TargetTalk

Do you dry fire on a blank wall?

Or a wall with a line/ single dot?

Is it a fire and hold exercise. Hold on in blank? Or hold on to a for or a line ?

Looking at Keith Sanderson’s dry fire note, seems like he emphasize more on follow through hold.

But hold on to what? Blank wall vs a dot/ line. Please comment

FWIW I dry fire aiming at a white wall with no markings....mainly to practice pistol raise, sight picture composition, trigger release, breathing and follow through.

Precision .

Rapidfire .....

Both without any markings and with a reference (dots/reduced targets/imperfection in the wall... ). It depends on what I want to focus on. Many times the target is too distracting, because we automatically go into points mode even if there aren't any.

seamaster wrote: ↑Fri Mar 06, 2020 12:43 am Do you dry fire on a blank wall?

Or a wall with a line/ single dot?

Depends on the purpose of the dry firing! if its to focus on inner position/hold/balance/trigger etc then no marks are needed - if its to focus on natural alignment/sight alignment (with the target)/approach then yes you'll need an aiming mark

Make sure before you train that you are setting a SMARTER Goal, detailing what you are wanting to achieve from the session and how you are going to go about that and it should be more obvious if you need an aiming mark or not!

If you want to replicate the range in your dry firing, I think it is important to remember that ISSF target heights above the firing line vary: 50m = 0.75m, 25m and 10m = 1.4m. So, when you are setting up a dry fire target (whatever form that takes) it should be set up to replicate the apparent height of the target at full distance. This depends upon your eyeline height which, for me as a 1.80m height male, is about 1.7m (sorry you guys in places using the old imperial measure, you’ll have to make the conversions but the principles remain the same).

So, if you want to set up a dry fire target at (say) 4m distance, the dry fire target height should be:

H = (0.75 or 1.40m) + (eyeline height - 0.75 or 1.40) x (50, 25 or 10m - 4m)/(50, 25 or 10m) I hope the maths is clear!

As an example, for me at an eyeline height of 1.7m, I should set an appropriately scaled free pistol dry fire target at 4m at a height of 1.625m above floor level. This is therefore slightly below horizontal. You will be aiming lower than this height if you use a lower than POA hold as this computed height is to the target centre.

These are small differential measurements but, if you want to get absolutely the most from dry firing by wearing range gear, shooting glasses, etc, etc, then this is an important element.

Bob

I like to dry fire against a blank wall. I am trying to get a perfect release without disturbing the sight picture AND a perfect follow through.

When you are actually shooting you will be wobbling in the tightest area you can while releasing the shot. You do NOT!!! want to "ambush" the bull as it wanders by.

Rover wrote: ↑Sun Mar 08, 2020 8:52 am I like to dry fire against a blank wall. I am trying to get a perfect release without disturbing the sight picture AND a perfect follow through.

When you are actually shooting you will be wobbling in the tightest area you can while releasing the shot. You do NOT!!! want to "ambush" the bull as it wanders by.

Oh Rover you don't want to be wobbling at all to be honest ;)

batty wrote: ↑Sun Mar 08, 2020 9:17 am

Rover wrote: ↑Sun Mar 08, 2020 8:52 am I like to dry fire against a blank wall. I am trying to get a perfect release without disturbing the sight picture AND a perfect follow through.

When you are actually shooting you will be wobbling in the tightest area you can while releasing the shot. You do NOT!!! want to "ambush" the bull as it wanders by.

Oh Rover you don't want to be wobbling at all to be honest ;)

Then you'll just have to learn to "wet" shoot to control those shattered nerves.

Just finished an air pistol match. The guy next to me commented that he is going to try to avoid shooting next to me in the future. The tremor in my hold is now large enough that he could detect it in his peripheral vision, and he found it a bit unnerving...

Shooting at 68 is a lot harder than it was when I was in my thirties. I can still do OK, but ONLY if I get my shots off quickly before the tremors really set in. The problem is that my brain is screaming "abort! abort!" the instant it sees how much I'm wobbling, and that sets off chicken finger. If I abort every time my hold isn't what it once was, I'd be lucky to get 10 shots off during the match time...

I've made a calculator to set up the targets at the right apparent height and with the adapted size for the distance that you can download here: https://www.olympicpistol.com/calculator

I am tired of just shooting 530-540. So I am going to do a “Keith Sanderson” of doing nothing but dry fire for two months.

I hope it will do something, but also am afraid it might not do much. For last time, after a week, it did not do much.

So I am going to give it a earnest go. Last time, I was doing just blank wall dry fire. It was pleasant and easy enough, but did not do much after coming back. When I try to dry fire on a dot, it was not easy, so I went back to just blank wall dry fire last time.

