45 days of dryfire, and beyond

Jayne

Jayne

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I was getting pretty discouraged, seemed that the more I shot and the more matches I went to the worse I was getting. Shoots were no longer fun, just exercises in "WTF did I do this time". Finally I decided that instead of paying to not enjoy myself, I would just stop.

After putting the pistol away and pouting for a bit, I decided to give dryfire a serious try. I wrote down a dryfire practice routine and every night I've put some time into it. It's been a month at this point, and out of the 30 days I've practiced 29 of those.

The routine consists of draws, 2 handed shots, strong hand only, weak hand only, transitions and reloads. It's about 250 'shots' in total, a dozen mag changes, and draws. Not a crazy amount, but covering the basics and something I should I could realistically do every day.

I'm using the G34 with a 'dry fire mag' or just snap caps for some of it, and also mixing in a S&W wheel gun because I wanted something with a long/heavy trigger to work on trigger control and get grip/finger strength up.

30 days is ~7500 'shots' so far on my way to 10,000.

Total cost for this is going to be about $20, I'm wearing out snap caps that will have to be replaced.

I've done a few live fire sessions with a .22 to check-in basically, and I can say that I'm not dropping shots very often now, but otherwise it's not a good metric to check. I should have timed some drills before I started so I could actually measure improvement or lack there of, but I didn't think to do that since I was frustrated and just put things away abruptly.

A total side effect of this is that the trigger on the S&W, which previously had less than 100 rounds through it, is amazingly smooth now. It's been 'fired' 2500 times now at least and has worn in nicely, all without needing a cleaning. :)

Another side effect is the wife getting annoyed at my 'clicking practice', but she knows and calls me out sometimes when it's getting late and I've not done my routine. Having support in an endeavor really helps.

I'm planning to shoot the next Wake match, even if it's before the 45 days are up.

I'm also planning to reduce the quantity but continue with daily dry practice after the 45 days... if I feel I've gotten anything out of it.

Since everyone likes pictures, the tools:

IMG_2402.jpg

That mag with the blue tape is an original (recalled) magpul mag body filled with shot to simulate the weight of a loaded mag for reload drills.

Here is what all the caps are starting to look like:

IMG_2401.jpg



Wow, that's longer that I thought it would be, but there ya go.
 
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Only caution I'd say is with all dry fire and no live fire, there is a tendency to develop dry fire grip. Basically you start to have a relaxed grip as there is no recoil. Other then that, I'd say your doing great.
 
Wolffy said:
Only caution I'd say is with all dry fire and no live fire, there is a tendency to develop dry fire grip. Basically you start to have a relaxed grip as there is no recoil. Other then that, I'd say your doing great.
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I've been working on my grip too; keeping a super tight grip at all times. It's becoming easier to maintain that proper grip throughout the whole practice session as my strength has improved. I wonder if there will be some sort of transition period when going back to live fire where I have to learn to control recoil all over again?

Oh, and a downside to all of this? I've been wondering if a 9mm wheel gun would be a fun next purchase. Something satisfying seeing that cylinder rotating around under your sight picture...
 
I'm starting my dryfire routine tommorow evening. Today will be my forth match.
Also according to everything I see my grip is wrong.
So tommorow I'm going to start dryfiring with my new grip ( per everyone in YouTube)
I'm still suck so it doesn't really matter trying to change everything at this point
 
I shoot sporting clays and 3D archery, so my only relation to shooting and keeping score. For sporting clays I decided to start shooting both eyes open about 18 months ago. My scores dropped drastically, by about 8-10 hits per 50 for a while. Today I shot 38/50 which is the high side of my average and the best I've shot in a long time. And I had one station where EVERYTHING felt perfect. Both eyes open, did not even see the front bead, swing pull, follow through, break. Cleared the station and it felt great.

In 3D I switched from an index release (calling my shot) to a hinge (surprise release) a little over a year ago. Again, scores dropped initially. But by the end of the season I had consistent higher scores and less crazy shots.

In other words, with any drastic change your score will suffer for a bit while you adjust. Keep it up.
 
