Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 12:01 am
Ditto.Gwhite wrote:If you can't see your errors when dry firing, you either aren't focusing on your front sight, or you need better glasses.
In either event, you can't ever shoot well if you can't see your front sight clearly enough to detect triggering errors when you dry fire.
An electronic trainer (ET) can help, but it's a significant investment (although cheaper than buying another pistol...). I have a Noptel, and it has several advantages over plain dry firing:
1) It's more fun, therefore, I dry fire more.
2) It can show errors that may be too small to see clearly, even if you are focusing on your front sight. I find that I take a more precise mental image of my sight alignment & sight picture when I fire a real shot than I do with a quiet "click", so calling my shots is less precise with dry firing than live firing.
3) It will keep you honest about what you are doing. It's very easy to convince yourself that you are doing OK when dry firing. The ET may think different...
4) It can help you with your timing. It will clearly show if your hold is deteriorating before you get your shots off. Most people hold too long, waiting for things to get better. At some point, they will deteriorate, and you need to abort. As I get older, the time window before my arm or my eyes start to fade is getting shorter & shorter...
5) It can tell you a lot about your hold. I can see differences between days when I'm tired, and how my hold evolves while I shoot.
6) It can help you with your mental game. I now know for sure that my shot process is solid, and will deliver 9's & 10's (if I execute it well). I know that my arm is not going to degrade enough over the course of a match to be an issue. I can more quickly identify errors, and work on correcting them before my score has totally tanked.
I've been using my Noptel for free pistol, dry firing 70 shots almost every day. I'm learning a lot about what a good shot & a bad shot look & feel like, but I'm not at the point yet where I can do it right nearly as often as I would like. I now have a small shopping list of things I need to work on, so I can fine tune my training drills.