Dry fire training is vital to improve your shooting ability. When shooting live ammunition, the recoil pushes the firearm up and back. A persons automatic response to the recoil is to push back down on the pistol when the shot breaks to counteract the recoil, with this response becoming ingrained and automatic. This natural response leads to poor accuracy, with the shooter anticipating the recoil and moving the firearm during the trigger pull.
The correct method is to hold the firearm absolutely steady, with the sights perfectly aligned on the target while the trigger is squeezed, until the shot is fired. Logically, if the sights are perfectly aligned on a target and the firearm is steady at the moment the shot is fired, the target will be perfectly shot every time.
The problem is that shooting a firearm is a very dynamic event, with a certain amount of noise, muzzle blast and recoil, all happening in only milliseconds, and when you realize you have missed the target it can be very hard for the shooter to diagnose exactly what went wrong.
This is where dry-fire training is invaluable. With no muzzle blast, and no recoil causing the firearm to jump around, the shooter can practice the smooth trigger pull while holding the sights on target, and see exactly what is happening to the firearm and sight alignment from the moment the finger is placed on the trigger until the hammer falls. This is simply impossible to do when shooting live ammunition.
To ensure that you retain the good techniques learnt using dry fire, and do not relearn the bad habits unconsciously learnt when firing live ammunition, it is important to dry fire more often than shooting live ammunition. In much the same way that shooting live rounds and unconsciously anticipating the recoil creates bad habits, so does dry firing create good habits, namely the automatic ingrained response or muscle memory of keeping the sights aligned correctly on the target and the gun steady throughout the trigger pull.
So, dry fire is important. In fact, dry firing regularly is absolutely vital if you wish to reach and maintain proficiency in the shooting sports, or especially to be able to defend yourself in a threat situation. In a threat situation, you experience fear, the adrenaline is pumping and there is NO TIME to start thinking through gun handling procedures: you revert to your training, to what is ingrained in your brain and to what you have practiced and done many times before. It's an automatic response to the situation.
If you the reader of this website thinks this is some kind of sales pitch regarding the benefits of dry-firing, in order that we sell more product, you would be wrong. Yes we want to sell our products, and the sales pitch is coming, but if you have any doubt simply type "advantages of dry fire" or "benefits of dry-fire" or something similar into your favorite search engine, and you will find much better, informative articles written by well known and highly regarded industry training specialists, competitive shooters, military and law enforcement specialists etc.
At this point its assumed that you accept the need to dry fire regularly and often. You now need to put this into practice, but dry firing your firearm at home, using an aiming point on the wall or a paper target gets old and boring pretty quickly, and it takes a lot of dedication to have the discipline to practice this regularly, and sufficiently. But add in a laser training cartridge (Or use a SIRT training pistol) and one or several Keiron Reactive Targets, and not only will your dry fire training sessions be hugely enhanced, you will also have great fun along the way. When we getting towards the end of development and refining the final product, we invited a bunch of shooters from across various disciplines to test the product and get their feedback - these specialists included advanced defensive firearm trainers, a military specialist who privately also shoots competitively (IPSC, Steel Challenge etc), and other competitive shooters who between them shoot just about everything. We had so much fun in testing, having set up various drills, stages etc that these professionals were arguing like kids about whose turn it was next!
Lets examine what we can do with these targets. The assumption is that you have a laser training cartridge in your firearm, or a training firearm that activates a laser briefly when pulling the trigger. Using the simplest Keiron Reactive target. what you will get is a nice big realistically sized target to shoot at, that provides instant feedback when the target is "shot" by the laser, by flashing the screen brightly to indicate a hit. It can also provide audio feedback via a "beep", but this tends to drive the significant other up the wall, so best turn it off unless you training alone. This in itself is fun, providing that instant gratification and feedback that you doing things right. If that gets too easy, or if you are in a confined area where the target is too close to you, simply use a target overlay to change the shape or reduce the size, increasing the difficulty. These may downloaded for free from here, and will also be available for purchase in packs. You can even create your own using free templates that may be downloaded. More on these later.
Add more Keiron Reactive targets, and you can start practicing transitions, shooting one target then the next. Using more than one target allows standard drills to be shot, and realistic training stages to be created. If one of your targets is the Keiron SPEED, you can now add in the fun factor and stress of shooting against the clock. Keiron SPEED has several training modes built into the software that are easily selected via a menu, and allow virtually any type of shooting to be simulated in your home.
