Daily 5 Min Dry Fire Practice

[garyb]

Attached is a 5 min dry fire practice session. Let me know what you think.

[Kingcreek]

Looks like you put a lot of thought into it. nice job on the structure.
I won't do your routine myself but it was nice to read. I'm too old and set in my ways and things work pretty well for me as they are. NOT that I couldn't benefit, I'm just being honest that I won't dedicate the time to it.

[garyb]

Yea, I completely understand. It takes additional time to dry fire practice, even if it isn't every day and especially if you already get enough routine quality range time. You probably have your own drills you do, so that is good. You are probably like some guys who get to shoot regularly, so they stay on their game. It is deep into winter where I am at (8 deg and snow), so indoor dry fire is the only practice I'll get until my wife and I take our motor home to Fl for a few weeks. Then I'll get to shoot with my sons a few times. The 5 minutes a day of dry fire practice really helps me, but that's just me. Perhaps not for everyone. I spend the 5 minutes a day practicing everything I mentioned and then give more serious emphasis on one specific thing that I need to work on. Today it was my mag exchanges.
Thanks for the input though.

[Kingcreek]

I live in Illinois so the weather is very "midwestish". But I live in the country on my own acreage and I can shoot whenever I want and I'm outside a lot. I carry a sidearm when I'm cutting wood, on the tractor, mowing, walking the dogs, etc and sometimes I just take a break and do a little shooting. When I bought my PM9 I wanted to get used to the trigger so I shot it every day for the first 2 weeks. I used to shoot competitively first rifle then pistol and now shotgun in recent years. Lots of trigger time and some of it with personal trainers/coaches. used to be nothing for me to shoot over 10k rounds a year. I also grew up shooting. My cousins were a couple years older and we were always shooting something. I probably wore out 2 BB guns by the time I turned 10 and then was on to shooting .22lr and louder stuff.

[TheTman]

That was pretty good Gary. I do a lot of dry-fire practice myself, particularly now since I have a pretty new gun to work with. I use instructions similiar to yours. Going to work with an instructor sometime after the first of the year. One instructor said close to 95% of his practice time was dry-firing. Said it was a great way to get rid of any flinching you might have. I try and do a lot of variations, with coats on and off and different clothes and such, tucked, untucked, mix it up as much as I can. Don't want clothes to be the reason I'm not here and the bad guy is.
I think too many people tend to get their CC permit and a gun, and call it good. A little range time now and then and that's their practice. Drawing your weapon quickly and getting it on target quicker than the bad guy may mean all the difference in who gets to go home. Hope I never have to find out.

[garyb]

themanski,
Good point on practice with various clothing. I had not previously given much thought to this important variable. Thanks for making the point. This is something that bow hunters do before the hunting season kicks in, to be sure the bow string does not hit a sleeve, etc... Clothing variations are a variable that are easily often forgotten in practice. Excellent point!

I also agree with the point you made about some folks getting a cc permit and carrying without continual practice to build their skills. If you are drawing a weapon, it is wise to be VERY good with it.

Finally, your excellent point about dry fire practice. I have heard the same thing to be true, concerning the importance for the majority of the practice to be dry fire. Like you said, dry fire practice will eliminate a multitude of problems and weaknesses with our shooting. I do the same thing with my rifles, muzzle loader and shotguns. My wife calls it fondling...and maybe she is partly correct. I love to fondle these weapons. There is a benefit to the fondling beyond admiring the beauty and pleasure of handling it. Handeling the weapon builds familiarity, muscle memory, etc... You get to know HER. By actually PRACTICING with the use of kata or pre-arranged movements and drills, progress and skill with the weapon is improved exponentially and well beyond what is possible with range practice alone. I am not minimizing range practice at all...because it is very important to verify/confirm the dry fire skills and ultimately accuracy and speed. They all build on eachother and work synergistically to make us better. Continual self reflection and working on improving the weaknesses is the initiative. It takes effort (which is why excuses are sometimes made), but the process should be as fun and (more) fulfilling than live fire. If we all thought of it as shooting without the bang, we would do it more...especially when we start to see the tremendous improvement that can be made. Dry Fire Practice!

[earle8888]

can U post this in a NON zip file?

[garyb]

File was too big and I had to have my IT department (my wife) compress it. It was a big to do just to get it posted. Are you not able to open it? Any suggestions that I can pass along to the IT group would be appreciated, as long as I don't have to pay her OT :behindsofa:. Ha ha.

[TheTman]

I have plently of web space, I can unzip it, convert it from a MS Word document to a plain .txt file, and repost it for you if you'd like. It's not copyrighted or anything is it? Can't do copyrighted material.
I was kind of disappointed more people didn't reply. Maybe people couldnt open it. Always looking for tips and things that will improve my shooting, even after over 40 years of shooting, I still find there is a lot to learn and lots of room to improve.

[garyb]

Yea, sure, go for it themanski. Thanks. This kind of practice is not for everyone. After 25 yrs of serious martial arts training in several styles (various forms of karate, judo, weapons, etc...), being an instructor, etc..., this 5 minutes of dry fire practice is a very basic maintenance thing to me. I was reading the problems some of the guys were having on the forum and I thought I'd put something out there that was very easy, quick, fun, could be done quietly at home and had a tremendous accumulative effect. Some will consider, others will ignore. Not a big deal to me really. It is up to them. Thanks again.

[garyb]

Oh, forgot to mention...no copyright...I wrote it to help out the guys. I'm not a computer guy, so do whatever you need to with it. Put your name on it if you want...haha. It is just posted to help those that WANT it. TX.

[TheTman]

I put up a text file of Gary's manual HERE (http://www.pccomps.com/dry%20fire.txt) you can click on the link and look at in with your browswer, or right click on it and save to your computer.

[earle8888]

thetmanski (http://kahrtalk.com/members/thetmanski.html) http://kahrtalk.com/images/tigra/statusicon/user_offline.gif
Member
thetmanski (http://kahrtalk.com/members/thetmanski.html) http://kahrtalk.com/images/tigra/statusicon/user_offline.gif
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thetmanski, Thanks

[TheTman]

You're welcome earle.

[garyb]

I hope that helps viewers. TX