Dry Fire Practice

[DireWolf]

Hi Everyone,
what kind of dryfire practice do you recommend to improve your IDPA rating?

[Keith]

To be honest, I haven't dry fired that much. I should. But I just don't seem to do it religously. When I do, it is with a revolver. It just makes everything else seem easy.

This guy believes in it so much that he put it into a book.
http://www.andersonshooting.com/refinement.htm

[JoeH]

******* Note - for dry fire practice, triple check that the gun is empty. DO NOT even have any live ammo in the room. Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction even if you are sure that it is empty. Facing a concrete, outside basement wall is a good example of a safe direction. Your TV in your apartment is not a safe direction. *******


I assume that you are referring to your Classification. I've only been playing the game for a year and have only shot two classifiers. That said, dry fire (heck, non fire) holster work helps. There is a lot of drawing during the classifier (13 times I think).

Draw (both while facing the target and starting with your back to the target) and with your eyes on the target find the front sight. Do that over and over. Getting your gun out of the holster and getting your sight picture quickly will greatly help reduce your times.

Reloads are important, too. There are 2 reloads from slide lock and 2 tactical reloads. Any one of those 4 reloads can add you your time if you bungle it.

Finally, trigger reset is also important. It's a lot easier to practice reset with live fire practice. To dry fire practice resets with a pistol, with the gun ready to fire (i.e. cocked), pull the trigger, keep holding the trigger back, with your other hand (usually weak hand) cycle the slide, now slowly and gradually allow the trigger to move forward, you'll feel the reset, if you press back at that point the gun should dry fire. That's your reset.

Depending on your gun and its trigger, you can save a lot of time if you really get this down. Again, live fire is required to really get this down with some frequency and consistency.

[Don L]

+1 on that. IMHO, dry practice can help one's shooting skills a whole bunch, and you're doing it at your convenience, and not burnin' up a bunch of ammo. The drills that Joe just mentioned are the same ones that a lot of us use, and they do make a difference. I assign "dry practice homework" to the folks who take lessons from me.

Don