For Those That Have a Daily Dry Practice Routine, What Is It?

[PinkPanther]

Anybody who knows how to shoot well and takes training seriously has a dry practice routine. You don't need to blow off hundreds of rounds per week. That costs a ton of money.

Before you get into a dry practice routine, make sure you read up on the safety protocols that come with it:

How to Dry Fire « Dry Fire Practice

Also make sure you have the proper techniques. There is no point in doing thousands of reps with poor technique- training scars.


Here is my daily routine:

I wake up and hit the SIRT first thing in the morning and do 5 press outs with 3 "shots" on each. I do two hand, strong hand only and support hand only. 5 press outs, 3 shots each. I use this target from 12 feet away:

10-8DryPracticeTarget_scaled8

Each night I use the SIRT with a tabata timer with the same target (sometimes more than 1 depending on the drill. I also have a human silhouette I will use for close up and fire from retention drills) to conduct 50 reps of any given drill I decide on that day. Every other day is a gym day so on those days I do drills from the ready, support or strong hand only. Safe Arms Review has an awesome video of using a tabata timer for dry practice. There are free timers on the App Store:


I then pack away the SIRT and do wall drills with my extra Glock 19 with an inert barrel in it. I do 10 from the draw, 10 strong hand only from the draw and then 10 support hand only from the ready. Also instead of just rack the slide, I do "tap, rack, bang" after each shot.

That's my daily routine. It sounds a lot longer than it really takes.

 

[dsdmmat]

Ehh i do not agree with your premis. I know how to and do shoot well but, I don't dry fire. I launch an average of 100 rounds down range a week. Depending on what I want to accomplish it will either be from pistol or rifle. I find I never seem to have time for both.

Your drills should match what you are seeking to accomplish. For example drawing drills in a mirror with a timer will help find your natural point of aim and also speed up your reaction time. Malfunction drills will help you clear malfunctions without thinking about them. Dry fire drills with a handgun may help you identify a flinch or a pull if you are recording it. Dime drills with a rifle will halt you with your trigger squeeze.

There is no real substitute for putting lead on steel.

 

[PinkPanther]

Ehh i do not agree with your premis. I know how to and do shoot well but, I don't dry fire. I launch an average of 100 rounds down range a week. Depending on what I want to accomplish it will either be from pistol or rifle. I find I never seem to have time for both.

Your drills should match what you are seeking to accomplish. For example drawing drills in a mirror with a timer will help find your natural point of aim and also speed up your reaction time. Malfunction drills will help you clear malfunctions without thinking about them. Dry fire drills with a handgun may help you identify a flinch or a pull if you are recording it. Dime drills with a rifle will halt you with your trigger squeeze.

There is no real substitute for putting lead on steel.

I agree completely. Dry practice in no way can or should substitute live fire. I have a budget that lets me shoot 100 rounds a week through my carry/duty gun. If I had an endless budget, I would shoot thousands of rounds a week. But dry practice helps engrain muscle memory and is a way to supplement live fire training - not replace it. You can not do recoil management with dry practice. You can however work on trigger press, sight picture, grip, stance, draws and reloads and malfunctions with dry practice.

I would say that for every live round I send down range I do 16 "dry reps". With dry practice you will see your sights move if you are jerking the trigger and the SIRT will give you TONS of feedback on what you are doing. The wall drill forces you to focus on your front sight. The feed back is all there.

Also, some folks may not belong to a range that lets them draw or shoot from different positions. You can do all of this with the SIRT at home.

Everybody's routines will differ. My routine my seem excessive to some people. But I can tell you in the past year since I have religiously stuck to my dry practice routine, my shooting has elevated to a level I never thought I could get to. I was a decent shooter before my routine but now I am getting better by the week in just about every aspect of my shooting.

 

[dsdmmat]

When I shot IPSC everyone said if you didn't video tape your practice sessions you were not serious about getting to the next level. There is some truth to that because the video sees all. I am glad your routines are paying off for you. Try videoing your dry fire routines and see if you are making errors that you do not catch while you are concentrating on your trigger pull and sight alignment. You may be suprized at what you see. Repetitive exercises not only reenforce positive habits, they also may be engraining negative habits as well.

 

[PinkPanther]

When I shot IPSC everyone said if you didn't video tape your practice sessions you were not serious about getting to the next level. There is some truth to that because the video sees all. I am glad your routines are paying off for you. Try videoing your dry fire routines and see if you are making errors that you do not catch while you are concentrating on your trigger pull and sight alignment. You may be suprized at what you see. Repetitive exercises not only reenforce positive habits, they also engraving negative habits as well.

