Category Archives: Dry Fire
Shooting practice
When I went out to KR Training this past Saturday for teaching, I made sure to go out extra early. Had to get things set up and prepped for classes, and I knew if I timed it right I’d give myself a fair chunk of time to do some of my own shooting practice.
After my last live-fire practice, my big decision was: slow down. My general guide is to be accurate first, fast second. This I know, have known, and is always the case, but the pressure of the line always winds up being on going faster and not being the last guy to shoot. It’s just how you get swept up in things. I’m making the conscious effort to not do that. And so when I shoot, slow down.
So to that end, I thought a good cold diagnostic would be shoot “the Farnam Drill”, at least, as I understood it to be. I’ve read so many variations on it, so here’s what I did:
- IDPA target, only shots in the ‘-0′ zone count. (I’ve read some that say 8.5″x11″ piece of paper)
- 7-8 yards. I just paced it off and that’s about where I was. (I’ve read 7 yards, 10 yards, 8 meters)
- 1 round in the chamber (most agree on this)
- load magazine with 5 live and 1 dummy round (randomly). (I’ve read some with 4 live rounds; I’ve read some that get specific about where the dummy should be, i.e. not on top, not on bottom; I say let it be wherever because you never know where a failure might be, and if you look at the magazine before you seat it well… you’re just cheating yourself.)
- spare mag with at least 3 live rounds in it
- shot timer
then on the buzzer:
- drawing from concealment (I’ve seen some that don’t specify concealment/retention)
- shoot until you hit the dummy round
- clear the malfunction (tap, rack, bang)
- keep shooting until the magazine is empty (slide lock)
- reload (generally a slide lock “speed” reload, i.e. no retention of the mag)
- shoot 3 more (I’ve seen some say to only shoot 2 more, so then the 3rd becomes the setup for running the drill again)
I also make sure to move at every non-shooting portion. Draw? move. Clear malfunction? move. Reload? move. It’s just a large side-step, but it’s still moving while doing “not-shooting” actions. Most write-ups I’ve seen of the drill do not discuss movement one way or the other.
Performance? Well, I’ve seen various numbers as well for what performance should be. I’ve seen students should be able to shoot it in 18.25 seconds. I’ve seen that students should be able to do it in 15 seconds. I’ve seen it said that instructors should be able to do it in 12 seconds. But then, how much of a standard can this be with so much variation in procedure? I mean, if you load the mag with 4 live rounds and shoot 2 after the reload vs. 5 live and 3 after, those additional 2 rounds will consume more time. So…. well…. that’s why it’s just hard to compare this across the board. Regardless of minutia, it’s a great drill that incorporates a great many parts of defensive pistol shooting. It provides a good measure of ability and performance. While I cannot compare so much to others, I can at least compare to myself.
My first run, “cold from the car”, all I knew was I told myself to go slow. I had to clean it, timer be damned. Go too slow, be certain of every shot, and just ensure a clean run. That I did, and ran it in 12.63 seconds. It felt glacially slow to me.
I opted to run it again, speeding up a bit. 11.10 seconds.
Then I changed course. See, I was going to just run that drill twice to get a feel on things then move to other stuff. But I decided to keep running the drill over and over and from it take what I could regarding my speed vs. my accuracy. How fast could I push myself before things fell apart? So I kept running the drill over and over, pushing myself faster every time. A couple times I pushed myself to a level that I felt was certainly “too fast” and I really didn’t care if I did miss because the goal was to find the point of “too fast”. I shot it in 8.56, but with 4 holes just outside the ‘-0′ ring, that was obviously too fast. Interestingly, I did shoot it in 8.84 clean. When I thought about the two runs, what was different? What I saw… or rather, didn’t see. On the 8.84 run I may not have seen perfect “target shooting” sight pictures, but I saw enough and was clearly seeing enough, brain was processing “yeah, that’s good (enough)”. On the 8.56, my brain wasn’t as “there” as the other run; I recall my eyes were just taking in noise, and it was akin to just “blazing away” at the target. Was the speed of shooting really any different? I’m not sure; I wish I had looked at the shot-to-shot times because that would be more telling, because maybe I was blazing away, or maybe I had greater time differences during the reloads or some such? I didn’t look. *sigh* But I did note that even on the 8.84 run I had fumbled a bit, but still got a decent time. I recall Tom Givens shooting this drill (or whatever his flavor of it was) in about 8.5 seconds, so hey… I can live with this.
