DryFire Practice

[rodralig]

Yup, I would believe it was considered a gimmick by most at the beginning (I didn't know enough then, and as a beginner, I was willing to try out anything and pluck $90). Until they started getting a few endorsements from shooters from the action shooting sports...


The older DFMs were like homemade patchwork built out of spare magazines. Adjusting the pull weight was cumbersome at best (like telling them on order what weight I would like ). The newer DFM, which I bet you have, has a better build quality, along, with an easier option to change springs.

Again, enjoy your DFM and training more!


_

[The War Wagon]

$100 bucks? I'd get it if it was under $25.

Snap caps are still cheaper.

[MarikinaMan]

So I did my first drills today with the DM. I’m putting 10 minutes of dry fire with my daily morning morning workout. Dry fire, 15 minute run, push ups, pull ups and some arm weights.

It was pretty good. Dry firing controlled pairs let’s me focus on the front sight and watch it for movement during the entire trigger pull. It’s hard to do this with a bare gun as having to rack it destroys the flow. With the DM I can do 4-5 draws with 2 shots in 10 seconds and really watch my sight through the trigger pull. It’s is excellent eye training.

Releasing the trigger shoe up until only the reset is very tactile and is speeding up my follow up. I can’t wait till I receive the Mantis X to measure this in tenths of a second.

I am amazed at how much better this tool is in training my eyes to keep watching the front sight. With live fire double taps, I had a tendency to lose the sight and fire the second one off by instinct, if I’m really trying to do record time. I’ll give it a week and see if my live fire improves, including getting the second shot right next to the first one.

[IVC]

You don't rack the slide between shots with bare gun, you work the trigger as if the slide was racked.

The issue with Glocks (and many striker fired DAO guns) is that the trigger is dead where it releases the sear during the initial pull and doesn't spring back, so you cannot emulate the proper amount of trigger release, which you correct with these specialized tools. Otherwise, with SA and DA/SA guns, the range of trigger motion is not affected by the hammer down, so you just use the dead trigger in your dry fire practice.

It's good that you're noticing the idea behind "watching the sights through the trigger pull." That's your "step 1" in both accurate shooting at speed and something called "calling shots." When you call shots, you take a "mental photo" of the sights at the time you pull the trigger (when the sear releases, not when you start pulling it). Initially, the limit on your speed will be the inability to pull the trigger fast without disturbing the sights and this is what you're doing now. However, the real value of dry fire will be once you *know* you can pull the trigger without disturbing the sights, so your limit is no longer the trigger pull, but the ability to see an "acceptable sight picture" during rapid gun movement (either due to recoil, or due to fast and precise transitions). This is where you really become fast. Unfortunately, you will have to work quite a bit on "calling shots" in live fire to get to the point where your dry fire is as effective (or more effective) as your live fire.

[IVC]

With live fire double taps, I had a tendency to lose the sight and fire the second one off by instinct, if I’m really trying to do record time. I’ll give it a week and see if my live fire improves, including getting the second shot right next to the first one.

This is a very technical issue, so I'll give you my 2c for whatever it's worth...

The idea in fast shooting is not so much to get the second shot close to the first one or even to get the second shot with well-aligned sights, but to *see* where that second shot is, even if you completely miss. This is part of "calling shots" - seeing, as in a flash photo, the location and alignment of sights when the second shot goes off. Your grip, familiarity with your gun, stance, recoil control, etc., all help with bringing the gun back *close to* where it started, but you're pulling the trigger based on your cadence, not your visual input.

There is no time to fire a shot, see the sights move, see the sights come back, decide to shoot and pull the trigger again in less than 0.2 seconds. At very fast splits, around 0.15 and below, your training does two things: (1) ensures that the sights for the second shot will be sufficiently on target, and (2) ensures that you *see* the sights when you pull the trigger, no matter where they were, so you can fire a follow up if it ended up not an acceptable shot.

It's this second part, knowing where the shot goes, that is extremely valuable and that is required for higher levels of action shooting sports. It's the primary differentiator of top shooters from very good shooters.

Watch top shooters and see how they handle hard shots. You'll see that their speed is nowhere near the hosing speed at close ranges. This is because hard shots require you to see the sights and make the decision to shot based on your visual input, not merely to use visual input to confirm where your shot went.

As I said, it's quite technical, so take it with a grain of salt. Hope it helps you with your training.

[MarikinaMan]

^^^cool. Thanks.