Don’t Build Dry Fire Vices
After shooting regularly, dry fire is one of the best ways you can build shooting virtues. Dry fire is inexpensive, easy to do at home, and safe when done properly. Dry fire allows you to practice reps and build virtues, or good habits, around your firearms handling. Everything from establishing your grip, practicing your draw, establishing a consistent site picture, aligning your sights, and trigger finger discipline are all a part of dry firing and can be done daily at no cost.
The only things dry fire can’t help you train are skills that require actually firing the gun to practice, things like recoil management and marksmanship. As good as dry fire is, it is important that when practicing you avoid two critical, but related, mistakes. First, when dry firing it is important you are intensely critical of your own actions so that you isolate and address issues instead of practicing dry fire vices, or bad habits. The second, and closely related mistake is getting lazy with your grip due to the lack of recoil.
Build Virtue Like a Craftsman
At Wolfbee, we like to treat shooting like a craft. At their core, crafts are practiced by artists and skilled workmen who care about what they produce. Whether it’s a woodworker, a blacksmith, a sculptor, or a musician, these craftsmen all excel when looking to perfect what they produce and that perfection can only come from honest self-critique.
A musician who cannot hear the difference between an exercise played well and one played poorly, will never progress because he will inevitably end up practicing wrong and building vices, or bad habits, that he seeks to perfect. Shooting is no different. If you practice an incomplete grip, poor trigger discipline, and a lazy sight picture, then you will end up shooting that way, whether at the range or in a self defense situation. If your firearm moves off target in the process of pulling the trigger during dry fire, then it will only get worse when you actually shoot.
Self Diagnosis is Essential to Dry Fire Success
In order to get better, you must be self critical. It is tempting to tell yourself you have a better grip, better draw, or better accuracy than you do, especially if you are chasing a faster draw at the expense of good fundamentals. This is one of the reasons why we like to use virtue language instead of sports language to describe shooting. If you approach shooting like a craftsman looking to produce the best work you can, purely for the sake of doing it well, you have a better chance of being honest about your performance.
One way to help diagnose your own practice is to train in front of a mirror or take video of your training. That will help you see your own actions from another perspective. Another great way is to get connected with a trainer who can help you diagnose what you are doing well and where you can improve.
A Firm Grip is a Firm Foundation
Another mistake to avoid when dry firing is allowing your grip to get soft. Without the feedback of recoil to keep you honest, it can be easy to get lazy with your grip and let it get looser than it should. The reality is, you should have as firm as grip as you can without impacting your ability to pull the trigger well and stay on target. The reason it can be easy to get lazy with grip when dry firing is that the natural feedback recoil provides (and the matching accuracy) will give you immediate feedback about your grip. Dry fire requires you to critique your own actions accurately to ensure you are practicing well. Ensuring you have a firm grip when dry firing will pay huge dividends when you actually hit the range to practice live fire, and if you’ve established those shooting virtues, they will serve you well should you need to use them in a self defense scenario.
If you need extra tips on how to dry fire effectively, Tactical Rifleman has a great video on how to practice effectively, or come and get some training.
Any gear mentioned in this post was purchased for my personal use. I have not been compensated or incentivized by any company for any product reviews, highlights, or opinions.
Upcoming Live Fire Classes
Defensive Pistol Fundamentals – 1
Saturday, January 27th – 9am to 1pm
This class is a live fire training opportunity to work on defensive pistol skills. This first class will focus on fundamentals, including grip, site picture, and draw.
Intermediate Defensive Pistol – 2
Saturday, February 24th – 9am to 1pm
This intermediate defensive pistol class will focus on taking the next step in your firearms proficiency with items like target transitions, reactive targets, and reload drills.
Next Level Defensive Pistol – 3
Saturday, March 30th – 9am to 1pm
This next level defensive pistol class is an advanced class for practicing shooting and moving, transitions, and reactive targets.
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