Averaging out the strings, I generally shot it in about 10-ish seconds. I’ll analyze in a bit.
After doing this drill a bunch, I decided to do a basic thing from the IDPA Classifier: Mozambique. I stood at 7 yards and fired. All 3 rounds must be acceptable hits. Shot from concealment, par time of 3 seconds. This was not only to nod towards my desire that the first string of the IDPA Classifier is something I should be able to clean on demand, but it was also some time to work on my concealment draw.
Finally, I ran the 3 Seconds or Less drill. That’s another drill that I should be able to do, cold, on demand, and clean every time. Only ran it once, but did clean it.
Analysis
I must remember to forget the timer and focus on accuracy. Even if that means I’m last in the match, if I can show “no points down” I’ll be happy about that. If that means in classes I’m the last guy, fine, because I’ll have no tape on my target. Accuracy is my focus, even if I’m slower.
But on that token, I must keep pushing myself on speed because I have to know where my limit is, and if I’ve improved.
One thing certainly is what I see. Those two 8-second runs were quite different in terms of the visual information gathered and processed, and I have to remember what I saw, and didn’t see. And I’m probably due for a refresh from the Enos book.
The other is “other stuff”. My concealment draws were consistently around 1.7 seconds. Not bad, but certainly room for improvement. But that said, I’m not sure that’s the best place to focus my time. I don’t think it’s so much speed getting the gun out of the holster as it is on my presentation. It’ll go back to the visuals. I need to get on the trigger sooner, allowing the shot to break when I have a “good enough” sight picture. I know I’m waiting a little too long, for more visual feedback than I actually need. Just gotta get on it sooner and allow the shot to break when I have the good enough picture, not after I have it.
It’s even visuals with split times. I actually didn’t look at my splits, but I know I’m going slower than my eyes and brains need.
Plus, reloads. I got caught in my concealment garment too much or had other little fumbles.
But I think the biggest help is my mindset: accuracy is final.
Still, while keeping the mindset is appropriate, if there’s anything to specifically work on it’s “see what I need to see, and ONLY what I NEED to see”.
DIY Airsoft trap
Remember that Airsoft M&P I purchased a few months ago?
If I’m going to have it, I need a place to shoot it. If I’m going to shoot it, I need a way to manage all the plastic BB’s.
It’s CO2-powered, and it has some oomph. I tried shooting it at simple cardboard and that proved to be no match for it. TXGunGeek told of a great solution, getting those big wardrobe boxes, because you can stick one at the end of the hallway and it makes for a great place to catch the plastic BB’s. I think that’s a great solution – if you have the room. Alas, I do not have the room for one of those huge boxes, nor would Wife tolerate it. 
When I was a teenager, I had a pellet gun and had a trap for it. The trap was made mostly out of thick plastic, except for the back and front. The front was a simple cardboard cover, so you could afix a target and of course shoot through it (and easily replace it). The back was made out of a steel plate and angled downward so any lead pellets that hit it would be deflected down. Also, hanging within the box were some curtains, I think made of Kevlar or at least very thick canvas, to help trap the pellets. It worked quite well, and served as my inspiration. (I just found it, it was a Crosman Target Trap).
The rules? To make a BB trap that minimized the bouncing BB’s and cleanup, but also that didn’t cost me a whole lot. Plus if it got all beat up and shot out, wouldn’t be a big deal to replace. So I went digging around the house to scrounge what I could, and was fortunate to find everything I needed. So in the end, this project cost me nothing but a bit of my time.
