Time difference in dry fire and live fire performance

[Dkrad1935]

I have been doing a lot of dry fire practice and was at the range the other day and just couldnt seem to shoot from draw very well - I have noticed that being in a shooting stall seems to slow me down. The walls are tight and the bench in front of me etc. I could have just had an off day but was curious if you guys notice a consistnet difference between your dry fire par times and your live fire par times? if so, how much slower do you anticipate live fire to be?

[kirbinster]

Yup real is slower, but has nothing to do with the walls. Try dry firing with the walls, you will still be fast. Its knowing that the gun will go bang and knowing that you will really know where the bullet hits that slows you down - well at least that is the case for me.

[juan]

i have this issue myself

I think in my case the timers beep is 3/10s so a .7 in dry fire equates to a 1 sec live fire

[Nimitz]

Yes, you will always be faster in dry fire. Just make sure you're being brutally honest with yourself about getting the front sight on target and having it not move when you pul the trigger. As Ben Stoeger likes to say .. Any monkey can whip out the gun fast in dry fire ...

[Dkrad1935]

I am using the same timer for dry and live so it isnt a reaction time issue. It has to be the "Oh this is real" syndrome. No risk in dry fire, but in live fire there is going to be a hole in the target and the fear of failure slows me down maybe??? Maybe I wasnt breast fed long enough as a kid??

I guess it would be helpful to know what your lag times are between dry and live? Jaun was .3 sec….

[theKenny]

Yes, you will always be faster in dry fire. Just make sure you're being brutally honest with yourself about getting the front sight on target and having it not move when you pul the trigger. As Ben Stoeger likes to say .. Any monkey can whip out the gun fast in dry fire ...

Yep,

i asked Ben the exact question. You have to be brutally honest. I could get dry times under 1 sec but if I ever look at times in a match it's more like 1.5 or even more.

Do I not trust the sights in live, am i doing something different? Honestly I'm not sure yet.

[Chris iliff]

I have found that on simple drills I can work and make the difference almost nothing. This of course is if I'm in the practice mode day in and day out. Typically, I notice a difference of around 20%. Again, if I work towards reconciling those times then on simple things like draw to 7 yards I have gotten them exactly the same.

However, when you practice a drill, like the Bill Drill, or El Presidente, where multiple shots are happening, then it is very difficult, probably impossible to get the dry and live times the same. This is because dry fire can not simulate the recoil. This is time unaccounted for in DRYFIRE. Therefore, DRYFIRE is faster than what you can do live.

[Ben Stoeger]

I could have just had an off day but was curious if you guys notice a consistnet difference between your dry fire par times and your live fire par times? if so, how much slower do you anticipate live fire to be?

The difference shows up more and more as you increase the shot difficulty. It is tough to put numbers on it.

[bigfish]

Simple things like draws and reloads should be about the same, after that then who knows? Another thing to consider is that during live fire you have to pay attention to trigger control since you have a live trigger for each and every shot unlike dryfire where only the first shot has a live trigger. That adds time

Edited December 6, 2013 by bigfish

[Dkrad1935]

Its interesting - I pulled some IDPA classifier PAR times from this forum and have been using them as goals in dry fire practice sessions. But I realize those par times add up to Master - i probably need to be slightly faster to actually be confident I can shoot at that level.

Does anyone have dry fire PAR times for the IDPA classifier string by string? One of my goals is to make Master in IDPA - Not just to be a master at the classifier but to consitently shoot at that level. The classifier is a neat way to analyze a broad spectrum of skills in a short shooting session.

[jkrispies]

I've been doing a lot of dry fire for Steel Challenge courses that I have set up as mini courses in my garage. For me, it's something like:

Outer Limits: 4ish seconds dry, 5ish seconds real

Five to Go: 2.5ish dry, 4.4ish real

Pendulum: 2.5ish dry, 4.2ish real

Bear in mind, that part of the difference will be found in the fact that I can't duplicate a perfect match setup in my garage. It could be that my garage courses are just faster.

Recoil certainly plays a part of the time difference... but I'm doing this with a .22lr, so recoil isn't that huge of a factor in my case. I'd say the bigger difference is lack of stress in dry fire which will naturally make me perform better.

Plus, the dry fire times are my "that was a good run" par times, whereas the real times are being taken from my match runs that include pickup shots, etc., which will of course slow down the average. In matches, I've done Five to Go in 3.0 flat, and Outer Limits in 4.25... but not consistently, so I'm not going to go around bragging that I can do a 4.25 Outer Limits. That would be bunk! However, it's easy for me to say that I do 4.0 Outer Limits runs consistently even though 1/3 of the time I'll have to do a make-believe pickup shot or whatever that puts me up to 4.4 or whatever.

It's also worth noting that when I do "full match live runs" in practice, they are consistently faster than when I actually shoot a match, somewhere around 3-4 seconds total quicker overall. Again, lack of stress.

Personally, I think it's counterproductive to compare your dry fire times to real times. It's a bit of an apples and oranges argument to me. I run par times in dry fire more as a reference point than because I'm trying to beat the clock, per se. I'm working with the clock rather than against it. This is versus the match, when I truly am competing against the clock.

[Chris iliff]

Jkrispies

What I liked to do is kinda the opposite and has helped me some. I like to find out exactly what my live fire time is on something and set my par time to that. Then, DRYFIRE at that live time. I find that level of "honesty" keeps me honest and SEEING just exactly what I need to see. Grooving on this and then slowly lowering my time while still giving the individual shots the same attention.

Anyways, it's just something I've done. Ymmv.

[jkrispies]

Trust me, I'm seeing the shots in dry fire. My rule is that if I don't see an honest stop on the target through the trigger pull, it doesn't count.

[LilBunniFuFu]

Dry fire is usually quicker for me. Since I picked up a SiRT I can actually see if I am on target so my times are slowing down. I chock that up to actually seeing if I am "hitting" my targets. Let's see how this really ends up with some more time.