Who Practices Dry Firing?

I have goofed off with it in the past, just to get to fondle my collection. Now, I am getting semi-serious with it, as it is a 45-minute drive to the range, and requires finding a babysitter for 3 kids so the wife can go, since she enjoys it almost as much as I do. So, I will dry-fire pistols at a spot on the wall about 10 feet away, just focusing on sight picture and trigger control. If it is going well, I will practice drawing as well, but, being new to actually practicing it, am still struggling with getting where I want to be with the fundamentals.
For rifles, I will practice the same technique, but incorporate bringing the gun up from low ready or from a sling, to simulate hunting/patrol. I will also practice prone, adding working the bolt smoothly without disturbing sight picture, and breath control.

nevermind

Dry firing IMO, is one of the best training things you can do. I really like the laserlyte training cartridges when dry firing since you can see where you are aiming (it is pretty accurate).

I mostly just practice point and shoot but I try to do some drawing and shooting as well. The most important thing is developing muscle memory without going through thousands of rounds.

Early on, I developed the bad habit of shooting with one eye closed. I did this for years. Dry fire practice helped get rid of this problem.

Dry-firing is widely considered to be an absolutely essential training/practice technique for the practical shooting sports. Consequently, there are entire books written about dry-firing in that context, including ones that have entire programs laid out. For instance: https://www.amazon.com/Dry-Fire-Tra...ire&qid=1463064695&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

Unless you are among the idle rich, and have both the time and money to shoot tens of thousands of rounds per year, there's just no way to get competitively good/fast at things like draws and reloads and transitions without a LOT of dryfiring.

Dry fire has taken on a whole new level of crazy for me. I use SIRT 110 and 107 pistols and the SIRT AR bolt in both personal training and classes for students. I combined it with the LASR software on laptops to provide timing and scoring. That way you can practice more than just trigger pull and sight alignment. You also get good feedback on holster speed, reload times and target transitions. For my normal practice I have it set up to randomly call one of three targets I have set up, call for a target transition after three to five scoring hits on a target and also call for a reload every six to ten rounds. If I am using the AR bolt, I do a rifle to pistol transition in place of the first reload call.

One important thing to remember though is that since you are working without recoil you need to focus on proper grip and stance so you don't accidentally train in bad habits. Also, if you get a bad draw or fumble a mag change, don't stop. Correct and continue the drill even with a horrible time/score. That way you don't accidentally train yourself to stop in the middle of a fight.

I mostly use it as an excuse to "play" with the gun too.

I think the main thing is actually aiming at something small and specific, and not just using it as a way to get the feel of the trigger, but to actually practice and feel the trigger pull while ensuring you aren't disturbing your sight picture.

I dry fire about 30 min a day, mainly for USPSA competition. Even if you are looking for more tactical training, books by Ben Stoeger and Steve Anderson are the best I've found.

I practice dry fire for DA revolvers and DA/SA autos to get that first shot down.

Usually I can pair it with practicing draw from concealment.
I find value in practicing good draw technique and trigger press.

You can also pair dry fire with shooting on the draw, move and trigger.

All kinds of stuff!

All of my revolvers.

If the weather outside is too bad to shoot I dry fire my 1911's. I do have a laser cartridge and laser target. These make dry firing a little more interesting for me.

I do, at least a few times a week, usually with a LaserLyte cartridge and using my shot timer on a par time.

I find it really has helped with my draw times/presentations as I'm getting the first shot off faster and with greater accuracy as I'm pushing out into the target and meeting the sights faster.

Chuck

I made a list of all the scenarios I thought could happen in my house and what would be the best way to react, and practice for them using snapcaps.

At the beginning of this journey, a friend warned me that if you don't limit your dry-firing to a particular location etc you can get distracted and actually fire. Because I wanted to use dry-firing to practice for various scenarios, my method of keeping things straight is that I made a red yarn bracelet and a green yarn bracelet. I wear the red one when the gun is loaded (i.e. when I'm neither cleaning it, traveling to and from the range, or dry-firing), and the green one for dry-fire practice. So far thankfully so good.

Yes....about three times a week for at least half and hour.

Dry fire practice

When I used to practice a lot, I would unload my gun, usually a revolver or 1911, and practice on an old TV set. As the images would come on the set, I would try to hold on target, do a correct trigger press, and try to snap before the face left the screen, normally a second or two. The object being to get through the trigger squeeze, effectively, in the least amount of time.

When I go to the range to shoot revolvers these days, I place a round or two in the cylinder, and some empties, and practice the "ball & dummy" drill. Every time I pull the trigger, it will go snap, or bang, but I never know which. This is an effective tool to get you to recognize anticipation and flinching problems, and overcome them. I open the cylinder every time, and turn it some, STOP IT, and close it, not looking to see if the next will be loaded or not. I may practice for half an hour, firing as little as 6 rounds, so that's kind of a dry fire practice.

I dry-fire practice with my carry guns once a week to keep the muscle memory. I use the LaserLyte cartridge and target at different ranges in the garage (up to 10 yards diagonally corner to corner) so I'm not doing this in the house. All live ammo is either under lock and key or in the house, where the gun is unloaded in a safe room and the magazines are stored until I return. The cartridge/target combos are the way to go. I have several DA/SA pistols that I use for practice that have the same controls and ergonomics as my carry weapons. That way, I'm not cycling the slide. The combo of cartridge/target has paid for itself many times over in range fees and ammo cost and allows me to practice the skills I learned in defensive pistol schools.

I never used to dry fire, having been taught by my daddy that "you never dry fire a gun". (maybe I missed the part where he said RIMFIRE?) In recent years I have taken to dry firing my handguns, using a laser target.

I did it early-on with both revolvers, autos, and scoped-rifles to get used to not moving, but have since moved-on.

Yes, just about every day.

Dry fire for the shooting fundamentals, presentations from the holster, pistol magazine changes, weak hand loading the shotgun from shell caddies, AR magazine changes, transitions from the long gun to the handgun, and anything else that I "fumble" during range sessions .

Not only will dry fire help the actual marksmanship portion of shooting, it will IME/IMO drastically improve your gun handling skills.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

I unload and dry fire most mornings 10-50 times before I holster. I aim at something small and safe, and try to keep the front sight on the target when the hammer falls. I then load up, holster, and walk out of the room. Once I am done, I am done for the day.

For serious practice, I downloaded a dry fire app for android to my phone. You set the timer, it buzzes, and then catches the click like a shot timer. It then tells you how quick you drew and fired. It's up to you to be honest with your accuracy.

I want to implement dry firing in my routine and was thinking of using a Walther p22 to run excercises with.

It does have a safety (actual metal block preventing hammer from coming down on pin)

I know from my dad not to dry fire rimfire firearms, however it seems to me this pistol should be fine, unless I'm wrong...

Does anyone have experience dryfiring a p22 and anything I should know before doing so?

Revolvers only.

Stonecloud

I use the small drywall anchors in my .22s when I'm dry firing them. They're almost the same size as a .22LR and are a perfect fit in all of my guns. After awhile I will rotate the anchor around so the firing pin isn't always hitting on the same spot. They are very inexpensive and easy to use.

I dry fire practice with all of my handguns, using snap caps.

I don't currently have a 22 lr handgun.