hello, since I am new here (please read my intro post) I may be saying something already covered. I found out by accident one day while firing a new revolver many years ago why my groups were low and scattered when I tried to fire a spent case. when I pulled the trigger the muzzle jumped down and left! I had been flinching and not known it the whole time. now I use this as a training tool for myself and others I shoot with to mix some spent cases into a cylinder at random and then rotate the cylinder and close it without looking. you will see then if you are flinching or not and learn to avoid it. on rifles and muzzle loaders and shotguns I will have another person cycle the action either with a fresh or spent case without the shooter knowing which is which. try it sometime.
Welcome to the forum copadres!!!!! From deep south Texas. Had not posted in a month or so. too busy. Yeah, I remember having to "relearn" my trigger control @ 40 years ago. My first handgun was a Super Blk Hk. Took a while to get over the habit of pulling it down.
My wife and I were at a friends house and we both wondered why we were hitting the dirt halfway to the target. My friend said let me have you gun a minute to reload it. He gave the gun back and said now shoot it. Well he had loaded a few spent rounds in the gun with a few live rounds. When we pulled the trigger on the dead rounds we could plainly see we were dropping the muzzle so badly. He proved his point we were dropping the muzzle in anticipation of the recoil. Yet we had no idea we were doing that. Another thought could be that we drop the muzzle to see where we hit. I do believe that is possibly as great a cause if not more than caused by recoil anticipation. To this day sometimes when I pull the trigger on a dead round I see myself dropping the muzzle. People often see their first shot is basically on point of aim but the second is off poa and the 3rd is often even more off target. Our brains really do strange things without our knowing it. Well perhaps it really is us that are guiding the brain thoughts. LOL We often don't pay attention to our quiet thoughts. Actually we are talking quietly to ourselves most all of the time.
