Dry Fire Draw Consistent 1.2

[TDean]

Kath, could it be that you're “playing it safe” with the loaded gun?

You're probably pushing 100% in dry-fire, then in live-fire, you're taming it down to 70-80% ?

What are you doing at 5yds without seeing the dot ?

What I'm saying is, it's either your draw mechanics or your sight aquisition. If you can hit 1.2sec at 5yds, you'll then know your losing time hunting for your dot at distances that require seeing it.

Have you tried a different sight, maybe a tube instaed of the C-More?

[lynn jones]

sg,

are you dry-firing with a weighted gun (with a blue weighted mag)? i can tell the difference between a empty gun and loaded gun.

lynn

[Shooter Grrl]

Some background and answers from me now!

First, I just started Dry firing this week (don't hurt me Steve-that's also why I couldn't ask you at the range!) I've devoted 10 minutes a day and really liked how it was going so decided to do a reality check at the range yesterday. BTW, this is all on Steve's Drill 1! I haven't progressed past that yet (DOH!)

I do my dry fire drills with the training mag as the weight difference was really noticable in my very first ever dry fire draw, without it. As in, the gun practically hit the ceiling

Jake, yes please - do the video - that sounds like a great idea. As to filming me, you'll notice there's only two of all the ones we took at the range?!?! Dave's really not into remembering to grab the camera - LOL!

Flex - no, I don't have my gear on right now - I'm at school and I believe that would make me a felon - LOL!!!!!!

At any rate, I've gotten lots of good pointers! I think I'll focus on the berm next time I go practice live fire. I am beginning to think that it is a matter of trust and fear of the loaded firearm. Remember, I am not a natural at this!!! I have no inate talent with a gun - I struggled with everything I've learned to this point.

I also think that because I took 6 months off a lot of my skills are rusty. There's also the fact that I have never, until this last week, really looked at this stuff

Okay - now I gotta go write my paper that's due in an hour and that I'm skipping class to write

[Mistral404]

Sorry, I wanted to post some more last night but my daughter kicked me off the computer.

I do not press the trigger when dry firing. I do take the safety off.

I can run a .75 par time draw in my dry fire consistently. But lately my draws in practice and matches have been in the 1.5 - 1.8 range. Small plates at 25 yds are consistently in the 1.8 to 2.2 ranges. I have pulled several .9+ draws in matches before but I have been choking them lately.

I knew I needed some work again on my draws.

I started to break the draw into segments and analyze where I was losing time. I was not using my sunglasses when I was dry firing outside. This was a factor.

It has come down to me over emphasizing the sight picture. Yep, the sights are correct, yep they still are right where I want them on the target, and one more yep to really confirm the sight pictue.--ugh. To break this, I went to a live fire practice session with about a 100 rounds on nothing but draws.

In live fire practice:

I went back to a 1 yd drill. Started with 1.3 second and finally go it down to .82. Moved back to 3yds, then 5yds then 10 yds. My times went up but when they hover around 1.09 at 10-15 yds I stopped. I also did this with about 15 second shot drills. The draws were consistent and the second shot split was in the low to mid .2 range, which is good for me at this point in time.

I shot a steel match recently and my draws where in the 1.21 on a 20 yds small plate-so I was not too disappointed. The live fire sessions seems to have worked.

[Jake Di Vita]

Kath,

Just tape yourself from the strong side in practice. A video in live fire and dry fire so you can compare the two.

Hands at sides, target at 5 yards will work.

I'll do it when I get back from the Space City.

[mcoliver]

1. Dry fire in the range with the real loaded mag. Then do the live fire every once in a while to confirm.

2. Note any time differences when the timer is held close to your head or on your belt/pocket.

[Sam]

SG, the trick is learning to "hit your index" every time. If you can learn to hit your index consistently every time at 5 yards, you will have 1.2 second draws as often in live fire as you do in dry fire.

The old adage "see what you need to see" really comes in to play here. The point is, that what you "need to see" here is just basic brown through and around the sight. Turn the dot off and shoot what you see through the tube. Just stand and rip smokin' draws into the dirt bank for a while. Then place the target between you and the dirt. When the truth of this hits you, you will have great powers.