May be I should do mostly holding practice like Keith Sanderson ?

I found target dry fire much tougher than blank wall dry fire, but is it more productive than blank wall dry fire?

Hate to do two months of target dry firing, and come back shooting WORSE, then that would be very discouraging .

Type of dry fire depends, I guess, on what you’re trying to achieve. Blank wall without triggering will improve sight alignment; with triggering will improve trigger control. I can’t advocate dry firing at a dot (or 5 for RF) as this will probably encourage looking through the sights. Might it be better to dry fire against a wall with a horizontal line at the corrected target height? This line would be a peripheral vision thing? Vertical line would be good for duelling or RF first target.

Bob

seamaster wrote: ↑Fri Mar 06, 2020 12:43 am Do you dry fire on a blank wall?

Or a wall with a line/ single dot?

Yes. Each will help identify different problems. Both!

seamaster wrote: ↑Fri Mar 06, 2020 1:01 am Is it a fire and hold exercise. Hold on in blank? Or hold on to a for or a line ?

Looking at Keith Sanderson’s dry fire note, seems like he emphasize more on follow through hold.

But hold on to what? Blank wall vs a dot/ line. Please comment

Which note are you referring to?

seamaster wrote: ↑Sun Mar 08, 2020 3:09 pm I am tired of just shooting 530-540. So I am going to do a “Keith Sanderson” of doing nothing but dry fire for two months.

I hope it will do something, but also am afraid it might not do much. For last time, after a week, it did not do much.

So I am going to give it a earnest go. Last time, I was doing just blank wall dry fire. It was pleasant and easy enough, but did not do much after coming back. When I try to dry fire on a dot, it was not easy, so I went back to just blank wall dry fire last time.

May be I should do mostly holding practice like Keith Sanderson ?

I found target dry fire much tougher than blank wall dry fire, but is it more productive than blank wall dry fire?

Hate to do two months of target dry firing, and come back shooting WORSE, then that would be very discouraging .

I know most people find dry fire boring but for me it’s not. I’m in a Seattle with little time on my hands (3 young kids + work), and the weather sucks 6 month of the year. So when I don’t feel like shooting in the cold and rain of my backyard, I dry fire in my bedroom. I use a target at the proper height. It’s not perfect but it beats not training at all. I keep it short, usually no more than 10-20 minutes. To keep it engaging I make sure to have a single focus point or goal with a metric. For instance, today I’m gonna do 3 “perfect shots” in a row. The definition of perfect shot is only relevant to me, but the point is there’s always a game to win that day. I’m extremely picky with every single step of my shot process, which helps keep it engaging.

Recreating the fantastic dry fire you can start to achieve at home on a blank wall can be very problematical once you put a target up on the range, you revert to your old ways as if some force is making you do it. So you are capable of a duality - live fire and dry fire but never do the twain seem to meet. Now you have the real and most important task on your hands that there seems to be in pistol shooting, getting your brain and mental state to do only what you have worked towards in training. You really, really, really have to believe, just looking at the sights and ignoring the fuzzy blob totally and is absolutely the best thing you can do, letting your subconscious and muscle memory place you in the correct place on the card. As you know this is almost impossible to do as you seem to be hard wired not to do this. You have to totally get out of your head the outcome (that hole in the target and its value) you must totally focus and put your efforts into the dry fire process you have spent hours and hours developing and getting so right at home.
When you do it the first time and it works do not get excited or you will blow it for the rest of the session, just think boring 10 and move on an recreate the same feeling and process you had for the first shot - not now easy but you have to train this emotion too. Who in their right mind ever thought shooting discipline was easy.
On a good day I can recreate the dry fire process and then the old way on the scatt on alternate shots, and you would not believe how much tighter the dry fire traces are against the normal way where the ball of wool traces go out to the outer ring of the 8. On that good day the trace will be within the 9 and sometimes even better.
As my coach says believe in the force!

What with working from home now and all days being the same, I find that most days I have time to dry fire for a while. I think it was in some action shooting forum that I found the best advice: Dry fire for follow-through. Everything else falls into place automatically. Blank wall or little polka dot taped to the wall -same effect. F-T is the mantra, and I have seen the light. Now, if I could only get out to the range...

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Unread post by Rover » Sun Mar 08, 2020 5:52 am

I like to dry fire against a blank wall. I am trying to get a perfect release without disturbing the sight picture AND a perfect follow through.

When you are actually shooting you will be wobbling in the tightest area you can while releasing the shot. You do NOT!!! want to "ambush" the bull as it wanders by.

I have not read all the replies but I came to a grinding halt when I read this by Rover.
IMO this approach will produce the best and most repeatable results.