Dry fire practice useful?

[SoDak]

I know that nothing can replace real shooting for practice, but I really can't afford to shoot thousands of rounds of ammo each year to get the practice I need(I'm not a very good shot). I was just curious on what the opinion is on getting used to proper trigger control skills and the like just by dry firing the gun at a target. I mean just ddo everything like you would if you were actually shooting, but with no ammo. Would that help me become a better shot if I implemented that with some actual shooting? I always thought that dry fire practice had helped me with revolver shooting, but I was wondering what the experts say.

[Yojimbo]

Dryfire practice is extremely useful and while you will not feel the recoil it will let practice mounting your weapon, sight picture, trigger control, reloads, clearing malfunctions, etc...

The same is true with both pistols and long guns.

Dryfire practice as often as you can!

I really wish someone would make a self reseting AR15 trigger group just for dryfire practice.

[markm]

I really wish someone would make a self reseting AR15 trigger group just for dryfire practice.

I wish they'd make it for the Glock.

Dry fire practice is very useful. If I start getting stupid during live fire, I can squeeze of 5 dry fires and really get my trigger control back on track.

Doing it at home really helps build muscle memory.

[No.6]

Dry fire to a point, IMO. Use dummy rounds or snap caps to lessen the potential of damage to fire control components. But once you have your finger trained to feel the take up, break, and reset, and you're not jerking your sight picture around, then I think you've gained about all you can out of that exercise. Like demi pointed out, when you get lazy (or rusty), implement it into your training again. YMMV

[John Frazer]

I think it's very useful, and not just for accuracy. You can also use it to make your gun handling much smoother.

After taking Intensive Handgun Skills from InSights Training Center, I started dry firing 3-4 times a week. When I next got to the range two weeks after class, I found I'd taken about 0.2 seconds off my first shot from the ready--for me, the biggest time-waster in my draw.

[Yojimbo]

I wish they'd make it for the Glock.

Dry fire practice is very useful. If I start getting stupid during live fire, I can squeeze of 5 dry fires and really get my trigger control back on track.

Doing it at home really helps build muscle memory.

Deep 6 makes one for the Glock but I have not tried it yet.

http://glockmeister.com/product_info...roducts_id=339

If anyone has tried the Deep 6 Glock reseting trigger lease let us know how it works.

I wonder is there is an easy way to modify a spare Glock trigger group to self-reset?

[Failure2Stop]

Is dry-fire useful?
I consider it to be essential to achieve mastery.

While it does little for multiple-shot training, it is a superb tool to improve trigger control- especially with pistols. However, it is not limited to pistols, and is useful to improve rifle marksmanship as well.

When I was most proficient I was dry-firing at most for two hours a night, and at least three nights a week. I was shooting a lot, but if you aren't careful you can build a lot of bad habits by just shooting fast at close range. I like to temper my speed work with accuracy work, and dry-fire helps with that. It is also great for developing trigger control from the draw and presentation- especially with DA/SA pistols.

[ToddG]

I don't know that I would say dry fire is essential but it's certainly smart. It's basically free, can be done almost anywhere, and has the extreme benefit of allowing you to work on fundamentals without either the impact of blast/recoil or the desire to see where your bullets land.

You can practice fundamental marksmanship as well as all of your gun handling skills with dry fire to the extent that only minor time and ammo (and $$$) is needed for those things on the range. Some skills -- like one-handed draws, reloads, and malfunction clearances -- might only be possible dry fire depending on your skill level and what your range allows.

Even multiple target and shooting on the move can be practiced dry fire.

About the only thing you can't work on dry is recoil management.

For the majority of shooters, dedicated and focused time spent dry firing is probably going to benefit them as much as the same amount of time spent on a live fire range. It's not as much fun, but it certainly works.

Rogers Shooting School goes so far as to have organized dry fire training sessions every evening as part of their Intermediate and Advanced programs (and maybe their Basic, too, but I've never been). And the head instructor, Claude Werner, has even gone so far as to publish a CD you can listen to during dry fire. It has specific drills, gives you start and stop "beeps" for PAR times, etc. There are also files on the CD for your computer which give you training targets to print out, safety procedures for dry fire practice, etc.

edited to add: Going back and reading through what I wrote, it sounds like I started out disagreeing with F2S and that wasn't my intent. My point about it not being essential is simply that if you have strong skills to begin with and access to a range where you can do just about anything you want and unlimited time and ammunition, you can probably get just as far ahead with nothing but live fire. But you'll still get farther faster by spending regular time working on your fundamentals and gun handling in a dry fire environment.

[Failure2Stop]

My point about it not being essential is simply that if you have strong skills to begin with and access to a range where you can do just about anything you want and unlimited time and ammunition, you can probably get just as far ahead with nothing but live fire. But you'll still get farther faster by spending regular time working on your fundamentals and gun handling in a dry fire environment.

Todd- I absolutely agree.
(Insert high-five)

[HeadHunter]

Rogers Shooting School goes so far as to have organized dry fire training sessions every evening as part of their Intermediate and Advanced programs (and maybe their Basic, too, but I've never been).

Even more important with the Basic program.

When we instituted the evening dryfire program at the School 12 years ago, the pass rate went up 10%.

Another thing that dryfire does is to hone your presentation on the target. When I get lazy about doing my dryfire, I notice my livefire first shot times go up .1-.2 seconds.

I don't think it has to be a long session either. My dryfire CDs are about 10 minutes per session, but very focused. Three times a week keeps me well tuned up. As Tom Givens puts it: "When you last practiced is more important than how much you last practiced."