I seek advice on how to avoid developing a flinch.
I have a recently got a .458WM with a leupold scope.
I don't find the recoil too bad but every now and then the scope just touches my eyebrow, even with 350grainers.
Some of you may think that a .458 is no place for a scope but I wan't it this way.
I have lengthened the stock 1/2" to lessen the percieved recoil and mounted the scope so far forward that I need to stretch to get the full wiew.
Any tips on how to hold, stand or adjust to avoid this is most welcome!

I have a scopes on my .458 Win Mag and my .458 Lott. Possibly the problem is the scope is too far forward and stretching is causing the scope to touch your eyebrow. I shoot off the bench, shooting sticks, and free-hand. When mounting my scopes I set on lowest power and move the scope as far forward as is comfortable to me. If the recoil pad is too soft it may be allowing the scope to touch you.

First, wear shooting glasses.

Second, you must pull the stock into your shoulder with your strong hand, and pull down on the forearm slightly with your weak hand. This will reduce the muzzle flip significantly, and it is probably muzzle flip that is causing the scope to touch your eyebrow.

Third, consider using a scope with a rubber ring around the eyepiece.

George

Do not ever let a gun hit you in the head. You will develop a flinch that will ruin you shooting forever. You either have a scope with too little eye relief ( you need >4 inches), The stock is too short( add a better pad F990), the stock doesn't transmit recoil straight back( get a new stock) or your just plain holding it wrong.-Rob

quote:

Originally posted by Robgunbuilder:
Do not ever let a gun hit you in the head. You will develop a flinch that will ruin you shooting forever. You either have a scope with too little eye relief ( you need >4 inches), The stock is too short( add a better pad F990), the stock doesn't transmit recoil straight back( get a new stock) or your just plain holding it wrong.-Rob

Thankyou all for your input!
The gun is a mod 70 classic so stock transmits recoil straight back. Pad is F990 and leupold scopes have the longest eye relief I know of so I am leaning toward that I am not holding it right.
Maybe I am not standing square enougt to the target?

considering all that it is probably the way you are holding it. Unless you have an unusually shaped face and are having to get a weird angle tos ee through the scope. are you sure the ring height is right for you? I have something different in my face shape (I just look handsome to most people, but a stockmaker once saw me and said something about my cheekbones and having a problem with high combs). anyways, I had to raise everything on my model 70 really high to get the scope right.

conceiveably if you are tilting your head down and forward to bring your eye lower behind the scope to see then you are bringing that eyebrow closer as well.

get somebody that shoots a lot, big bore or anything that requires good form like competitive shooting, and have them evaluate your hold and stance for you.

Red

quote:

snowhound

snowhound..I shoot a 460 weatherby so I'm know what you are saying. I pile enough sandbags off the bench to have the rifle straight and level with my shoulder. My max power is 4-5X otherwise I tend to get my face closer to the scope.good luck

Eye relief seems to be the problem,Get a `scope with more eye relief

If it really whacks your brow, even a super-quality scope won't survive more than a few of those. Move it as far forward on the rings as it can go and still function.

Keep some super-glue handy to glue your eyebrow back on. I once had to do just that to a German hunter in the same camp with me while on Safari. HE TOLD ME HIS GUN SOMETIMES wacked him, but when he shot an ele he was crawling the stock and it nailed him good! He had a 460 wby with some sort of big belled German scope that cut his eyebrow like a cookie cutter. I worked wonders with the superglue and some bandages. Looked terrible but it was that or cut the rest of the eyelid off. He REALLY didn't want to go to a Zim hospitaL. THUS DR. RLG TO THE RESCUE. I'm no MD, but I know superglue!
Make sure your head never comes off the stock when you shoot and pull the stock tight into the inside shoulder area. Make sure your head and body flow with the gun in recoil. -Rob

Great story, Rob. Great story. Created all kinds of vizualazations...

Exercise and make your body stonger-strenghten your hold.If your upper body is not strong enough,then how can you possibly hold the rifle from comeing back at you?

It's not so much upper body strength as technique. I've seen some pretty slight men & women handle boomers w/o cuts. I have had it happen once w/ my 404jeffery, I just crawled forward on the stock abit for a low light shot & it connected on both ends. Proper technique, firm grip on the forend, head up as much as possible & hang on.

If the shooting sticks are too short, it will whack you nearly every time, whether you can bench-press 250# or not.

Get used to less than the full field of scope view, don't crane forward to see the full field. You can do it.

When you start getting good, you get relaxed and forget to keep everything snugged up when shooting off hand. Never relax too much or you may get kissed.

The only kiss on the brow I had was from a 12.5 pound .416 Rigby that I was shooting into one hole groups, from the bench, then thought it was so gentle and accurate I relaxed too much shooting it off hand, and let it barely touch my brow with the Leupie.

You can easily defeat a good stock fit and adequate scope eye relief. Don't crawl the stock for a full-field scope view, get used to lesser field of view, even with a Leupold. Don't get too relaxed and you won't develop a flinch from forehead punches.

snowhound,

You have gotten great advice from all. For me the biggest "hurdle" of shooting bigger bores was the scope issue. As RGB said you CAN'T take a hit to the head and shoot correctly. It takes a better man than I to shoot "comfortably" knowing a cut is waiting to happen! I used to get the slap on my glasses on a 300 Win before the good people here clued me in

As stated the rifle set up is first...good LOP and scope set forward. This should be SOP on all
rifles. Now on heavier recoiling rifles recoil
management comes into play. One simply can't shoot a bigger bore as a "regular" rifle. No free recoil, no hunkered down on the bench.
You must set up as to be sitting as upright as possible and use both your off hand and shooting hand. On my Rigby and Lott I set my off hand on top of the rest, pulling into my shoulder. My right shooting hand also pul1s back into my shoulder. It is harder to shoot great groups this way but IMO it is the only way! You have to control the rifle or it will bite you.