To illustrate this, lets look at simulating a popular shooting competition that focuses on accuracy and speed - here we will shoot 5 targets that in real life are steel plates of different sizes, set up at different distances. The norm is to shoot 4 of these in any order, with a 5th target being the last one to be shot. You have to shoot the 5th one last. So, if you want some casual practice, set up 4 of the simple Keiron TARGETs, and 1 Keiron SPEED. Set the Keiron SPEED into "Competition Draw" mode, and stand ready to shoot. Keiron SPEED is both the 5th target (shoot it last) and the overall controller. On the signal from Keiron SPEED, draw your firearm, shoot the first 4 targets, and finally shoot Keiron SPEED. Your time is recorded and may be viewed, and a random delay ensues, allowing you time to re-holster your firearm, and get ready for the session to restart. Then shoot it again, and try beat your previous time. When you done (or just tired!), you can review all your times. Its that simple.
If you shoot competitively, and want to simulate actual stages, this can be done easily. Target overlays are available that are true to scale, that simulate shooting various real targets (e.g. a 10 inch steel plate) at specific distances. Lets say that in real life you would shoot a 10 inch round steel plate at 10 yards. Simply use a 10 inch 1/4 scale target overlay, and set it up 2.5 yards away (It's 1/4 scale, so set it up at 1/4 the distance). We have done the math and checked the results, the 1/4 scale 10 inch Keiron Target at 2.5 yards appears exactly the same as an actual 10 inch target at 10 yards, and presents the same difficulty as in real life. Using this approach, you can simulate virtually any real life competition type stage in your own home. If you have a stage diagram showing the location and positioning of the targets, simply divide all distances by 4, and use Keiron targets with the appropriate 1/4 scale overlay and place them at the 1/4 scale distances. That's it. You good to go and start your practice.
Lets take another example. A popular self defense drill is the "failure to stop" or Mozambique drill, popularized by the late Jeff Cooper. In this drill 2 targets are used to represent an aggressor, one target for the chest area, and one for the head. The idea is to shoot 2 shots to the chest area, followed by one to the head. Use a Keiron Target for the chest area, and use a Keiron SPEED for the head. For added realism / difficulty insert a target overlay into the top Keiron SPEED that approximates the head vital area (typically a T shaped target covering the eyes / nose area). Again use the "Competition Draw" or the "Concealed Carry Draw" training training mode, and on the signal, draw your firearm, shoot 2 shots to the bottom chest target, and finish with 1 shot to the head. Your times are recorded.
The correct method is to hold the firearm absolutely steady, with the sights perfectly aligned on the target while the trigger is squeezed, until the shot is fired. Logically, if the sights are perfectly aligned on a target and the firearm is steady at the moment the shot is fired, the target will be perfectly shot every time.
The problem is that shooting a firearm is a very dynamic event, with a certain amount of noise, muzzle blast and recoil, all happening in only milliseconds, and when you realize you have missed the target it can be very hard for the shooter to diagnose exactly what went wrong.
This is where dry-fire training is invaluable. With no muzzle blast, and no recoil causing the firearm to jump around, the shooter can practice the smooth trigger pull while holding the sights on target, and see exactly what is happening to the firearm and sight alignment from the moment the finger is placed on the trigger until the hammer falls. This is simply impossible to do when shooting live ammunition.
To ensure that you retain the good techniques learnt using dry fire, and do not relearn the bad habits unconsciously learnt when firing live ammunition, it is important to dry fire more often than shooting live ammunition. In much the same way that shooting live rounds and unconsciously anticipating the recoil creates bad habits, so does dry firing create good habits, namely the automatic ingrained response or muscle memory of keeping the sights aligned correctly on the target and the gun steady throughout the trigger pull.
So, dry fire is important. In fact, dry firing regularly is absolutely vital if you wish to reach and maintain proficiency in the shooting sports, or especially to be able to defend yourself in a threat situation. In a threat situation, you experience fear, the adrenaline is pumping and there is NO TIME to start thinking through gun handling procedures: you revert to your training, to what is ingrained in your brain and to what you have practiced and done many times before. It's an automatic response to the situation.
If you the reader of this website thinks this is some kind of sales pitch regarding the benefits of dry-firing, in order that we sell more product, you would be wrong. Yes we want to sell our products, and the sales pitch is coming, but if you have any doubt simply type "advantages of dry fire" or "benefits of dry-fire" or something similar into your favorite search engine, and you will find much better, informative articles written by well known and highly regarded industry training specialists, competitive shooters, military and law enforcement specialists etc.