Yes, the force is very strong in this one..............

[Shooter Grrl]

Cool Sam! I will definitely try that next time I go practice!

[Ron Ankeny]

SG:

You are getting a lot of good advice. It took me a long, long time to get my draw up to par. It still isn't where I want to be. For me, I was wasting too much time at the end of the draw stroke over aiming. When I tried to go faster and shoot quicker, I ended up poking the gun out with vigor and it would bounce like a tuning fork and things got even worse. I shaved about .4-.5 sconds off of my draw by spending an afternoon with Sam. We found wasted time at the beginning of the draw stroke related to slowing down when I took the safety off, and we found wasted time at the end of the draw stroke over aiming. That was with irons.

When I went to a dot, my draw slowed down, but I didn't worry about it because it didn't think it exactly sucked. Then I started shooting steel and found out my draw did suck, lol. In my case, when I looked through the C'More I was waiting for my eyes to converge on the dot. Yeah, I know it's focused on infinity, but you can look at the dot or look at the target. It's a matter of mental and visual focus. My open draw times improved dramatically when I finally learned to shoot with a pure target focus. I looked at the exact spot on the target that I wanted to hit, then broke the shot the instant the dot appeared.

As a training aid, I covered the front of the C'More with a piece of duct tape (on the housing not the lens). That way, I couldn't see through the C'More. However, when you bring the gun up, you will see the target with your left eye and see the dot come to the target. If you bring the gun up and the target disappears, you are making both eyes converge on the dot and all you see is the dot and the tape, no target. This is also a great training aid for transitions.

Anyhow, I am just tossing this out as food for thought. It's something you might try just to learn what your eyes are doing. If it helps great, if not, well I guess you got what you paid for.

[postal]

I have always assumed dry fire drills will be faster, than live fire, and not necessarily that I the faster of the two should be how fast I can draw but just the opposite, I can consistently dry fire draw at .8 but cannot break 1. Live fire very often {occasional .91}, I do have dummy rounds loaded up for dry firing to make up the loaded weight while dry firing, I just figured the extra time was because during dry fire I wasn’t always getting on target, and have no way of knowing if I was, in addition my dry fire targets are much closer

Only nickel brass I have in the house is dummy rounds, no loaded nickel, so I can never confuse them with a live round loaded in brass

[Shooter Grrl]

Good new guys! While I haven't been to the range again since I posted this... I did consistent 1.5 draws today at the match - so at least I know that some of my work is paying off

[Sam]

Excellent Kath! Match draws are the only true test. You are definately gaining.

[Guest Gunslinger45]

I "Thought " I had a good dryfire routine untill I got Steves book (Great book, by the way, Steve) and a good timer that would allow me to set pars at .1 increments. After getting set up I found that my Livefire par (For my Production rig) hands relaxed was right at 1.1 at 30' so this is what I built my dryfire par around. Then I found that at a match with an R.O. running me my draws were about 1.7 average at about 30'. What "My" problem was is that I was counting the 5 sec. countdown during dryfire anticipating the "beep" and had done so to set my livefire par. During the matches I couldn't count because somebody else was controlling the timer and I was losing .6 secs. between dryfire and match draw times. After I started useing "Random start" on my timer instead of a set countdown time I have brought that difference down to around .2 secs.

[sixx]

You have to break down your draw into segments. I posted this once before, and somebody deleted it. Somebody who doesn't want the REAL answer being put out, perhaps? There's your reaction time, you hand to gun time, the time to get the gun clear of the holster, the time to both hands on the gun, the time to full extention, the time to the shot's breaking. You can work on this with wax ammo,without blowing off your leg. Find out where you are losing the most time, and work on that segment, then move on to the next slowest, etc. Work with the target are arm's length. at first. Then see how much you have to slow down to hit the A zone at 10 ft, 20 ft, 30 ft, etc.

[Flexmoney]

I posted this once before, and somebody deleted it.  Somebody who doesn't want the REAL answer being put out, perhaps? 