There are folks who will say dry fire is useless and doesn't translate. THEY ARE WRONG. I shoot every day. That's right EVERY day. Those 10,000 presentations will help you greatly with muscle memory. Cooper himself said..live fire is for verification. Please, continue, it will help. I have seen results from many people who have been here in the last 15 years. Try to wear the front sight off that Glock from draws and reholstering. When you start putting away your gun after a draw and NEVER miss putting it directly in the holster without looking, you'll be getting there. i have found over the years, just by standing back from the line and watching people reholster, you can learn a great deal about somebody's familiarity with their chosen system.
Don't stop your practice and encourage others to do it. One other thing...surround yourself with shooters who all want to see you get better. Even when you beat them.
 
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The 45 days came and went, and I'm still doing it. After a quiet range trip (ie by myself so I could focus on what I'm doing) I found that my skills have not radically improved, but they also haven't degraded either. Running plate racks and whatnot is very similar to what I was doing before. So, even if it's not better, at a low cost I've managed to maintain my skill for 2 months. Not bad.

What's noticeably improved though is my grip strength and as a side effect recoil control for multiple rapid shots. Because I've been spending all my time focusing on the basics with no shots fired to look at, all I can feel is grip pressure, trigger press, sight alignment. At that class when I had to transition to the pistol cold and start firing, my first thought was "wow, this thing has no recoil". Nothing's changed with the pistol/ammo, but I'm so much more consistent now with my grip that it doesn't feel like it's flying around out of control after the first shot.


Now, what I should have done is run timed drilled before I started and then after to get some quantitative results. Quick, someone spend two months on that!

If I can get to the range I'll start timing some stuff and we'll see what the change is over the next 45 days.

~11,250 'shots' fired so far. By day 55 I should have more dryfire shots fired than a total of live rounds fired over the last 4 years. That's a lot of clicking.
 
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Mike Overlay said:
Dont be cheap. Best 30 bucks ever spent. Be honest with yourself and you will see huge results fairly quick.
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I have the book. Came "free" when I took his class. Most expensive free book ever.

I do have some scaled targets too, just made them out of cardboard soda boxes (lighter material sticks to the walls with less painters tape). We had some guests staying at the house so I lost use of the basement and had to move targets into the bedroom. The wife briefly complained about all the "gnomes" on the walls (term coined by @seangt when he saw my targets), but since it's her friends staying here she can't complain very long.
 
11K+.....OUTSTANDING!!!! Repeatable presentations are your goal. The next time you shoot, line yourself up perfectly with your target from 5 yards away. On your first live fire exercise, cold, draw and fire 1 round....with your eyes CLOSED. Don't be surprised when you check your target. After about the 20K number of draw and presses, it will become natural. BUT it is a quickly perishable skill. Don't ever be satisfied.
Remember the Cooper idiom, live fire is for verification. Skills are learned in the quiet. The only "cost" is your time. You "spend" this time to get to where you want to be. Then you do it to stay sharp. I only suggest these things because I have personally seen the results in MANY shooters. Believe it or not ALL classes of shooters benefit from this. The next time you see a Master shooting, watch the way he reholsters his piece. Never a bobble. From presentations and recoveries X thousands. You can tell as much about a shooter's ability by watching him reholster as watching him shoot.
Stick it out Jayne, I hope you can make it to the gathering in October. My folks admire and respect real "pistoleros".
 
BatteryOaksBilly said:
You can tell as much about a shooter's ability by watching him reholster as watching him shoot.
Stick it out Jayne, I hope you can make it to the gathering in October. My folks admire and respect real "pistoleros".
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That makes perfect sense to me.

I think I'm gonna have a scheduling conflict for October. That's the month I usually change the newspaper in the parakeet's cage. :rolleyes:
 
Jeppo said:
That makes perfect sense to me.

I think I'm gonna have a scheduling conflict for October. That's the month I usually change the newspaper in the parakeet's cage. :rolleyes:
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We'll see YOU here!!!!!!!! Parakeet's and mashed taters are great, try it!
 
