I really HATE Flyers!!

[diego-ted]

You know you take your time, watch your breathing, are careful on the trigger, keep you eye on the target, follow through and STILL one goes off the grid! WHY?

Diego

[sevensix2x51]

hey, look at you! good shootin, tex!

[Fjold]

Crap happens.

[erik_26]

You know you take your time, watch your breathing, are careful on the trigger, keep you eye on the target, follow through and STILL one goes off the grid! WHY?

Diego

Dude, I feel your pain.


I try to shoot a full mag at one target. I start to get really anxious on the last two rounds if the first 8 where right on the money.

The only thing I can compare it too would be like bowling. You get two throw away from bowling 300 and then a gutter ball. (not that I am any good at bowling. I am lucky to break 100.) But you get the analogy.

[dieselpower]

just rejoice in the fact you killed a fly....or bee....or whatever was in the way.

[killshot44]

Yep, Range Flys....

Those buggers mess me up all the time.

[bjl333]

So thats what they are!!! I always wonder about the different path the 5th bullet always chooses!!!! Where I shoot the bugs ARE pretty big too !!!

[dstiltner]

One of the resident shooting instructors has termed it "When the heart smiles". Basically, you are so caught up in the fact that you have hit the mark on the previous shots and you lose focus on your marksmanship skills.

[rojocorsa]

I say they are simply a fact of life.


(Or a waste of a shot).

[nukechaser]

(a little "Appleseed"-ism)

Like any sport activity like swinging a golf club, throwing a ball, bowling, etc., one of the most important things to remain consistent is follow through.

Shooting is no different. When the trigger breaks, how fast is the bullet travelling? The answer is "it isn't". It takes some time, albeit a very, very short time, for the hammer to swing, strike the firing pin, ignite the primer and then the powder, pressure to build and THEN the bullet starts travelling down the barrel.

Any motion imparted to the rifle during this time will affect shot placement. This is why follow through with the trigger is so important. When the shot breaks make the conscious effort to not blink so you know where the sight was when it fired. This allows you to know if indeed you were not on target when the trigger broke and the "flyer" really isn't an anomaly, but is indeed where you were aiming.

At the same time, hold the trigger to the rear just long enough to say to yourself the words, "follow through" and then only let off the trigger enough to the point of "reset". This keeps your finger on the same place for subsequent shots. If you bounce your finger off the trigger and then either grab it deeper or shallower with your trigger finger you stand the chance of applying a tiny amount of either left or right torque into your next shot by pulling ever so slightly right or left, depending upon trigger-finger placement. The smallest motion imparted to the rifle, even as little as the thickness of a couple sheets of paper, can move your point of impact as much as one MOA.

Of course, this doesn't account for any differences in bullet, powder, or other external factors that might affect your point of impact, but it can help reduce "shooter-induced" influence on shot placement.

I know you said you were, "...careful on the trigger", but I wasn't quite sure what you meant by that. So I thought I'd just toss this out there on what I've learned and now teach at an Appleseed event.

I agree, flyers suck, and no one is immune.

[Howie44]

Me too!!! I really hate fliers when I'm correcting someone that thinks a Mosin can't shoot.

[ElvenSoul]

Concentration Daniel San!

[Bigtwin]

Not sure why, every time it happens, but I have noticed I get them when I try to follow up a shot too quickly. If I slow down a bit they go away....even for the last couple rounds.

[TimRB]

Most likely they're not really flyers, and your rifle (and/or you) is not really as accurate as you think. No one believes that, though.

Tim

[MrOrange]

This is a big factor in the case for dry firing.

Flyers are inevitable; if you can call them, you're on your way to Master. With rifles, that's the number one benefit of dry firing, for me anyways.