Learning to shoot a firearm properly without constituting a danger to yourself and those around requires consistent training for muscle reflex, aim accuracy, firearm handling safety, trigger impulse control, and much more.
A surefire way to become proficient at shooting firearms safely and effectively is by training with certified gun training instructors at a firing range. However, a quick examination of firing range fees shows how quickly your training bills can stack up.
This is why many firearms experts across the United States recommend using a dry-fire system as a complementary gun training method.
Dry-fire systems help simulate real-life live ammunition shooting scenarios without requiring live rounds and a shooting range.
While a dry-fire system doesn’t have the same recoil or bang associated with the firing of live rounds, research shows that it is an effective learning system for beginner and veteran shooters alike.
The article discusses how to maximize your firearms training sessions with a dry-fire system.
What Is a Dry-Fire System?
A dry-fire system is a firearms training method that allows gun owners to simulate a firearm's discharge without using live rounds. Most dry-fire systems use lasers along with specialized targets that can be placed indoors or outdoors.
The laser used in dry-fire systems is visible and stays on long enough for you to know when you hit the mark. Civilians and the military use dry-fire systems to carry out firearms training while reducing the cost and danger associated with using live ammunition.
It is advised that dry-fire training systems be used as complementary training methods alongside the firing range. This is because it is still very important for anyone handling a gun to know how it feels to handle loaded weapons.
It is common for dry-fire systems to include a laser or infrared training platform and a feedback system.
Strikeman offers a dry-fire training system that includes a signature target, laser bullet, smartphone holder, and phone app that tracks performance and suggests areas of improvement.
One of the most significant advantages of using a dry-fire system is the amount of performance gain in firearms handling and shooting that it offers at a relatively lower cost than traditional shooting practice.
Benefits of Using a Dry-Fire System
Dry-fire systems offer numerous benefits over traditional shooting practices, including cost-efficiency, ease of use, flexibility, and safety, among other things.
Here are some of the other benefits you can expect from using a dry-fire system:
Supplemental Coaching
While training with a certified professional is always recommended for anyone looking to improve their shooting skills, it is not always the most convenient or viable option. This is where dry-fire systems come into play.
A dry-fire system is a form of effective supplemental training that provides analysis, feedback, and training guidance. One thing to note is you still need to shoot live rounds to understand how a gun feels when it is loaded with live rounds. Plus, every gun behaves differently when shot.
Dry-fire systems can help you improve your shooting performance while focusing on good shooting techniques.
Leveraging the Power of Mobile Phones for Training
It is hard to ignore how powerful our phones have become regarding computing power. This is why leveraging this power for something useful like dry-fire firearms training makes sense.
Dry-fire systems like the Strikeman Pro connect to a mobile application to help track, review, and provide standard firearms training instructions.
Helps to Gamify Firearms Skills Development
Research on Gamification shows that when game elements like progress bars, reward systems, progress notifications, and lots more are used in a non-gaming context like dry-fire firearms training, participants tend to be more engaged and motivated to learn faster and for longer.
Most dry-fire systems are designed with gamification features that make it easy and interesting to improve your shooting skills.
Helps With Cost-Effective and Efficient Training
Training with dry-fire systems can save you a ton of money by eliminating the need for live ammunition rounds, firing range fees, and the cost of transportation to the range. All of these result in a lower and more efficient cost of shooting training for you.
Convenient Training at Any Time of the Day
Your job and lifestyle may not afford you a lot of time to practice your shooting skills during the day, especially on weekdays. This will reduce how often you get to practice your shooting skills and impede your learning progress.
However, by opting for a dry-fire system, you no longer have to worry about the time of the day. You can easily set up the dry-fire system in your living room and start practicing.
How to Maximize Your Firearms Training Sessions With a Dry-Fire System
Now that you know the advantages of dry-fire systems, you must learn some of the best ways to maximize fire practice with dry-fire training systems.
Set Specific Measurable Goals
It is important to always set specific goals before any dry-fire training session. By setting the specific goals you aim to achieve in any particular training session, you increase your chances of seeing gains and improvement.
Setting goals also helps you know when you are not achieving the aim of your training. Our training module and app with our dry-fire training system helps to track your results after every training session.
Some common goals during a dry-fire training session include accuracy improvement, speed, trigger control, stance, gun discipline, and more.
Track Your Progress
The Strikeman dry-fire system makes it easy to track your progress using the Strikeman app on your mobile phone. However, you must monitor your progress tracking and check it as often as possible to ensure you can easily tell if you are improving or getting worse.
By tracking your progress, it becomes easier to know which areas of your shooting training you need to improve upon.
Incorporate Drills Into Your Dry-Fire Training
Training with a dry-fire system alone can quickly become monotonous and boring if you repeatedly do the same things. This is why you need to incorporate various drills into your dry-fire training. It will keep things interesting and challenging.
Some dry-fire training drills you can adopt include drawing firearms from holsters in different positions, shooting multiple targets at different ranges, shooting targets with closed eyes (this should only be practiced with dry-fire systems), and more.
Use Visualization
Visualization is not exactly a firearms training concept, but it is very useful when training to shoot better. Visualization is the process of creating a visual image of a desired outcome in one’s mind or mentally practicing a movement or action to learn a skill or enhance one’s performance.
It is good practice to visualize yourself hitting the target before every shot. You should also focus on the fundamentals of good shooting techniques.
Conclusion
Dry-fire systems are very effective alternatives to practicing how to shoot at a shooting range. Dry-fire systems provide accurate data, lessons, feedback, and tracking to help you improve your firearms training without needing live ammunition.
Training without live rounds can sound underwhelming initially, but when you consider the amount of money you save by shooting with a dry-fire laser training cartridge in your living room, it becomes a worthy investment.
The Strikeman training system offers some of the best dry-fire systems in the industry, along with a versatile app that helps to track progress and enhance your dry-fire practice and training in several ways.