Just an update here. I've been keeping up with the dry practice daily since I started this, with the exception of a week I was traveling for work and 1 night I just really, really didn't feel like it (bad day all around). That brings the total to ~17,500 dry fires. Damn.

With the Wake county matches shut down for the moment I've not had a chance to shoot a pistol match since starting this, but just doing some drills at the range I think I'm starting to see an actual improvement.

An interesting side effect of all this is that I'm now aiming too high on IDPA targets. On my little scaled down ones I'm tending to aim at the top of the A zone, not the center of the A zone. So when I was drilling against a full sized target at 10 yards, all my hits were in the upper half of the A and into that little section of C zone right between the A and B. Clearly I've grooved in that aim point, hopefully that's easy to fix.

This morning I did some live fire with the 22 in the back yard, and while it's not all that impressive over all, for me this is a huge change. 50 shots at 15 yards, a shot every second or so. Not spraying, just a nice even pace to work on shot timing and 49/50 of them were in the 6" circle in the middle. ZERO 'dropped shots' where I dumped the gun low trying to anticipate recoil; the only miss was that one high and right.

The first mag was in the low/right zone and things improved from there.

IMG_2646.jpg
 
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HMMMMMMMM, I see what I mean. No really, I am glad you tried this. Personally, I have never seen it fail. WHEN the shooter follows through. You are only one in 100s I have seen here. Very few follow through. You may not believe this, but this will stay with you for life. Like a knife, you will need to hone it up occasionally.
 
Learn to track the sight through the entire cycle... The really,really good shooters call the shot when the slide RETURNS into battery. This takes mucho "correct" practice/repetition...

Dry fire is relevant up until the trigger is squeezed. Dryfire does not deal with anything after ignition. ( recoil management and sight tracking )
 
Hashknife said:
Learn to track the sight through the entire cycle... The really,really good shooters call the shot when the slide RETURNS into battery. This takes mucho "correct" practice/repetition...

Dry fire is relevant up until the trigger is squeezed. Dryfire does not deal with anything after ignition. ( recoil management and sight tracking )
Click to expand...

Top shooters are transitioning while the gun is recoiling, and picking up the sight as it is coming down into the next target. So, they called the shot before the gun completed the recoil cycle, no?

If they waited for gun to come back down before calling a shot, they would lose a lot of time. Also, many shots are target focus and they don't see the sights at all.

Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying.
 
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NKD said:
Top shooters are transitioning while the gun is recoiling, and picking up the sight as it is coming down into the next target. So, they called the shot before the gun completed the recoil cycle, no?

If they waited for gun to come back down before calling a shot, they would lose a lot of time. Also, many shots are target focus and they don't see the sights at all.

Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying.
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This. Saw JJ explain it by drawing recoil impulses as waves in the dirt. He was showing how he transitions while during the "up" impulse of the gun so when it settles he's on the next target.
 
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Geerubb said:
This. Saw JJ explain it by drawing recoil impulses as waves in the dirt. He was showing how he transitions while during the "up" impulse of the gun so when it settles he's on the next target.
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"Driving the gun" !

I like the way JJ breaks stuff down. I always learn something from his vids.
 
NKD said:
Top shooters are transitioning while the gun is recoiling, and picking up the sight as it is coming down into the next target. So, they called the shot before the gun completed the recoil cycle, no?

If they waited for gun to come back down before calling a shot, they would lose a lot of time. Also, many shots are target focus and they don't see the sights at all.

Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying.
Click to expand...


What about shooters controlling recoil so the sights never lift? They just track the sights back and forward into battery ( aprox 6/1000th of a second.) If the shooter doesn't disturb the sights, the sights will be in the same place they were when the shot was taken. The gun cycles FAR faster than a human can move target to target.

I'm not saying I can do this, there are some world class shooters in the Carolinas who have shot competitive globally who enlightened me to this concept/subject when it came up in a local shooting class or training discussion. It is a fascinating concept!
 
