I’d argue that recoil anticipation (also known as flinch, pre-ignition push, trigger jerk, and a variety of cuss words…) is the single biggest detriment to novice shooters. Novice here also includes gun owners, law enforcement, and military personnel with years and decades of “experience” that never developed shooting ability beyond passing routine qualification.
Learning how to overcome (or at least greatly reduce) the very natural tendency to react to recoil, noise, flash, and movement of a discharging firearm while attempting to maintain alignment on target is the most single most important thing a firearm user can do to improve proficiency. This also increases the ability to followthrough and call shots, critical to refining a shot process.
The lack of attention paid to this critical element of successful shooting is the biggest reason why many gun owners, law enforcement, and military personnel never progress beyond the elementary, initial, basic skill levels used during initial entry , basic, academy training. Far too many personnel are even aware of this being an issue and most of them completely fail to actively address it.
For intermediate shooters, DRY FIRE DOES NOT FIX RECOIL ANTICIPATION BECAUSE KNOWLEDGE CHANGES EXECUTION . Here’s the proof right here and this is extremely common. Slight disruption to the gun sufficient to cause a miss as distance increases. At close range, people often chalk this off to sight picture when actuality it’s a slight case of recoil anticipation. Take this back to 15 or 25 yards, it’s a miss. This drill works great with a partner but if you’re working alone, try mixing in some dummy rounds. Facts not opinions is what I am after. Hold yourself accountable and fix your deficiencies.
Note, this doesn’t mean that dry practice isn’t useful and won’t help at all. Continued dry practice will continue to enhance (or at least maintain) the ability to more rapidly obtain sufficient alignment on target and manipulate the trigger without causing disruption. The point is that after a certain point of development, dry practice alone won’t magically fix recoil anticipation because it’s purposely done dry/empty (obviously) and knowledge of that removes that tendency. Only intelligent exposure to live fire, preferably done with dummy rounds (skip loading and other approaches) and perhaps additional feedback from sensors (MantisX, SCATT, etc.), can do this.
If you want to get stronger, you need to subject yourself to the stress of lifting heavier weight, preferably done with intelligently-programmed increases. If you want to eliminate recoil anticipation, you need to subject yourself to recoil, preferably done with intelligently-programmed intermittent exposures (training partner loads as demonstrated below, dummy rounds, intermix shooting with lower recoiling firearm/cartridge, etc.)
https://www.facebook.com/114008039194217/videos/vb.114008039194217/435200330372416/
https://firearmusernetwork.com/grooving-bad-habits/
https://firearmusernetwork.com/training-and-habits/
https://firearmusernetwork.com/misplaced-tactical-training/
https://firearmusernetwork.com/pistol-shooting-questions/
https://firearmusernetwork.com/head-shots-are-still-misses/
https://firearmusernetwork.com/shooting-basics-uspsa-idpa-ipsc/
https://firearmusernetwork.com/dummies-steal-dummy-rounds-smart-shooters-use-them/