Ken,
I agree with his post about training.
Allow me to address:
Re: Dryfire and P-11
Re: Stamina and building up fingers, hands, wrists, fore arms, arms, shoulders...many new shooters are not used to shooting guns, If one is away from shooting "if you don't use it, you lose it" , kicks in. Be this recovering from illness, or surgery, or just laying off shooting for a bit.
I do the Wooden Dowel Method with folks, before we get serious with some hand gun lessons, and folks continue to use the Wooden Dowel Method, including myself, and I know a slew of folks around here that do as well.
I am a firm believer in dry fire pays huge dividends on live fire.
On a slight drift, and speaking of shotguns, in my serious competition days, I would shoot over 25K live rounds per year, and dryfire every night at least 50, and my personal deal was 100 -300 "reps" per night.
There are some years, I lived on a range, and round counts near 50K in a year. I was lost and out of sync not eating, or taking a leak without a shotgun.
A firearm becomes an extension of you and that is what you want.
I had orange targets, and in a garage, barn, warehouse, hotel room...shot every stage using correct basic fundamentals.
Repetition becomes habit - habit becomes faith.
Students I assist with will do correct fundamentals of mounting gun to face each night with an adult to make sure they are doing correct basic fundamentals.
Even kids, with a wood 10/22, or Marlin 60 stock that was busted, glued, and PVC is fashioned into a barrel to make them a "shotgun" that fits them.
Even 3 year olds will stand on a mat I made with foot prints, for them to stand in for correct foot position, crack that weak knee (kids never forget to "crack that knee") and correctly mount shotgun to face.
I apply this to handguns.
I have spent a minute or two and shot a P-11 a time or three . CCW, defensive use in the home, and office setting for those not of legal age to carry concealed.
Get some snap caps, and I use the Azoom.
P-11 is nothing more than a plastic double action revolver that is feed through its arse.
Just like a revolver being shot in double action mode, this gun will allow one some quality dry fire practice.
-Trigger use and control.
With revolvers, I have folks put a dime on the front sight, and run a cylinder in DAO , and not have them knock off the dime. Some revolvers, one has to place the dime , or similar object, near front sight (i.e Detective Special with blade front) to do the same thing.
P-11 will let you place a dime and run a "mag".
The lesson is to "front sight press" and have smooth trigger control with sight acquisition. Target is just past hands in shooting stance, even as close as 1 foot.
This gets stamina , muscle memory and ingrains what that gun feels like, and we want it to feel like a body part.
We are not to drawing the gun yet. We are doing this strong side with both hands, then transition to one hand, and the weak hand I most often have them at chest. To ingrain not shooting themselves in the other hand.
Then repeat with weak hand.
Now after proper lessons on drawing a gun, and for some, this is gun in a home, or office setting, so that is replicated in safe manner with rules of dry fire adhered to.
Draw one, shoot one.
Re-holster, or put back in hidey hole in the office, or house or whatever.
There are some folks under age 21 and while they can and do CCW at home, on the property, and is legal or the office setting, there are guns in these homes, offices, farm and ranch vehicles.
These needs are replicated using the P-11. This isone something included in some testing and evaluation for the P-11 I was asked to do some years back.
I will not share what and where is done on Public forum, but there are some P-11s in places, and some of these are for the in house, armed security to use if need.
Or employees, or the teen age kid that gets out of school and come to the office to see mom or dad.
[trust me, there is a 15 year old girl that will scare you as to how good she is with a P-11, she started shooting this gun before she turned 13. She takes small game and includes ground hogs with one]
-Mag changes , etc.
Just stand over the bed and practice dumping a mag, inserting one in.
Now I was Mentored to not top off mags. Simple reason is, where to put that topped off round when having to safe a gun? I go back to when I (civilian) used to carry into a courthouse and see a judge. Even as a civilian, I would enter prison property and be asked to unload and make safe, in case vehicle was busted into ( even though I had a custom safe in the vehicle) or bring the gun inside and make safe as Cops did.
Appreciated was the fact the chambered ctg went back into mag and we all knew every round was accounted for.
This administrative drill is a good one to do at home. Some folks I assist/assisted with travel.
One gal cuts through IL, and before she hits the state line, the P-11 has mag dropped, rack slide to unchamber a round, which goes back into mag, and the gun and mag are safed and legal.
Some folks travel to Mexico. Most often they leave their vehicle and ride with another, just as some do going to Military Bases.
You do not want the 11th round in the ash tray at the Mexican Border.
Canadian either.
There are times, one needs to break a gun down. P-11s do not require the trigger to be tripped, nor do they require any tools.
Practice dropping mag, racking slide, removing slide from frame, and putting back together.
Do it with snap caps, with light, low light and in pretty much dark.
