What Is Dry Fire Good For?

9mmepiphany said:

Actually you'll find that recoil management shouldn't affect any of them. Recoil management can only be learned through Live Fire, but once the techniques are correctly learned, they can be practiced in just as effectively with Day Fire. I consider reacquiring your sight picture, for followup shots, part of recoil management.


Dry fire is very important at the beginning of one's learning progression to practice techniques they've been taught without the distraction of recoil and muzzle blast. They then need to practice in Live Fire to determine if their practice has been correct...if they have been practicing the correct techniques.

Once you've correctly learned those techniques, you don't need as much Live Fire to maintain that level of skill. The only reason you need to practice in Live Fire is to confirm that you are Dry Firing correctly. I had a well respected USPSA GM once tell me that if he had to choose between the two, he'd choose Dry Fire over Live fire...because it was more important to maintaining his skill level. He recommended 7 Dry Fire repetitions for every Live Fire practice shot.


I would suspect that your Dry Fire techniques aren't addressing the skills you are trying to maintain. One of the harder things to do when Dry Firing is to focus on each shot/presentation and being self critical about how you performed each time. Another common fault is practice a technique as a series of motions as opposed to working on individual movements...E.G.: practicing the draw as one technique and accepting small faults (like bring the hands together before pressing out) rather then correcting that fault by isolating it.

I suspect many folks consider pointing their sights at an image on the TV and pressing the trigger as quality Dry Fire practice...that is the equivalent of plinking. I also suspect that many folks build up high quality bad habits during Dry Fire, because they believe it is a valid substitute for quality instruction

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9mmepiphany said:

You're looking at a skewed result and making a statement based on a lack of understanding of the ultimate goal.

Of course the gun will move, how could it not?
The goal isn't even minimal movement...although, less is better.

The goal of optimal recoil management is to have the sights return to the original POA without the need of additional correction. As the sights return, all you have to do is add a bit of pressure to the trigger to release the next shot. It isn't about bringing the sights back onto target as much as it is allowing them to return onto target...that was the quantum leap in accurate splits that came with the replacement of the Weaver with the Modified Isosceles grip.

By Dry Firing the optimal grip along with the optimal arm geometry and tension (or lack thereof), adding the recoil of Live Fire shouldn't have any effect (on grip and trigger) but will allow timing your parallel reset of the trigger with the muzzle flip and prepping the trigger before the sights return to your POA.

Three questions:
Are you resetting your trigger in series or parallel?
Are you prepping your trigger prior to your sights returning?
Are you utilizing the Modern Isosceles grip?

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