Dry fire training definition: the practice of training with your gun with no ammunition present.
One of the best forms of training is to dry fire.
Ammunition is expensive and time to head to the range is not always available. Centerfire handguns and rifle can be fired dry, with no cartridge in the barrel without ill effect on the gun.
If you want to engage in dry fire training:
1 Remove all ammunition from your training area. I recommend putting it in a separate room. Your gun and magazines must be free of ammo. Verify everything: double check you gun and magazines.
2 Choose a location like a basement where you have solid concrete walls. If you are negligent and happen to allow live ammo into the area, you will be grateful that the walls are resistant.
3 You do need to A be conscious of your situational awareness, B know (do not guess or assume) the condition of your gun (and magazines), for this it means no ammo present whatsoever. C be deliberate in your pointing of the gun at all times, D only interact with the trigger when you intend to shoot the gun. The trigger finger earns it’s paycheck by going to it’s day job: high on the frame above the trigger guard, and it only goes to a fun vacation when you make the intentional and morally appropriate decision to shoot.
General rules
1 Short focused training beats drawn out unfocused training.
Fifteen minutes of focused training is good. If you could focus for four hours that’s also good. But for most of us long training sessions require exceptional planning in addition to focus. We need to invest time into skills, but if all we are doing is running into a wall repeatedly our time is inefficient.
2 Do not fixate, instead you must focus.
If you are a new shooter and want to be safe with a live gun consider the following task of verifying your gun is unloaded; Picking the gun up, dropping your magazine, racking the slide to clear possible ammo, locking the slide open, inspecting (visually and physically) the chamber, area of feed, and slide face, looking away and repeating the inspection is a basic task in firearms safety. It is however of no use to you if you fixate on the end goal but are pointing the gun in an unsafe manner (including your own hand), or are inadvertently or unconsciously putting your finger near the trigger or in the trigger guard. It would be much better training to fail at any or all of the goal tasks (IE locking the slide open) and simultaneously focus properly on muzzle management and trigger finger discipline. It is easier and vastly safer to build the skill of locking the slide than it would be to undo a dangerous safety habit.
3 Don’t make excuses, but be smart.
If you are having a hard time with a task like locking the slide open it may be because you need a bit more strength. Buying grip trainers or do a 5 minute a day exercise that includes gripping barbels might help you. I have also seen guns where the recoil spring is new and stiffer than one that becomes properly tuned after 500 rounds. A way to work on this would be to simply cycle the slide 30 times at a go, paying attention to when the slide finishes it’s rearward movement. This will A, help with grip strength, B get you used to how the gun behaves, and C possibly “tune” the recoil spring.
Most people are unrealistic with their training expectations and put too much pressure on themselves in a paid training event. Practicing deliberately with dry fire can help you get certain skills down to habits. This actually frees your brain to focus on more complex tasks.
Commenti