Away from the bench it is much better but you still need to follow bigger bore discipline. Develope a big bore technique and use it. In the heat of the hunt I somehow decided to shoot my RSM Rigby prone free recoil. No, I didn't get wacked but had a clean very high miss

Work on your technique. Bigger bores do require more practice/trial and error but I love then, partly because of this

Good luck and keep after it!

John

I'm probably just going over the good advice here, but as a beginer myself, I think I remember what I did. Firstly I don't believe getting the scope too far forward is a good idea. If you do crawl up the stock to get some sort of a view your forehead may be tilting in towards the top of the scope.
I remember having to keep my head back somewhat which suits me anyway, getting more front on like with shotgun shooting, so the stock doesn't tend to slip back from the sholder.

So I had my head sort of stiffened to my shoulder and my shoulder stiffened to my torso. Maybe even sort of rolling the sholder forward a bit.

Then for peace of mind, I took the scope off.

Thank you all very much for your good advice!

quote:

Originally posted by Dago Red:
considering all that it is probably the way you are holding it... are you sure the ring height is right for you?... I had to raise everything on my model 70 really high to get the scope right. ...conceiveably if you are tilting your head down and forward to bring your eye lower behind the scope to see then you are bringing that eyebrow closer as well.
Red

Red, I belive you have cracked it!
I checked my hold and compared it with my other guns. It seems that when I put the whole butpad firmly on my shoulder I crawl up the stock and tilt my head forward. I have never thought about getting higher rings (the opposite has always been the norm). I'll try putting the but a little higher on my shoulder and see how it works.
Thanks
Snowhound

Get the butt into the pocket of your shoulder and roll with the recoil. Stand up facing the target knees bent and footing solid. Lean into the gun and roll with the recoil don't fight it. You don't want the gun high on your shoulder. It will rock and lever itself right into your head. I wish I had 5 minutes to show you the proper stance. I've tought 100lb ladies to shoot Lotts with no issues. I don't tell them recoil is a problem. -Rob

Rob is giving good advice. The Leupold should have plenty of eye relief. The problem is how you are holding the rifle. I shoot a lot of big boomer and haven't felt the brush of a scope and I'm certainly not a big guy- 5-9 175. Working out won't help if your technique is wrong. It doesn't take a lot muscle, push back with the left, a slight pull down on the pistol grip will keep it under control.

I sent my CZ 458 Lott to Brockmans and had it restocked with a laminated express style stock with a little longer length of pull and scout scope mounted a 2.5 Leupold extended eye relief scope. I absolutely love shooting this gun now. It is very quick on target at close range because you can keep both eyes open for target aquisition and shoots precision inch groups at 100 yards. You will never fear getting your forehead caved in if not in perfect form when pulling the trigger which if you've hunted enough you know quite often you can be in an awkward position when taking the shot.

Sometimes its not so much the scope gettin ya but the top frame of the shooting glasses gettin ya. My scope has a rubber ring so I have never gotten cut with it. But, depending on the range I go to I have to call it quits after maybe 10 shots cause my forehead hurts from the glasses smackin my face. This has to do with the bench/chair heights never matching for me to have good bench shooting posture. You know those places, the ones with concrete benches and folding chairs for seats. Actually that is pretty much the only time I get smacked now that I think about it. Any other time with the right bench/seat height combo I rarely get smacked. Lucky for me the new range that I am a member of has only 3 100yd lanes (indoor, go figure), but its the first place that does not mind me shooting standing up. I never shoot my biggie sitting anymore, unless I change my load or change scopes. They have no rest for shooting standing, so its all offhand. Good practice. Oh yea, and keeping your face planted on the stock helps you to roll with recoil as one unit better.

HI Snowhound,
Go to this link and watch some of the shooting videos to see how people handle recoil.
https://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/7621043/m/173100666/p/1
Graylake is a smaller guy but really handles recoil well.
Take good care,
Dave

first and formost..

if you can take an unloaded rifle, with the scope on it, and in any way shape or form contort yourself to the point where your head CAN touch the scope you ARE a candidate for superglue stitches...

and, speaking from personal experience, it will take FOUR months of twice weekly shooting to get rid of the flinch...

pull BACK with your forearm hand, DOWN with your trigger hand, roll (bunch) your shoulder, allow your HIPS to rock and turn through your trunk....

in otherwords, hold on, hold IN, and let the rifle rise a bit and turn a bit...


"Dealing" with recoil is in your head, once you figure out the rifle isn't going to hit you

jeffe

Oh yea, get an aimpoint cause it has unlimited eye relief.

Happened to me once with a 3X9 that now resides on my .22 LR. I went with a 4X Simmons shotgun scope on my .458, and now the scope stays nice and far from my face no matter how heavy the load or what position I'm in.

Extended eye relief shotgun scopes are the way to go on the big bores.

Crawling the stock is not the problem, most good shots crawl the stock. The stock is too short or the scope is not for enough forward or has too little eye releif. I crawl a stock about as bad as anyone and I have never been smaked by one of my guns. Took a lick off a ladys rifle one time while sighting it in for her. Shooting up hill causes a lot of those half moon cuts in the eyebrow area, so its best to always shoot a stock a tad long on a hunting rifle IMO.

More eye relief, mount it further forward, etc.

And get a "Scope Eye" rubber thingy from Midway. At least that way it will hurt a lot less.