Dry-fire practice doesn’t need to be boring

We have put a man on the moon and taken significant steps toward landing on Mars. We’ve explored the depths of the ocean and heights of mountains stretching over 29,000 feet tall. But until recently, dry-fire practice has been boring. It no longer needs to be this way!

If you’re looking for a great way to quickly improve your firearms skills, dry fire is the answer. There’s no recoil masking mistakes, so recognizing, diagnosing and correcting your own shooting errors is simpler. The problem is that traditional dry-fire practice is boring and fails to keep our attention. Even with the best of intentions, when dry-fire training fails to provide realistic feedback or entertain us, it’s easy to find something else to do.

Before we get into the fun part about dry-fire training, let’s go over some non-negotiable absolutes to do it safely:

• Do not use an interior wall that a bullet could pass through.
• Concealable body armor works well as a backstop for dry practice.
• Never target anything you aren’t willing to destroy. 
• Do not practice if you are tired or your mind is on anything other than practice time.
• Unload your firearm and keep all live ammunition out of your training room.
• Check to make sure your firearm is unloaded before practice. Check again.

DryFireMag

Most modern duty handguns and everyday carry pistols are of the striker-fired variety. As a result, dry-fire practice meant we couldn’t get multiple trigger presses without working the slide to reset the striker and trigger. Lame. 

This is where DryFireMag comes into play. It resets the trigger in your striker-fired pistol, so you can do dry practice without racking the slide between trigger presses. Even the weight is designed to simulate a partially loaded magazine, making the weight of your pistol feel right. 

I’m currently using DryFireMags for my Sig Sauer P320s and Glocks. It works with most performance aftermarket triggers, and with the optional Spring Pak, it adapts to match your trigger weight and travel. Even my custom competition Grayguns P320 trigger can be matched with the same amount of trigger take-up, travel and reset. 

I also use them on the range to help fix problems I identify during live-fire training. I’ll set up movement drills, and DryFireMags allow me to concentrate on smooth and efficient movement instead of focusing on where the holes are in the targets.

Reduced-size targets

In my office or while staying in hotels, I use my DryFireMags with a set of reduced-size targets from Springer Precision to work on my draw, trigger presses, target transitions and one-hand shooting. Sure, you can still use sticky notes, light switches and other stuff that’s hung on the wall as targets, but that’s boring and doesn’t feel the same as using real targets. I have a set of the smallest targets hanging in my office, and I take the larger targets on the road to use before a match or after teaching a class. 

The target package includes two USPSA-style Pepper Poppers, 6 x 5″ USPSA targets, 7 x 10″ USPSA targets and 10 x 2″ circles that replicate steel target plates. With these options and different sizes, you can set up some pretty challenging drills that appear to have depth and distance included. A little blue painter’s tape on the back keeps them in place without damaging the wall. They’re light, portable, inexpensive and easy to use.

VR is the future

If you’re serious about your training regimen and improving your handgun skills, the next step is jumping into the virtual world with ACE Virtual Reality (VR) Shooting. I’ve been using ACE for the past six months, and it has more than paid for itself. The amount of training that can be done far surpasses traditional dry-fire and live-fire repetitions. So far, I’ve fired nearly 62,000 virtual shots. That amount of live fire would be impossible for me to afford.

I’m not a techie or computer-savvy person, so I was skeptical of a VR shooting simulator for working on real-life shooting skills. I’m a big proponent of computer simulation and VR for use-of-force and driving training, but I didn’t think there was value for live fire from practicing with VR. I was wrong and happy to admit it. To be blunt, the ACE system is amazing. The physics of the animation are accurate, and the guns perform like you would expect to see during live fire.

This isn’t a video game. It’s a training simulator for your shooting. There are first-person video games with more action and effects. This is training with options that include more than a hundred stages taken from major matches, USPSA classifiers and drills from some of the best shooters and instructors. There are drills for accuracy, sight acquisition, target discrimination, threat assessment and transitions. There are even some where you can practice working around vehicles and barricades as well as shooting at a wide variety of static, reactive and moving targets. Even better, they are constantly adding new drills and stages to the lineup.

The only problem with ACE Virtual Reality Shooting is that it can become habit-forming — maybe not addictive, but it is easy to lose track of time while you’re training. Being able to repeat drills and stages of fire, discovering new drills, putting new pistol and optic combinations together, and designing and working through your own drill designs can cause you to spend way more time in the virtual shooting world than you intended. As a result, overuse injuries have been known to occur. I’m not joking.

No excuses, just train

Dry-fire practice doesn’t have to be boring, and it doesn’t have to be time-consuming. Five minutes of quality dry practice three to four times per week will greatly improve your skills. Dry practice is about quality, not quantity. And with the addition of a DryFireMag for a real trigger press and reset plus easy-to-use portable targets, we can work from our duty holsters on the skills we may need on the street. Add the option of a virtual reality training system that makes it possible to do “high round count” training, and suddenly dry-fire practice is not only effective, but also a ton of fun.