A box
What was fortunate about this project was receiving a package from UPS, and the box it came in was a nice large cube. That was the perfect way to start this effort. After some work with a knife and duct tape, I had formed the basics of the trap:
The basic trap.
Key factors were to put duct tape along every seam and corner, taping down whatever was needed to minimize nooks and crevices where BB’s could become trapped. I also wanted to make the opening as large as possible to accommodate whatever my target was, but still have a lip at the bottom to of course prevent rollout. After having used this trap for a little bit, I could argue having the front being replaceable to be useful. That is, the BB’s still can and do bounce, and having this big wide opening covered up of course helps retain the BB’s. I didn’t want to put a cover in place because it would get shot out and I’m lazy and didn’t want to have to always be replacing it. The paper target works fine covering most of it but well… maybe I might want to just leave a 8.5″x11″ opening, so the paper target hangs just fine, easily replaced anyways, but otherwise there’s maximum retention.
We recently retired some bedsheets from a child’s bed. I also found some carpet tack strips in a corner of the garage. A little measure, a little cut:
Start of the curtain
I cut the strip to fit the width of the box. I cut the curtain to be the width of the box and twice the height. Put the tack strip in the middle, just poking the tacks through the cloth to hold it. Note this cloth is not very thick nor heavy. I actually shot a few things and found that the weight mattered. If it was too heavy, it didn’t absorb the energy of the BB as much as deflect it — the point is to stop ricochet. So this light bed sheet worked fine to catch and cradle the BB as it hit, stopping it.
I applied the tack strip to the inside of the roof:
Hanging the curtain.
Here was a time for experimentation. Where to put it? Should I put the curtain close to the front? closer to the back? I even tried two sets of curtains to see what effect that would have. In the end, I settled on one curtain placed about 3/4 of the way back. First, two curtains ended up acting like a heavier curtain, too much material, too much resistance, and BB’s bounced instead of being absorbed. But also, too close to the front could allow the BB to “shoot through” the curtain and just strike the back and bounce. Positioning the curtain close to the back but with some room ended up working out the best because the cloth would absorb the BB but then all strike the back wall and be enough to make everything stop. It’s just what worked best.
I did play around with a cardboard insert at the back wall, at an angle to angle the BB’s down. That didn’t work out, but I also didn’t experiment with this angle (pun intended) all that much.
Despite all of this, I still had two problems: 1. the tack strip fell down, 2. BB’s could still bounce.
Finished trap
I had used glue and the strip’s tacks to attach it to the roof of the trap — it’s just cardboard. And while that was OK, it wasn’t ideal. So I just cut another section of tack strip, put it on the outside of the box opposite the inner strip, and used the nails within the strip to nail the two strips together. Works like a charm.
I also took the cut cloth from my second curtain experiment and just laid it loose and bunched on the floor. That worked well to provide an absorbing and uneven surface for trapping the BB’s that fell down, and it doesn’t get in the way when you want to empty the trap.
To use the trap? I just print out targets on paper and attach them with a tack from the top of the box. Simple enough.
It works pretty well. A BB here and there still flies out, but overall it works well enough and I’m quite pleased. Didn’t cost me any money, just a bit of my time, and was fun to devise and assemble.
Maybe I need some “damp” fire
I’m taking a small break from the dry fire routine.
I need to fall back and regroup. While following TLG’s sample routine is certainly a good starting template, I have been thinking it’s time to adjust it more to address my specific needs.
I’m also bothered by my performance this past Saturday. Something isn’t clicking, something isn’t happening between live fire and dry fire. I don’t know. But I can say, I’ve got a trigger slapping problem. Maybe I just need a lot more live fire, putting holes in paper, and seeing what happens. That is, do more of my diagnostics in live fire. I do think that’s part of my problem… let live fire tell me what to work on, then work on it in dry. I just need a lot more live…and I need time for that. *sigh*
But I might have a possible solution.
