridge rifle at extended range - the fundamentals of good marksmanship are identical. Flintlocks are good teachers because they reveal our errors quite dramatically.

Several posts above have covered the goal of these fundamentals. You need a stable stance/platform, focus on the front sight, trigger control, and follow through. The advice given to call your shots is excellent advice. You must be honest with yourself. you must know where the sights were when the trigger broke. You must also self assess your follow through. Dry firing with a wooden flint is excellent practice.

 

[Nuthatch]

@Nuthatch It matters not if you are shooting a flintlock, caplock, BP cartridge rifle, or modern precision cartridge rifle at extended range - the fundamentals of good marksmanship are identical. Flintlocks are good teachers because they reveal our errors quite dramatically.

Several posts above have covered the goal of these fundamentals. You need a stable stance/platform, focus on the front sight, trigger control, and follow through. The advice given to call your shots is excellent advice. You must be honest with yourself. you must know where the sights were when the trigger broke. You must also self assess your follow through. Dry firing with a wooden flint is excellent practice.

While the fundamentals are the same, the execution is very different in flintlocks. Where the sights are at the break of the trigger doesn't matter nearly as much as where they are when the ball exits. There's enough time there, be it only a fraction of a second, to make those very different things. I don't see how anybody can call their shot on a flintlock. Those sights are long gone behind smoke & flash when the ball exits. I can see where I can know where the sights were when the trigger broke. But where they are when the ball exits, only the target or a video can tell me that.

On the video, taken frame by frame, it's pretty clear -- click - pan flash - shoulder tenses - main charge goes off. In real time, it's a nice ka-boom. But there's a lot happening between the "ka" and the "boom" that I'm trying to figure out how to train around.

Target panic is a severe problem for me. The clicker on my longbow is a critical piece of gear & I can probably only get off 3 or 4 shots without it before my form breaks down & I start snapshooting again. I have to give my brain something else to focus on besides the release. I think I need some kind of flintlock equivalent -- something to occupy my mind so that I'm not focused on the sights I can't see or the coming nudge of the rifle.

 

[user 34300]

Eliminating flinch is huge. I shoot all rifles the same. All bone structure support. I never muscle anything. Muscles get tired. The sight wobble varies from day to day. Ignore it. Never try to time the break to the sight picture. Most of all don't flinch. Easy right? : )

With any athletic discipline, golf, free throws, or shooting, being relaxed is vital. If you try to force it you are sunk.

I eliminated my flinch by shooting a bow and a match quality air pistol. IF you finch with either you see it. If you shoot most days you will improve. Recoil disguises the flinch. With no finch you can call your shots accurately. When you can follow through with zero flinch you will shoot over 90% in most disciplines. Once you reduce the wobbly you will be more like 95%. At least that is how it evolved for me.

For me breaking the shot is not something I actively make happen. It is more like letting the ball or bullet free to fly on it's own. Maybe like exhaling. I do not deliberately pull the trigger. The trigger is obviously pulled but decisively and gradually. I do not think about. It is part of the sequence.

A tradtional archer draws his bow, when the draw is at a certain distance the hand relaxes and the arrow is released. The bow is not drawn to a certain anchor point and the hand released when the aim is perfect.

It is hard to put in words. Get an airgun and shot a lot!

 

[teakmtn]

A lot of good advice here as usual. I have been shooting flintlocks for 50+ years and was pretty good. I got away from it for about 10 years and when I got back into shooting I had a terrible flinch. Some of it I attribute to being less fit, I could work on that. Got a little better. The most beneficial training aid I found was as already suggested is to put a piece of wood in the cock jaws vs a flint, and pick a spot on the wall and dry fire, dry fire, dry fire. Watch your follow through on that spot. I did this for a month, every night for about 10 shots a night. It was a tremendous help. I'm happy to say I am a very good shot again. Also, look up "Natural Point of Aim". This teaches you where and how to stand when you present your rifle when shooting off hand.
Good Luck!
Cheers, Doug T.

