Live fire training - facility question

[MilkMyDuds]

For competition shooters without easy access to facilities where you can do free draw and repaid fire, what fall back options do you choose?

The nearest free shooting bays are 1 hours driving distance from me. I can manage to go there at most once a week. However, the lack of sufficient live firing is causing my improvement to plateau ATM.

I can pay another $500 to join a nearby indoor shooting range membership, but it will be just bullseye shooting without any draw or repaid fire allowed. Would this be worth it?

Any other suggestions what is the best way for me to get more live firing opportunities? Thanks.

[TonytheTiger]

This doesn't help with your rapid fire practice but for me personally I make a lot more improvement on my draw to target times while dry firing in my basement than I do in live fire. That's not saying I don't practice it in live fire, but all my speed comes from dry fire practice. And it's way cheaper of course.

[TonytheTiger]

Oh and the next best thing is to make friends with some of us country folk with our backyard ranges!

[MilkMyDuds]

This doesn't help with your rapid fire practice but for me personally I make a lot more improvement on my draw to target times while dry firing in my basement than I do in live fire. That's not saying I don't practice it in live fire, but all my speed comes from dry fire practice. And it's way cheaper of course.

What I am experiencing is the plateau after months of heavy dry fire training... I could draw, reload and manipulate my gun in the expert/master level (according to the target par times in Steve's book). However, I am not seeing much improvements for the past month or so. In local matches, I am missing shots that I never miss in live fire practices. Then I realized that the commonly recommended training pattern goes like 4 days of dry fire (AM + PM) plus minimum 2 live fire sessions. I barely could do 1 live fire session per week, and that include the local match I participate once a month.

All of these are due to 2 small kids and a busy job. And the only range that does allow free draw and rapid fire is 1 hours driving distance away.

That leads me to think maybe just by doing static bullseye shooting will help me with the realistic recoil and improve my confidence with live fire more?

[LilBunniFuFu]

Trigger time is trigger time. Does this indoor league allow you to do table starts, low ready starts, bang reload bang? There are a few things you can't swing with a "slow" range, just talk to them without being an ass and some doors might open up.

[MilkMyDuds]

I am just curious if any master shooters have used "slow ranges" to hone their skills and found they are useful.

$500 is not a small amount for me. So I want to see from people's past experience if it's worth it.

[TonytheTiger]

It'll be one hell of a mental gear change to go from bullseye to any action shooting sport. If you get to a match and have trouble getting your mind and trigger finger out of bullseye mode it will likely be more hindrance than help. In my experience, training for something completely different than your chosen sport just for the sake of training can cause some problems. Just my 3 cents though.

[nitrohuck]

Oh and the next best thing is to make friends with some of us country folk with our backyard ranges!

This.... most definitely your best option, every time.

I used to have access to an indoor range that was completely unused just about 24/7. Everytime I went there it was empty but for just myself, and I had special permission from the director to do anything I wanted (draws, reloads, tablestart, etc.) The range was only about 20m, but it was awesome to have completely free run of the place.

Plus I got to keep all the lead that was ever shot into the traps

Alas, that's gone now, so it's backyards for me,