“Damp” fire. Or at least, that’s what I’m calling it.
It’s not live fire, but it’s not dry fire either. Basically, it’s getting an Airsoft gun and working with that. My hope is it will be close enough to my real rig and I’ll get the active feedback of a hole in paper to see what I’m doing wrong. I mean, I’ve been thinking how a lot of ball-and-dummy drill is in my future, but that means I need real live fire, which is not always possible for me. But I can do Airsoft at home, and that can be better than nothing. Or so I hope.
It may not solve my problems, but it might. We’ll see. What’s the harm. Plus then I’ll have an Airsoft gun to use in FoF scenarios.
I have purchased an M&P replica. This one is CO2-powered, which I’m OK with. Supposedly can get 200-250 shots per cartridge. Supposed to be metal and have a good heft. All signs point to being a reasonable attempt at replicating my carry rig, tho we’ll see how the trigger is by comparison.
It’s been shipped and is on its way. Hopefully will be here before the weekend. I’ll report back on it later.
2012-09-15 live fire practice
Following TLG’s sample dry fire routine.
The routine allows for substitution of live fire for dry fire, so my “week 1 day 5″ was replaced with some live fire.
I was assisting at KR Training, so I didn’t get to do much formal, but I did a few things.
Let’s just say I stunk up the joint.
*sigh*
Well, I’ll break down some things.
Before DPS1 we do a pre-test with some reactive targets. I was going to demonstrate something to a student. No prep, no forethought that I was going to do this, it just happened as the course of conversation went to say “this is what you do”, and I just drew, 1 shot on target 1, 1 shot on target 2, both reactives fell over, and that was that. There was no thought, no nothing, cold, nailed it in short order.
That made me quite happy. Of course that’s what I should do, but what got me about it was hitting it cold, no thought, no prep, no nothing. Very happy with that.
But later on, there’s this “hostage” target Karl has, where it looks like a large steel IDPA/IPSC-shaped no-shoot with a small flapper just over the shoulder… probably 4-6″ (one of these days I need to measure precisely how much is exposed). It was probably 20 yards from me. I went through 3 magazines: 1 2H, 1 SHO, 1 WHO. I thought I was doing OK because I kept listening for the distinctive “flap” sound it makes when you hit it. Then Hogel comes up and asked who shot up the no-shoot — “because I just painted it”. *sigh* Looks like it was me, having a bunch of “near target hits”, or rather, unacceptable hits on the hostage. *sigh* Looks like the flapper activated either from splatter or impact vibration. *sigh* I was most upset with that, thinking I was doing well, but I wasn’t.
On some other steel work, I was hitting poorly. I could tell what it was: trigger slapping, plain and simple.
The bad part was, I just didn’t have enough time to shoot on my own to really work and try to diagnose the problem. To shoot as I have in dry fire. There’s still a disconnect in my head somewhere. I need to figure some things out, collect my thoughts, then go talk with Karl.
2012-07-19 Dry Fire Practice
Following the TLG 4-week sample dry fire routine.
Week 1, Day 4
Basic routine
- 20 reps of Wall Drill, from extension 2H
- 5 reps of Wall Drill from extension, SHO
- 5 reps of Wall Drill from extension, WHO
- 20 reps of Wall Drill from press-out, 2H
- 5 reps of Wall Drill from press-out, SHO
- 5 reps of Wall Drill from press-out, WHO
Trying to get my groove back regarding practice sessions.
Trying to focus on picking up speed, but again, not necessarily by going faster, but by ensuring no time is wasted. Press out and press trigger with less time wasted in doing both… so the time between “start” and “click” is used as wisely as possible.
2012-09-12 dry fire practice
Following TLG’s sample dry fire routine.
Week 1, Day 3, reloads
- 10 reps of wall drill from press-out 2H
- 20 reps reload from slidelock, slow, 2H
- 20 reps reload from slidelock, 3/4 speed, 2H
- 10 reps reload from slidelock, slow, 2H
- 10 reps of wall drill form press-out, 2H
I’ve been falling a little behind in my practice, but dedication and accountability are motivators.