 

[Sun City]

Whatever tension the shooter uses is immaterial to your question……as long as the tension stays consistent! Your ‘clicker’ when using standard barrel sights IS the FRONT SIGHT! The other consideration is that as far as overcoming a flinch can be accomplished, the realization that all the bad stuff concerning recoil exits the muzzle….not the buttplate! Noone will ever be accurate with shooting a flintlock ML, or even a caplock rifle, until such time as they overcome a flinch! After many rounds are fired through practice, you’ll eventually become so PO at yourself you will then overcome said problem!!

 

[HSmithTX]

While the fundamentals are the same, the execution is very different in flintlocks. Where the sights are at the break of the trigger doesn't matter nearly as much as where they are when the ball exits. There's enough time there, be it only a fraction of a second, to make those very different things. I don't see how anybody can call their shot on a flintlock. Those sights are long gone behind smoke & flash when the ball exits. I can see where I can know where the sights were when the trigger broke. But where they are when the ball exits, only the target or a video can tell me that.

On the video, taken frame by frame, it's pretty clear -- click - pan flash - shoulder tenses - main charge goes off. In real time, it's a nice ka-boom. But there's a lot happening between the "ka" and the "boom" that I'm trying to figure out how to train around.

Target panic is a severe problem for me. The clicker on my longbow is a critical piece of gear & I can probably only get off 3 or 4 shots without it before my form breaks down & I start snapshooting again. I have to give my brain something else to focus on besides the release. I think I need some kind of flintlock equivalent -- something to occupy my mind so that I'm not focused on the sights I can't see or the coming nudge of the rifle.

I disagree strongly that the execution is different in flintlocks, it is the same, and I state that as fact. If your sights are moving fast enough that they are in a significantly different position when the ball leaves than when the trigger broke you need to start there I think. No amount of 'practice' will fix that, and shooting is what most people call practice. Practice is focused training, generally the fewer things you are focused on the more progress you will make, in your situation I would focus on practice mostly from a bench or rest of some sort and get the sights to steady up (they never will get truly steady) so that the motion in them is slow enough you can see what is going on. I would also shoot 300-400 dry fire shots for every live fire shot. Verify clear and safe, and 'shoot' everything in your house dryfire. Light switches, window blind pulls, cut out and hang mini targets on walls. Key to this process is being dead honest with yourself, where was the front sight when the trigger broke and where was it when the 'shot' finished? In a few days to a few weeks doing this you will make massive progress as long as you can be honest with yourself. When you go live fire you will be able to call your shots with a flintlock because you will be able to see the front sight when it starts to lift in recoil. However, this I don't think is where you need to start.

Target panic is something else entirely and not many people understand it. It HAS to be addressed. NOW. Lots of guys will shoot their bow into a BLANK target at 3-4 FEET for a few days, until they can hold a bit and execute the shot without any panic. There is no target, there is no score, there is only the draw, hold, and release. When you can do that 5 days in a row without ONE panic, move back to 6-8 FEET and repeat. If you have a panic or flinch or stab the release you start over. Move back only a few feet at a time and do not try to take a shortcut. You need to be able to shoot a blank target with no panic at least 30 feet away on demand every single time. It could and probably should take 4-6 months to train the panic out, and to be blunt you are wasting time and components doing anything else until you get target panic under control. The guy that has been able to shoot his way out of target panic on targets with live fire is the guy I have never heard of. All the other stuff like clickers etc are band-aids on gaping wounds in my opinion. Dryfire on the order of thousands and thousands of shots has potential to fix the issue for some people, takes just as long and is just as much work though. You don't need to use any particular gun, a flintlock is a great choice with a wood flint, as there is induced motion by the cock hitting the frizzen etc. Double action revolvers are good choices, long hard trigger pulls will help. Plastic pistols with bad to not great triggers are also good, anything that is manageable yet somewhat difficult to execute the shot is better than something that is very easy to manage. The good news is if you do the work you will be able to shoot everything better.