Dry Fire Practice

Wow, are you seeing a theme with my posts?  Practice this, practice that.  I know, it's getting old, but I cannot emphasize how important practice is.

Today's practice is all about dry firing.  There are people who will scream about how bad dry firing is on the gun.  It's true you should not dry fire a rim-fire gun (such as a .22), as hypothetically you can damage the gun if the firing pin hits the frame.  It is permissible and acceptable practice to dry fire center-fire guns.  If you're really worried about damaging your guns with dry fire, there are "snap caps" that you can purchase specially designed to absorb the force of the firing pin.

Why is dry fire practice so important?

It allows you to learn to comfortably and safely handle your gun (remember to treat all guns as though they are loaded - there are no exceptions to that rule), practice loading and unloading, practice magazine changes and identify any issues with trigger control you might have.

Here's a video of Tara dry firing her new revolver.  A great thing to do when dry firing is to have someone watch for flinching (very noticeable without recoil).  What the observer is looking for is smooth movement throughout the trigger pull, with no movement in the muzzle of the gun.



You'll notice that she's got a good grip on her weapon, both thumbs are pointing at the target (shows she's a semi-auto shooter typically - revolver shooters tend to wrap the thumb of their support hand around the back of the gun) and her trigger pull is smooth the whole way through the act of firing.  She's "shooting" slowly and methodically without lifting her trigger finger off the trigger - she maintains contact with the bang button at all times.  Lifting her finger off of the bang button can lead to "slapping" the trigger (very, very bad).

This week at the range, we'll be working on magazine changes as I've got a match coming up on Sunday and I'm rusty on my mag changes.  More practice, practice and practice.