While perusing Pavel’s fitness site, I was surprised to come across this story from a firearms instructor:
To illustrate the importance of dry fire, consider the story of Dave Westerhout. Mr. Westerhout is known as one of the founders of the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) and a trainer for the Rhodesia Defense Force. In the late 70’s, ammunition was particularly scarce in the African nation of Rhodesia. This ammunition shortage was due in large part to how unpopular Rhodesia was politically. The native African population was disenfranchised and Rhodesia was breaking away from the British Empire. Other nations weren’t recognizing them as a nation and multiple trade sanctions were imposed. One side effect of these sanctions was an extreme ammunition shortage.
Westerhout adapted to the severe ammunition shortage the only way he knew how: dry fire practice. He conducted experiments with two groups of soldiers. One would use live fire, the other dry fire. The results were impressive. The dry fire group was outscoring the live fire group! This convinced the leadership to adopt the dry fire practice for the entire force.
Then, in 1977 at the first World Practical Pistol Championship, the Rhodesian team produced some astounding results. Dave Westerhout took the first place and another Rhodesian took the second, the Rhodesian team won the overall team event!
An American took the third place. All of this happened when the US was considered the dominant force in competitive shooting. All of this happened while Rhodesia faced an ammo shortage. How is this possible? Lots of dry fire!
The advantages of dry fire are obvious. You can do it in your home very quickly and easily. You are not driving somewhere and spending money on range time or ammo. You are getting a LOT of repetition and working on the most difficult of all fundamentals — the trigger control. Anyone can squeeze a trigger. Anyone can align the sights. Can you maintain sight alignment through a smooth yet quick trigger squeeze? If not, DRY FIRE! Start with what takes the least time and costs the least money. Add complexity later!
Now, it should be noted: Dry fire practice does NOT fully replace live fire training. It is just a great supplemental training tool. There are certain fundamentals you just can’t practice without sending rounds down range. For starters, you can’t practice Recoil Management. This stands to reason, as it’s hard to practice managing a gun’s recoil w/out feeling it recoil in your hands. Secondly, you can’t practice the Follow Through. In this instance, that simply means you can’t get a feel for how quickly you can get the gun back on target and send additional rounds down range (should it be necessary). All of that aside, you can practice the most difficult fundamental with dry fire training: the Trigger Control.
Another similarity I noticed is that Frequency Trumps Duration.
Are you training only once in awhile for a long dragged out session that leaves you wiped out? Or are you training more frequently for shorter periods leaving you “stronger or better” than when you started?
The question is: Does one need those snap cap things or is it OK to dry fire on an empty chamber without damaging the firing pin assembly? Some pistols are certainly ok, most if not all revolvers for instance. The Rhodesians were probably using Browning Hi Powers. I’d be interested if anyone has anything to say.
I’m a believer in using dry firing to develop trigger and sight-picture control, but I’ve only done it with various revolvers. Is it safe to do with autos?
Dry-fire is generally safe with a centerfire pistol, but not with a rimfire pistol, like a .22, where the firing pin might get damaged by hitting a hard surface, rather than the brass rim of a cartridge.