Dry fire is one of those topics that people like to talk about, but few actually do. I can understand that…I don’t find it to be particularly exciting, and it’s kind of frustrating only going through the motions with a firearm when I know how much fun it is to actually shoot.

Dry fire is one of those topics that people like to talk about, but few actually do. I can understand that…I don’t find it to be particularly exciting, and it’s kind of frustrating only going through the motions with a firearm when I know how much fun it is to actually shoot.

But the benefits of dry fire are overwhelming…and if you really want to become proficient with your firearm, it’s important to understand that a combination of dry fire and live fire will help you do it much quicker and cheaper than live fire alone.

If you’re a fan of boxing or MMA, one of the most relatable ways to look at dry fire training is to realize that it is a shooting version of shadow boxing. Many professional boxers “shadow” throw the nine basic punches 1,000 times per day, for a total of 9,000 shadow punches every day—perfecting their technique, timing, efficiency, muscle memory, and speed without undue stress on their body. Dry fire will give you the same benefits.

In addition, dry fire training will almost guarantee that you don’t fall victim to the most common handgun shooting error—jerking the firearm in anticipation of recoil.

Not everyone’s like me and some people DO want to practice dry fire techniques, but they still don’t get it done because they don’t have a clear action plan of what to do when they are doing their dry fire training. It becomes easier to just put off dry fire training until tomorrow instead of figuring out exactly what drills to do. We’ll cover that, too.

Dry fire training will help you focus on all of the fundamentals of shooting…right up until the firing pin hits the primer. And it will allow you to focus on all of these fundamentals without paying for ammo, range time, gas, or having to clean your firearm. From a teaching perspective, it programs your mind without any concern for recoil and the downward flinch and low groups that come from anticipating recoil.

We’re mainly going to cover fundamentals today, but I’m also going to show you some of the drills that I use that will REALLY spice up your dry fire drills. But first we need to lay a solid foundation and go over how to properly practice dry fire as well as some specific drills you can do to help you lock in good, fundamental shooting techniques.

If you want to know how much you should practice dry firing, a good rule of thumb is that you should dry fire 20 to 50 times for every round that you practice live fire. It would be great if you could practice every technique 1,000 times per day like a professional fighter, but that’s not realistic for most people.

Still, try to do as many as your schedule allows. The one major exception to this is that you should slow down or stop as soon as your form falls off. Doing dry fire training with poor or inconsistent form will only hurt your ability to develop high quality muscle memory. Remember, we want to lock PERFECT technique into our muscle memory…not a combination of 80% perfect training and 20% sloppy training.

The high ratio of dry fire to live fire is most important during the learning phase. The logic behind it is based in part on the fact that when you train with live fire, any misses are a waste of time, money, and muscle memory. Once you’ve got the muscle memory locked in with dry fire, you can spend more time on live fire training because you won’t be wasting time, money, or muscle memory.

The other part of why you want to spend so much time locking in and perfecting techniques with dry fire is because it allows you to completely ignore the “boom” and recoil, and focus on proper technique. Breaking down the process like this will help you get many more rounds on target, more quickly, than with live fire alone.

Since we’re dealing with a firearm designed to cause lethal damage, I’ve got to tell you the obvious advice of making sure that your firearm is unloaded when you’re handling it and that you don’t point it at anything you don’t intend on destroying. I don’t mean for this to be a downer, but anything having to do with a firearm, ESPECIALLY dry fire training, is serious business.

I said this before, but it’s worth repeating. The general concepts behind these drills will work for ANY type of firearm…pistol, revolver, shotgun, rifle and any type of action…single, double, DAO, pump, break, bolt, semiauto, etc. Because of popularity and for ease of reading, I’m going to focus on semi-automatic pistols. If you’re not training with a semiautomatic pistol, please adjust the following rules accordingly.