What is a "flinch" worth in MOA ?

Jester560 said:

I developed a flinch after a shot at an awkward angle resulted in a scar on the forehead by my left eye. It was worth at least 1.5moa if not more. Took a good while to retrain myself.

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There's a huge difference between a flinch and a duck! Just saying...LOL

Jester560 said:

I developed a flinch after a shot at an awkward angle resulted in a scar on the forehead by my left eye. It was worth at least 1.5moa if not more. Took a good while to retrain myself.

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Just don't conflate between a flinch, and poor recoil management.

A flinch takes place before the shot takes place. That is an anticipation error in technique and is correctable.

Recoil management occurs obviously after the shot. Having a consistency in recoil is testimonial to consistency in technique but depending on the cartridge and rifle set up, following the shot can be difficult, but not impossible. The more you do it, the easier it gets imo.

Flinching from pain afterwords has no bearing on the shot if anticipation did not occur. Though, its rifles these days are not like shooting a mosin nagant with a steel stock. As little sacking up might be necessary.

Flinch = Miss Over Animal or Miss Outside Aiming point

I saw a guy that flinched so bad he couldn't keep 3 shots in a 4 foot x 4 foot target at 100 yards. By the way he was shooting a Ruger #3 in 458 WM.

I've seen a lot of shooters shoot. Learners to experienced. There are experienced shooters that I see close their eyes at the last millisecond and yank the trigger a bit. They have achieved the proverbial "minute of deer" but could they they do better, absolutely.

I learned to avoid a flinch long ago by concentrating on seeing the muzzle blast. IMHO, a flinch is also accompanied with closing the eyes. But that's just my observation.

These days I have a horrid tremor. Sometimes, I feel like if my tremor is bad, somedays, I just sort of guess at when I am on target and yank the trigger. Different kind of flinch, same effect on bad day......

hemiford said:

There's been some good threads and discussions about the price some shooters potentially pay for using a bigger cartridge,
the price is flinch and loss of accuracy.

Now I know you can't really quantify this, but how much MOA increase, say at 100 yds, do you suppose a flinch would cost you ?

Obviously at longer yardage the flinch error is more.

Also the bigger the cartridge powder grains, more potential flinch.

Any guesses / ideas ? One man's flinch is not another man's flinch !

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I've seen people flinch so badly that they couldn't hit a banana box @ 100 yards…….from a rest!

I knew of a guy that knew that he flinched badly……but thought that it was a consistent flinch. He had my gunsmith sight in his rifle …….adjusting for his flinch! Ya just can't make this up! memtb

Recoil should surprise you every time. Finger pad 90 degrees to trigger face.
Shoot 30 rounds of 300gr. 450 bushmaster, then shoot anything else. 300WM seems like a 243!!!

Hard question.....answer is dependent on the size and shape( direction )of the flinch!