Hashknife said:
What about shooters controlling recoil so the sights never lift? They just track the sights back and forward into battery ( aprox 6/1000th of a second.) If the shooter doesn't disturb the sights, the sights will be in the same place they were when the shot was taken. The gun cycles FAR faster than a human can move target to target.

I'm not saying I can do this, there are some world class shooters in the Carolinas who have shot competitive globally who enlightened me to this concept/subject when it came up in a local shooting class or training discussion. It is a fascinating concept!
Click to expand...

What an interesting concept.
 
Had a chance to go through a shoot house this weekend, and I tried to "keep it real". We didn't really discuss every corner/doorway/intersection in super detail, sorta went over it then said "ok, now you try it". They moved the targets around so we wouldn't know what was where, and then I volunteered to go first. 10 guys standing there watching me do entry by myself on that front door.

Anyway, I saw something in one of the photos that I was not expecting. Back in the old days when I used a 1911 I used to ride the safety all the time. When I would come up for a shot, the safety comes off. So while walking around the house in simulated high stress, what am I doing? This:

upload_2018-7-15_21-53-9.png

I never, ever, ever practice like that. My thumb is down, somewhat overlapping my other thumb to keep me from hitting the slide release (which I do, I have long fingers for the size of my hands). I've done a zillion dry fires now, but as soon as things go sideways, I'm back to 1911 man.

How much dry practice will I need to overcome this weirdness? Maybe Mr. Owl knows.

Here's another shot, different corner but the same thing (diving out to clear that last little bit so I'm "at the ready"). Weird thumb placement that's resting right on the slide release.

upload_2018-7-15_22-1-32.png
 
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The same old dry fire is getting super boring, so I setup the shot reporter stuff again and am playing with the SIRT laser pistol. Last night I did some El Prez runs, and got it pretty good at under 7 seconds with no misses. Buzzer to first shot from the holster is 1.64, reload to shot is 1.73. Getting there. Obviously the lack of recoil speeds things up.

Targets are 1/3 sized at 13 feet, so the same as full sized at 13 yards? Is that how that works?

This morning I tried it again, and cold I was at 8.5 seconds, so almost 30% slower.

good_el_prez_run_2.jpg
 
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Jayne said:
Had a chance to go through a shoot house this weekend, and I tried to "keep it real". We didn't really discuss every corner/doorway/intersection in super detail, sorta went over it then said "ok, now you try it". They moved the targets around so we wouldn't know what was where, and then I volunteered to go first. 10 guys standing there watching me do entry by myself on that front door.

Anyway, I saw something in one of the photos that I was not expecting. Back in the old days when I used a 1911 I used to ride the safety all the time. When I would come up for a shot, the safety comes off. So while walking around the house in simulated high stress, what am I doing? This:

View attachment 65323

I never, ever, ever practice like that. My thumb is down, somewhat overlapping my other thumb to keep me from hitting the slide release (which I do, I have long fingers for the size of my hands). I've done a zillion dry fires now, but as soon as things go sideways, I'm back to 1911 man.

How much dry practice will I need to overcome this weirdness? Maybe Mr. Owl knows.

Here's another shot, different corner but the same thing (diving out to clear that last little bit so I'm "at the ready"). Weird thumb placement that's resting right on the slide release.

View attachment 65325
Click to expand...
1911 hard wired......probably never....sorry.....Mr. Owl
 
That 30% slower is pretty consistent when cold. Tonight instead of an el prez I started cold with two reload two, and it was 6-something instead of the 4-something I can do after I've warmed up.

"cold" is all you get in a match or real life, so I suppose I should try harder on those first reps and push it. I don't tend to miss cold, perhaps because I'm doing everything "right" (sights, grip, trigger) and not gaming it.... but that's probably a good thing as well.
 
I think I've found the lower bound to just how fast I can draw. Forget aiming, just trying to bring the gun out of the strong side holster with no concealment and hit the target enough to get the laser to register my fastest won't go below 1.2 seconds. Trying 'harder' just makes it slower.

A man's gotta know his limitations.
 
