I cannot deny the glory of dry fire practice. It really does pay off.

Getting the new M&P, I really ramped up my dry fire practice because I wanted to adjust to the new gun, help break in the trigger, and so on. So I’ve done a lot more dry fire recently than I have in a long time. I strive to do it every day, but some days life has other plans. Nevertheless, it’s been paying off quite nicely. I need to change up my routine tho to focus on some weak spots.

Try to dry fire 10 minutes every day instead of 1 hour a week. You’ll get more out of it. Plus, the skills will be fresher in your mind and body. I forget exactly how Tom Givens put it, but your skills matter more about proximity to the last time you practiced. So if you practice say 3x a week, you’re never more than a couple of days away from the last time you practiced. Whereas a marathon practice session once a month, you could be 30 days away from the last time you practiced, and that’s not going to carry you when it’s time to perform.

When you dry fire, focus on being correct. You’re working to ingrain good habits, so you have to strive to make every repetition a correct repetition.

Slow down. It helps you do things correctly.

One thing dry fire lacks is recoil. Because there’s no “force to fight against”, one thing we can get lax on is our grip. Don’t. Make a conscious effort to ensure your grip is using proper technique AND grip pressure. If dry fire is all about building lots of repetitions so it becomes “automatic” when we’re really shooting, then ensuring proper grip is an important part of successful dry fire.

Vary your routine, else it gets boring. There are tons of good resources out there. Look at Steve Anderson’s book, Refinement & Repetition, Dry Fire Drills for Dramatic Improvement. I listed a bunch of others in a prior article.

Most of all, just make a conscious commitment to dry fire. I guarantee if you have a good and focused practice routine and do it 10-15 minutes every day for a month, you’ll see an improvement in your skills.

Work on the things you suck at. Yes, that means more weak-hand-only for all of us. 🙂