Many new shooters don’t take advantage of this economical way to train at home. Drawing from the holster, sight picture and sight alignment, emergency reloads and ammo malfunctions can all be practiced for free at home.
A few key points to keep in mind when you’re dry fire training:
Clear the gun - have someone else clear it as well if others are available to double-check.
Run drills in a room with NO live ammo ammo
Reload/store firearm safely after you’ve finished training
There are plenty of tools to help you dry fire train, however, you don’t need anything special to start!
What are your favorite dry fire tools or do you prefer to dry fire without any special tools?
I’ve found this to be highly beneficial, especially when teaching my wife, who has never handled a firearm before, how to shoot. It provided feedback and gave us a way to have a little healthy competition and make training fun. When you have fun…you train more often
RE Factor targets and courses of fire (edit: “The Essential Shooting Guide”)
Coolfire CO2 actuator(s) in
SIG 220, 226, 229, 239
MantisX10
Mantis Application on Cell phone
Mantix X3, and the app that goes along with it.
I’ve “spent” the equivalent of maybe $8-9K+ of 9mm training with it in the past 7 months, and it’s made a huge difference in my live fire. There are some truly awesome shooters here, so I hope I’m not embarrassing myself with this photo, but for me personally, hitting a 3" target (the leftmost) at 20 yards would have been darn near impossible when I began shooting in June.
I haven’t been to the range in just over a year, but bought ELMS laser I practice dry firing and drawing my handgun from conceal carry. I recommend this to anyone who can’t get to the range also to anyone who want better trigger control when drawing my gun.
Are some dummy bullets or snap caps better or less problematic than others for your firearm?
I’ve seen other electronic devices similar to Elms G Sight. I liked them for pistols. However, for a revolver, buying 5-8 rounds of them was 5-8 times more expensive. Anyone know of a less expensive “electronic” laser round for the cylinder feature of a revolver?
I have had good luck with the Mantis company which is 1/2 the price of the one in thread. Their AR15 laser bolt resets the trigger too which makes laser training that much more fun.
I been dry fire training more and more lately. But I’m also cheap and on a budget. So I use snap caps, I use a thumb tack to pin a paper plate to the wall, then stand back about 7yrds from it and start practicing my draw, sight alignment, trigger pull, and mag changes.
I can also practice moving from one side of the room to the other while keeping my sight alignment, or while mag changes.
I’ll sometimes pin two paper plates in a corner, one on each wall, to try to simulate 2 attackers. Then I try to practice my draw when getting off the X and transitions between 2 targets.
Sometimes for fun I like to get my Gary Cooper on, buy watching old westerns and practicing my draw and sight alignment during the shootout scenes.
All with NO LIVE AMMO in the room and after my firearm has been safety checked at least twice. SAFETY FIRST WHILE PRACTICING
Snap caps, are the cheapest route. For those who have the extra change. These new laser devices. In tend to go with the snap caps, Money that would be spent on the lasers deals will go to ammo when available
I really like the ELMS system by g-sight. I’m having a tough time finding ammo (as I’m sure everyone is). This wasn’t the cheapest option, but it’s cheaper than buying ammo right now. +1 for the g-sight!