Keeping the gun up in your line of sight is useful. That is, you’re reloading almost in front of your face… not in front of your chest, nor your stomach. But yes, way up there. Not only keeps whatever was downrange in your field of vision, but it means there’s less for you to have to hunt and find when you shift your vision back to the target. Plus it means less movement for your hands and gun since they are ready to “ride the rail” of the eye-target-line back out, instead of having to get brought back up there. Every tenth of a second matters.
2012-09-12 dry fire practice
Following TLG’s sample dry fire routine.
Week 1, Day 2, draws.
- 10 reps of wall drill from press-out 2H
- 20 reps of wall drill from holster 2H
- 5 reps of wall drill from holster, SHO
- 5 reps of wall drill from holster, WHO
- 10 reps draw & fire at 3/4 speed, 2H
- 10 reps draw & fire slow 2H
The day job has been taking a lot of my time, so blogging has been light.
I did get this done, just couldn’t post until today.
I can’t wait to verify my dry skills with some live work.
2012-09-10 Dry Fire Practice
Following the TLG 4-week sample dry fire routine.
This marks the start of month 3.
Week 1, Day 1
Basic routine
- 20 reps of Wall Drill, from extension 2H
- 5 reps of Wall Drill from extension, SHO
- 5 reps of Wall Drill from extension, WHO
- 20 reps of Wall Drill from press-out, 2H
- 5 reps of Wall Drill from press-out, SHO
- 5 reps of Wall Drill from press-out, WHO
Again, it’s so simple, yet so useful. It’s about as fundamental as you can get.
My focus? Don’t forget everything else I’ve been doing, like riding the rail of the eye-target line, gripping like hell, etc.. But let’s try to not waste any time. Get the gun out there, allow a “good enough” sight picture, and press off that shot. Minimize the time… don’t rush, just minimize and don’t waste.
2012-09-09 dry fire practice
Following TLG’s sample dry fire routine.
Week 4, Day 3 (makeup), low-light
- 10 reps wall drill, SHO with flashlight
- 10 reps ID, move right, engage
- 10 reps ID, move left, engage
- 5 reps ID, draw on the move, engage
- 5 reps reload in the dark
- 10 reps wall drill, SHO with flashlight
I missed doing this day in the course of the normal rotation, thus I had to make up the missed session. Just took care of that.
I’m looking forward to October 20 @ KR Training. Going to have Defensive Pistol Skills 2, AT-2 Scenarios, and AT-1A Low Light Shooting. We can only do these days 2x a year because of the realities of light. It’s a LONG day, but always well-worth it.
If you’re in the area and haven’t taken any of these classes, you should consider it. The only class I’d put a hard prerequisite on would be DPS2 — you should be a graduate of DPS1. But AT-2 and AT-1A? Sign up. AT-1A, because of the flashlight requirement, will be a lot of one-handed shooting. And while AT-2 is “force on force” it’s not hard-core. Don’t let either of these two notions scare you off. In fact, if you feel a little unsure or challenged by it, I’d say that’s a good sign you should take it. Get your feet wet, break the ice, and take your skills to a higher level.
2012-09-07 dry fire practice
Following TLG’s sample dry fire routine.
Week 4, Day 5, shooter’s choice.
Given last week’s WHO work, I opted to do the basic routine but emphasizing WHO again.
- 20 reps of wall drill from extension WHO
- 5 reps of wall drill from extension SHO
- 5 reps of wall drill from extension 2H
- 20 reps of wall drill from press-out WHO
- 5 reps of wall drill from press-out SHO
- 5 reps of wall drill from press-out 2H
I just wanted more WHO work.
But I’m also working on slowing down and not going overall faster than I can do everything smooth and together. For example, trying to reduce the time between extension and the trigger break. Get things going faster and with a “good enough” sight picture.