At this point its assumed that you accept the need to dry fire regularly and often. You now need to put this into practice, but dry firing your firearm at home, using an aiming point on the wall or a paper target gets old and boring pretty quickly, and it takes a lot of dedication to have the discipline to practice this regularly, and sufficiently. But add in a laser training cartridge (Or use a SIRT training pistol) and one or several Keiron Reactive Targets, and not only will your dry fire training sessions be hugely enhanced, you will also have great fun along the way. When we getting towards the end of development and refining the final product, we invited a bunch of shooters from across various disciplines to test the product and get their feedback - these specialists included advanced defensive firearm trainers, a military specialist who privately also shoots competitively (IPSC, Steel Challenge etc), and other competitive shooters who between them shoot just about everything. We had so much fun in testing, having set up various drills, stages etc that these professionals were arguing like kids about whose turn it was next!
Lets examine what we can do with these targets. The assumption is that you have a laser training cartridge in your firearm, or a training firearm that activates a laser briefly when pulling the trigger. Using the simplest Keiron Reactive target. what you will get is a nice big realistically sized target to shoot at, that provides instant feedback when the target is "shot" by the laser, by flashing the screen brightly to indicate a hit. It can also provide audio feedback via a "beep", but this tends to drive the significant other up the wall, so best turn it off unless you training alone. This in itself is fun, providing that instant gratification and feedback that you doing things right. If that gets too easy, or if you are in a confined area where the target is too close to you, simply use a target overlay to change the shape or reduce the size, increasing the difficulty. These may downloaded for free from here, and will also be available for purchase in packs. You can even create your own using free templates that may be downloaded. More on these later.
Add more Keiron Reactive targets, and you can start practicing transitions, shooting one target then the next. Using more than one target allows standard drills to be shot, and realistic training stages to be created. If one of your targets is the Keiron SPEED, you can now add in the fun factor and stress of shooting against the clock. Keiron SPEED has several training modes built into the software that are easily selected via a menu, and allow virtually any type of shooting to be simulated in your home.
To illustrate this, lets look at simulating a popular shooting competition that focuses on accuracy and speed - here we will shoot 5 targets that in real life are steel plates of different sizes, set up at different distances. The norm is to shoot 4 of these in any order, with a 5th target being the last one to be shot. You have to shoot the 5th one last. So, if you want some casual practice, set up 4 of the simple Keiron TARGETs, and 1 Keiron SPEED. Set the Keiron SPEED into "Competition Draw" mode, and stand ready to shoot. Keiron SPEED is both the 5th target (shoot it last) and the overall controller. On the signal from Keiron SPEED, draw your firearm, shoot the first 4 targets, and finally shoot Keiron SPEED. Your time is recorded and may be viewed, and a random delay ensues, allowing you time to re-holster your firearm, and get ready for the session to restart. Then shoot it again, and try beat your previous time. When you done (or just tired!), you can review all your times. Its that simple.
If you shoot competitively, and want to simulate actual stages, this can be done easily. Target overlays are available that are true to scale, that simulate shooting various real targets (e.g. a 10 inch steel plate) at specific distances. Lets say that in real life you would shoot a 10 inch round steel plate at 10 yards. Simply use a 10 inch 1/4 scale target overlay, and set it up 2.5 yards away (It's 1/4 scale, so set it up at 1/4 the distance). We have done the math and checked the results, the 1/4 scale 10 inch Keiron Target at 2.5 yards appears exactly the same as an actual 10 inch target at 10 yards, and presents the same difficulty as in real life. Using this approach, you can simulate virtually any real life competition type stage in your own home. If you have a stage diagram showing the location and positioning of the targets, simply divide all distances by 4, and use Keiron targets with the appropriate 1/4 scale overlay and place them at the 1/4 scale distances. That's it. You good to go and start your practice.
Lets take another example. A popular self defense drill is the "failure to stop" or Mozambique drill, popularized by the late Jeff Cooper. In this drill 2 targets are used to represent an aggressor, one target for the chest area, and one for the head. The idea is to shoot 2 shots to the chest area, followed by one to the head. Use a Keiron Target for the chest area, and use a Keiron SPEED for the head. For added realism / difficulty insert a target overlay into the top Keiron SPEED that approximates the head vital area (typically a T shaped target covering the eyes / nose area). Again use the "Competition Draw" or the "Concealed Carry Draw" training training mode, and on the signal, draw your firearm, shoot 2 shots to the bottom chest target, and finish with 1 shot to the head. Your times are recorded.