Dry Fire Training: Zero Cost Path to Better Pistol Shooting

02 Sep Dry Fire Training: Zero Cost Path to Better Pistol Shooting

Why Bother?

We are often asked by our students “how do I improve my pistol shooting?” and to a man our instructor staff will tell them : DRY FIRE. Somehow though, dry fire training seems to be one of the most underused tools available to shooters! When asked why they don’t do it, the response from students is usually something relating to the lack of time or “my wife/husband looks at me weird.”  I’m sorry folks… argument: invalid. If you have literally five minutes to run through some simple skill builders, you will reap the benefits ten fold on the range.

Every single part of your defensive handgun skill set minus recoil control can be worked on in a dry fire environment. (More on recoil management later…)

SAFETY SAFETY SAFETY

First and foremost, safety MUST be a consideration when practicing dry fire training with your pistol. AT NO TIME should ammunition be even in the same room that you are working in as that stuff is seriously magical… it makes its way in to guns and things can get… weird.

Don’t be that guy/gal who doesn’t know the status of their weapon and lights off a round inside the house. That leads me to my next point…

Always maintain a safe direction. We define a safe direction as the following: Whatever direction that will minimize the likelihood of injury or property damage if a round is unintentionally fired. Remember to practice perfect and ensure that safety is always the first consideration.

Dry Fire Training: Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

The emphasis here is on perfect practice. Practicing alone gets you nowhere. Perfect practice will yield results. What we want to avoid is practicing bad habits thus embedding them in to our skill set. Ensure that you focus hard on each trigger press with the intent on performing the task perfectly every single time. No exceptions. Get the most out of your time and don’t short change yourself!

Consistency is Key

Once you start a dry fire training program be sure to keep up with it! Firearms skills are highly perishable and will degrade with very little time. A consistent dry fire workout will provide you with a minimum of maintaining the nuero-pathways that are formed when performing a task. Muscle memory development is critical and dry fire training adds another way to develop it.

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