I woke up to a great question on FB today from Eddie…
How do you know if you’re hitting your target with dry fire?
It’s a GREAT question…and here was my answer:
First, the bullet is going to go where the sights are aligned the instant that the gun goes click/bang.
When you dry fire, you learn to pay attention to how your sights are aligned as you’re pressing the trigger.
You specifically learn to pay attention to how the sights are aligned the moment that the trigger breaks. If your sights are lined up so that the front and rear sights are at equal height and there’s equal light on both sides of the front sight, your bullet will impact right where you were aiming. This assumes that your sights are lined up correctly, as they should be.
Knowing where your bullets went is called “calling your shot” and the ability to call your shots without having to look at/see the holes in the target is a big benefit for live fire shooting. It will make you a more confident shooter and it will make your multiple shot groups MUCH faster and tighter.
Second, if you want, you can get a laser trainer, like the http://dryfirepistol.com so that you have visual feedback of where you’re “hitting”. It is my preferred method of doing dry fire because they can be left out, unsecured, 24/7 and they are inherently safe.
Next question…how do you know if your grouping is getting tighter if there are no holes on the paper?
I kind of answered it above, but there’s more to this. Dry fire is a way to get better at live fire that’s faster and less expensive than live fire. But the key here is live fire. Your results during live fire are the final answer to how well your dry fire practice is working.
The stress shooting lab, SEALed Mindset (one of our partners), determined that the optimal ratio for dry fire:live fire practice is 80% dry fire, 10% live fire, and 10% force on force. But people get great results with ratios of 90:10, 99:1, and once the skills are firmly established, 999:1.
There’s a big picture answer to this as well. Tight groups are a result of consistently executing perfect form the exact same way, every time. With live fire only training, there’s no practical way to develop that kind of consistency that works with most people’s schedules and budgets.
The best way to develop consistent, perfect form is to have frequent small block practice sessions…like the training model that martial arts has used for thousands of years, or how top sports teams practice. You never hear of a sports team only practicing once a week or once a month and then performing at a high level in a championship game.
They develop their skill with frequent small block practice sessions. More specifically, early in their careers, athletes spend a lot of time on the sidelines watching more experienced athletes demonstrating good form. They watch it with the intent of duplicating it, and then they actually DO duplicate it.
Over time, this cycle of repeatedly watching perfect form with the intent of duplicating it and then executing the technique is the fastest and most effective way of learning a complex motion that you intend to execute under stress.
And that’s a big part of what makes the at-home training programs from SEALed Mindset so effective…even more effective than traditional live training courses.
You’re exposed to bite-sized chunks of technique, you learn why some techniques are more effective than others, see them demonstrated with perfect form, and get to do follow-along drills where you watch and do at the same time.
Unlike a live class, you can rewind and repeat anything that you missed that day and you can re-watch anything that you forgot at any point in the future. That means you’ll learn more in less time for less money and retain the skills you learn longer.
For more information, please go to https://ConcealedCarryMastersCourse.com
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