Why Competitive Shooters Use Dry Fire Training

Dry fire refers to pulling the trigger on an unloaded firearm. This practice is extremely popular with serious shooters, both in competitions and self-defense training. It’s easy to see why: dry fire training is free and easy, requiring neither ammunition nor a range, causing no impact on hearing or on the hand.

Dry Fire Safety

With most centerfire guns, dry fire can be safely done on an empty chamber, while rimfire guns benefit from a snap cap to cushion the firing pin impact. As usual, the target and its backstop should be selected as if the firearm is loaded, just in case of an error. Prevention of this error is the task of a careful protocol, including removing live ammunition from the room where dry fire practice is conducted, and multiple checks of the firearm before dry firing. If a laser cartridge chamber insert is used, it should be manually verified by fingertip pressure on the actuating pad to turn the laser on.

Improving Aspects of Shooting

Dry firing can be used to improve almost every aspect of shooting: trigger control, sighting, grip, and presentation. The one area where it is of little help is recoil control. That requires live ammunition. Dry fire is the culmination of the preparatory actions: gripping the weapon, presenting it, sighting, and manipulating the safety. Pulling the trigger, especially if the trigger is an imperfect service grade kind, begins as a conscious process. After hundreds and thousands of repetitions, it becomes an unconscious competence. The same is true of the other aspects of training: only the target selection should remain a conscious act, while drawing and presentation, followed by sighting and discharge can become as automatic as operating gas and brake pedals of a car. Achieving that same effect with live fire would be prohibitively expensive in ammunition and range time, as well as tiring. That is especially true with long range marksmanship, with both the cost of ammunition and the effect of repeated recoil and report on the shooter.

Conclusion

Dry fire training may be unglamorous, but it facilitates improvement in handling and marksmanship. The ratio of training in various ways varies from person to person, but 1 round of centerfire ammunition to 10 rounds of rimfire through a similar trainer to 1000 dry fires isn’t unreasonable for self-defense applications. The desired result is a clean path from the holster to aimed hold on target, with minor but accumulating improvements along the way.

Written by: Oleg Volk, Firearms Photographer