Yeah...looks like you got us figured out.

(Your other post was moved to it's own thread: click here )

[GuildSF4]

There are more visual cues that you're "ready" with iron sights vs a scope. Worst of all is the C-More, esp. the black C-More. YMMV

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What do you mean by this, especially the Black C-more part? I am curious what I am missing.

[benos]

Reading this thread, I realized that I never compared practice draw times to live fire draw times. For me, dry training was for perfecting movements - releasing the trigger, drawing into position, and mag changes. Practice and analyze, practice and analyze, over and over for many years. But then with bullets in the gun, of course you won't finish those movements quite as freely, so it is essential to skill training at the range. For many years, I never practiced by shooting stages. I trained the same skills at the range as I trained at home - shooting groups, drawing to the first shot, and mag changes. Of course often I'd set up more than one target, but seldom more than two or three. Drills, drills, drills, taught me the skills. Once I was pretty solid with skills, then I started practicing stages.

In the old days, the matches were more skill-test oriented. Today, I think lots of folks get their rigs, load some ammo and go right and start practicing stages.

be

[XRe]

In the old days, the matches were more skill-test oriented. Today, I think lots of folks get their rigs, load some ammo and go right and start practicing stages.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm too lazy to set up full stages... I build small drills to work on specific skills that I'll occasionally stitch together with another skill into a small part of a stage. Is that a bad thing??? Aside from setup/teardown, I find it way too hard to get objective feedback from the timer and hits across a big stage during practice. I use local matches as "full stage practice".....

[Jake Di Vita]

I normally spend the vast majority of my life fire working on fundamentals then just basic drills. I rarely if ever set up stages.

[Dalmas]

I to a mix of drill and stages, I feel that smart stages give me more than endless drilling.

[mcoliver]

I practice stages during matches.

[Ben Stoeger]

I tend to set up components of stages. Just small things like moving to a barricade and shooting around it. In dry fire, I run 20+ rd stages. Its all part of the fun!

[Harmon]

i noticed the secret to the good draw is seeing the sights come onto target before the gun is fully extended.

also start moving your hand on the B of the beeep.

when i first started shooting limited, i did some dryfire for a week without live fire.

before my draw was around 1.5

i got it down to 1.00 in a weeks time.

after getting warmed up during practice, i have ripped of a .65

between .80 and 1 second are getting easier.

as far as where your time is being lost, you might be cheating yourself on the dryfire and accepting a less than perfect sight picture just to beat the clock

[DT Guy]

Try a few live firing exercises WITHOUT a target. Don't worry about hitting anything but the backstop, and see what your time is.

Then do the same thing dry.

This will allow you to break down whether you're overaiming or there's an actual physical difference in your draws.

Larry

[rvb]

If we don't pull the trigger, the only way our ego can claim the time is with an acceptable sight picture at blazing speeds.

....

The other component has to do with how much live fire practice you're getting. There can exist a psychological reluctance to do fast things with a hot blaster if it feels at all different than our normal experience. I can recall the first time I went to the range after getting a sub 1 draw in dry fire. It took some trust to go that fast with rds in the gun and coming out of the barrel.

...

Jake may also have a point about the 50 yard draw. You might consider doing some extremely close draws to get to know what it feels like to do a 1.2 with a hot gun. Into the berm isn't a bad idea either...it may give you "permission" to do it again.

...

Good luck,

SA

This forum and it's people are amazing. This thread may be 4+ yrs old but it covers exactly what I need to know right now.

I've identified some problems with my draw. "over-aiming" that first shot as well as trusting my index and grip in live fire. As with the original post, my dryfire draw times and live fire times are worlds apart. I can rock it in dryfire, but with that live ammo I get scared about where I'm sending that first round. In live fire I can feel the hesitation once the gun is extended. I can see it in video. Some searching and reading resulted in finding this treasure trove of information and tips from some awesome talent.

I thought this thread deserved a bump for more than me to read. Does anyone who posted tips have more insight all these years later?

Thanks, all!

-rvb