I also agree with this as well and I do it. It is very true.

 

[Celt]

Ill be honest, i was very diligent for years with weekly dry practice, and monthly range time. My kids are older and into sports now, and i coach, so my dry practice has been terrible, and range time is every three months lately.

Last saturdays class was the first time i pressed a trigger in about 3 months (thats terrible).

Since the class, ive been "remotivated" to MAKE time for more practice. Ive been incorporating the movements Chris showed us into my fitness warm up routine, and ill be doing dry fire at least twice a week.

I agree wholeheartedly that dry fire is critical to build muscle memory.

The more active this training forum stays the better. If we are talking about training often i wont " slack off".

 

[PinkPanther]

Ill be honest, i was very diligent for years with weekly dry practice, and monthly range time. My kids are older and into sports now, and i coach, so my dry practice has been terrible, and range time is every three months lately.

Last saturdays class was the first time i pressed a trigger in about 3 months (thats terrible).

Since the class, ive been "remotivated" to MAKE time for more practice. Ive been incorporating the movements Chris showed us into my fitness warm up routine, and ill be doing dry fire at least twice a week.

I agree wholeheartedly that dry fire is critical to build muscle memory.

The more active this training forum stays the better. If we are talking about training often i wont " slack off".

If you can, get a SIRT. Best training tool I have invested in.

 

[Celt]

I plan to, i have a high end g19 airsoft that i use.

 

[Phauxtoe]

Dry fire is great, but you need to be a the Range with real Lead if you want the Dry firing to matter.

 

[GOPerfect]

I do all of my practice with live ammo. I have been one to do dry fire drills. When I was a young Private in the Army, they would make us do them. I do not believe that made me a better shooter.

Each to his own in this regard. There are days when I go shooting that I may only fore one or two boxes of ammo. I might be on my range for two hours going through those 50-200 rounds. I practice for the type of shooting that I think I may encounter. A threat standing in front of me. This is how I train as well.

I do not not train to be the best shooter; I train only to stop a real threat.

 

[PinkPanther]

I didn't want this thread to turn into a debate on whether dry practice works... I wanted people to post their daily routines to share some ideas. Maybe I should have made the title:
For Those That Have a Daily Dry Practice Routine, What Is It?

 

[fnfalguy]

See what you did there Mr. Panther. Good thing you didn't bring up dry firing a 9mm vs dry firing a .45

 

[Celt]

Its a good discussion pink.

One thing I used to do would be draw (focus on light switch, outlet, and other small items, and change elevations) from a holster, press one shot , drop the mag, insert new mag (mags have snap caps) and press another shot.

During dry fire I would practice a lot on my follow through and Trigger reset. And of course without live rounds to cycle the action you have to hand cycle it. But I can tell you that my trigger reset practice helped a lot in Saturday's class because I noticed when we were doing the shooting and moving portion being really careful with trigger reset and Trigger movement to keep the gun as steady as possible without even thinking about it.

 

[Big John]

I do 6 live rounds a month at various ranges, 2 @ 100yds 1@ 300yds 1@ 400yds and 2@ 600yds.

 

[Robin]

I roll out of bed at four in the morning and practice begins, someday I hope to get it right.
Robin

 

[cedmer]

I dry fire my 1911 for about an hour before going to the range at least twice a month.

 

[Celt]

Short on time today, but i managed to get some good reps in drawing from appendix and presenting on target.

 

[PinkPanther]

Short on time today, but i managed to get some good reps in drawing from appendix and presenting on target.

Nice. I did my morning routine and then this afternoon I did 50 reps of the 1-2-reload drill with the SIRT using this target:

http://pistol-training.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/3-two-1.pdf

Followed by wall drills with my other Glock 19.

 

[Celt]

I just watched a really good video on dry fire practice.

 

[Snappo]

I hope to god you folks get snap caps and don't destroy your firing pins........

 

[Celt]

I do most of the time. But I am aware of how prolong dry-fire practice can cause firing pins or Strikers to break.

 

[PinkPanther]

I use a SIRT pistol with the trigger adjusted to match my duty/off duty Glock 19. And I have zero worries in dry firing my other Glock 19.

 

[Podmonkey]

Honestly, while I do dry fire practice, I do it absent mindedly while watching TV or somesuch. With snap caps of course.

 

[ChrisFry]

I do 5-10 min dry fire in the morning after working out every weekday. This consists of focusing on any number of different skills to include: grip, draw, extension, compression, marksmanship, multiple targets, close range, distance, movement, turns, positions and more. I usually do some type of live fire 2-3 weekends/month.