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Show No Sure Cure "Flinching" is one of the most aggravating afflictions that can beset be-set the hunter and skeet shooter, and is an unconscious reaction that might be called "shooting paralysis." paraly-sis." The "flinch" causes the shooter to react in several different ways. Sometimes he "freezes" just before be-fore he intends to pull the trigger, causing a slow shot or making it necessary for him to get on the target tar-get again. At other times he closes his eyes or raises his head to get his face away from the gun stock. The most common fault, however, is to jerk the shoulder away from the butt of the gun in an effort to avoid the recoil. Sometimes the confirmed flincher combines all these reactions. Then he might as well shoot up in the air . . . and some do just that. "Perhaps the predominant cause of flinching is fear of the gun's recoil," re-coil," says Gail Evans, manager of advertising and shooting promotion, promo-tion, Remington Arms Company, Inc. "This is not true in all cases, however, and in many instances a flinch Is inexplainable. Experienced Experi-enced trap-shooters may go along for years shooting thousands of rounds each year and then all of a sudden develop the habit of flinching flinch-ing without knowing why. And when flinching enters the target shooter's shoot-er's bailiwick, good scores fly out of the window. "It is sometimes hard to determine deter-mine the cause of flinching. It may be that the comb of the stock is too high, causing the shooter to take considerable of the recoil on his cheek. This can be remedied by scraping the comb down to the proper height. At any rate, the first thing the flincher should do is to check his gun and find out if it fits him properly. "The stock may be too long or too short. These are matters of easy correction. It may be that the grip of the gun does not fit the hand properly, thereby cramping the hand. If it is too large, it can easily be sanded down a bit. If too small, it can be built up. "Fear of recoil is by no means the only cause of flinching. Disordered Disor-dered nerves may easily bring about the trouble. Once the shooter starts flinching he is prone to build up his trouble into a mental hazard that may prove a great stumbling block in his path to good marksmanship. marks-manship. "No sure cure for flinching has been discovered. So-called anti-flinch anti-flinch triggers have been developed, some of which are released by a push of the thumb. Fore-end triggers trig-gers have also been made, and while they may work for some people, peo-ple, they are still not a cure-all for flinching. "Perhaps the best treatment is to stop shooting for a while ... a month or even two. Don't touch a shotgun in that period. Forget, for a time, if you can, the sport of shooting. Then try 'dry shooting', i.e., swinging an unloaded gun on a moving target and pulling the trigger at what would have been the right time. After several sessions ses-sions of this practice and when your nerves have returned to normal, nor-mal, resume shooting, but use light loads. If there is no recurrence of the trouble, try shooting with the standard loads, but shoot only a few rounds in a single practice period. pe-riod. Concentrate on the target and not on the gun. Try to forget you ever flinched and start anew." AAA Disease Hits Deer A serious disease of cattle and sheep has been implicated for the first time as a killer of wild deer, according to a report in the Journal Jour-nal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. Known as blackleg, the malady is fatal to young cattle, and sometimes some-times attacks sheep and other livestock. live-stock. Lt. Col. H. L. Armstrong and Major J. K. MacNamee, army veterinarians, vet-erinarians, tell of the disease's first known outbreak in deer in an issue of the Journal. The outbreak occurred on the army's proving grounds at Aberdeen, Aber-deen, Md., populated by about 1,' 500 wild deer. More than 400 of ths animals are known to have died of the disease. Investigating veterinarians were hampered in making a diagnosis of the trouble because, although a number of dead deer were found, it was difficult to find sick animals. Two infected animals finally were obtained, and laboratory examinations examina-tions revealed that both were infected in-fected with the blackleg germ. AAA Dry Fly "Tops" Of the two kinds of artificial flies, wet and dry, the dry fly takes top place because, with all its limitations, limita-tions, it is the highest development of fly fishing. The dry fly is fished on the surface to lure a surface-feeding surface-feeding trout. Its chances of producing pro-ducing a strike on every cast are greater because evidence of surface-feeding trout is easily seen, and therefore the cast can be designed and with a degree of confidence not possible with the wet fly. |