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Jayne said:
I think I've found the lower bound to just how fast I can draw. Forget aiming, just trying to bring the gun out of the strong side holster with no concealment and hit the target enough to get the laser to register my fastest won't go below 1.2 seconds. Trying 'harder' just makes it slower.

A man's gotta know his limitations.
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It's definitely going to be your limit. If you believe its your limit.
 
NKD said:
It's definitely going to be your limit. If you believe its your limit.
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Man, can't I just be old?

I found a way to beat the limit... using just one hand. Hit percentage goes way down, but speed was 1.03 in the best of cases. Two factors:

1. no two-handed grip so I was firing before full extension, no worries about hitting my off hand (yea, it's just a laser pistol but I drill like it's real so don't want to do dumb stuff)
2. stabilizing the holster/belt with my off hand makes the draw smoother, less fighting with a mis-aligned rig or having it 'follow' the gun up a bit

Two handed is still as before, but we'll see what happens to the speed if I do this daily for a few weeks.

Cold was still over 8 seconds, but that part is just mental. I'm not "in the game" on that first one so I don't drive as hard as I could. That's totally fixable.
 
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Jayne said:
Man, can't I just be old?

I found a way to beat the limit... using just one hand. Hit percentage goes way down, but speed was 1.03 in the best of cases. Two factors:

1. no two-handed grip so I was firing before full extension, no worries about hitting my off hand (yea, it's just a laser pistol but I drill like it's real so don't want to do dumb stuff)
2. stabilizing the holster/belt with my off hand makes the draw smoother, less fighting with a mis-aligned rig or having it 'follow' the gun up a bit

Two handed is still as before, but we'll see what happens to the speed if I do this daily for a few weeks.

Cold was still over 8 seconds, but that part is just mental. I'm not "in the game" on that first one so I don't drive as hard as I could. That's totally fixable.
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IDK, but 1.2 is about my best draws out of a kydex holster. Sounds pretty good.
But a lot of pros are doing .7 ish so it seems like with your fitness and ninja reflexes you could get down to a second easily.
 
My 2 cents...
You will lose more time on transitions and movement to the top guys then on the draw.

But on second thought... Chicks dig sub second draws.
 
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Managed to shave 0.1 seconds of the draw by changing... my breathing.

To make it consistent I've taken to breathing out when the timer says "standby" and then when the buzzer sounds I breathe in while I start the draw stroke. It seems that as I breathe in my chest expands and my shoulders move up. Obviously not some huge amount, but the muscles are moving that way. By always breathing in on the draw I'm not trying to reverse the direction my body is already moving if I happen to be on the outward part of the breathing cycle. Subtle to be sure, but worth another tenth off the whole process and it's repeatable.

Trying to optimize this isn't all that useful overall, but it's something I can do dry for a few minutes each day that doesn't change when moving to live fire so it's at least a transferable skill.

Last night's cold el prez was in the high 6s. Head in the game from the start. Now if I could just use a silent recoilless laser pistol in real life!
 
Really important to get moving at the front of the beep. Tendency is to hear it, then go. Need to go right as it starts.
 
NKD said:
Really important to get moving at the front of the beep. Tendency is to hear it, then go. Need to go right as it starts.
Click to expand...
If you don’t jump the start once in a while, your waiting too long.
 
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Wolffy said:
My 2 cents...
You will lose more time on transitions and movement to the top guys then on the draw.

But on second thought... Chicks dig sub second draws.
Click to expand...
I tend to agree with Stoeger on this, a draw is basically another form of transition. It's not everything by a long shot, but it's a skill with some carry over to others.
 
NKD said:
Really important to get moving at the front of the beep. Tendency is to hear it, then go. Need to go right as it starts.
Click to expand...

Don't forget that in an actual match I don't get to hear the beep, so I'm always behind the curve.

For those who don't know I'm over half deaf and with plugs in I can't hear the beep even with a powered headset over the top. So at a match I have to have the person with the timer physically tap me so I know it's time to go. If I was better I would worry about losing all that time (their reaction time + their movement time to tap me) but just not missing 1 shot makes up for all of that in my world.
 
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