The gap between dryfire and live fire

[ArrDave]

Forgive me, as some of this will be thinking outloud, some of it is legitimately asking questions.  

 

So this morning I did some dryfire practice as I do most mornings.  Feeling pretty good about my dryfire and my hand speed.  I practice 4 aces at 10 yards in dryfire, then about every 6 weeks or so I test my "match mode" skills.  In live fire, I'm right under 4 seconds is as good as I can do, with about 80% alphas.  in dry fire I'm beating 2.2 seconds seeing the sights.   

 

That gap makes me sad.  I know I am losing time on that first site picture as my 10 yard draw ranges from 1.35 to 1.45 for an alpha.  Splits slow down to .35-.45 for whatever reason.  Shot to shot on my reload is 1.6-1.7 ish - I don't think I get on the reload quite as fast as I do in dryfire.  I guess in dryfire I'm more comfortable with "missing" since there are no holes showing up down range.  

 

How do I get faster?  in dry fire I'm brilliantly fast and can hit the par times in all the books (generally), I guess in live fire I'm terrified of missing so I visually double confirm my Sights? 

 

How do I get over this?  In dryfire I think I'll spend a LOT of time drawing to an ASP at a simulated 25+ yards, maybe lots of 25 yard controlled pairs from the holster in live fire?  

 

As an aside, my 25 yard draw with about a 65% chance of an alpha is 1.75 and my splits are like .75-.85. 

 

All this was on a new match gun with different sights (accushadow w/ HAJO vs. regular shadow with OEM CZ Shadow sights).  I don't necessarily feel like i was missing my dot.  The tighter notch seems to make it easier for go/no go, but it's harder to find the dot when it strays from the notch.  I'm not sure other than it's un-familiarness it's hurting anything.  

 

For context, I'm currently a 63% Production shooter, after my last classifier upload goes down I should be 67%.  

How would you proceed if this were you? 

[superluckycat]

I too suffer from this phenomena.

Example:  

I can perform a relaxed El Prez in dry fire in 5.0s.  In live fire it's around 6.0s average.

Blake Drill:  1.80s dry, 2.50s live is fast for me.

Of course recoil adds time but I think stress has a lot to do with it.  When you are dry firing you are relaxed in your home and there's no pressure.  When you live fire it's like a test.  Now you are using real bullets, now it's for real.  With a match being the ultimate test.  Which would explain why I my match shooting is always my worst.

Edited October 10, 2016 by superluckycat

[nelson1each]

I also notice I dry fire faster too...I attributed it to I know the guns not hot and if I drop it only the cat and I will know. When I get to the range I know the gun is hot, people are watching etc and I slow it back a bit. 

[ArrDave]

31 minutes ago, superluckycat said:

31 minutes ago, superluckycat said:

I too suffer from this phenomena.

Example:  

I can perform a relaxed El Prez in dry fire in 5.0s.  In live fire it's around 6.0s average.

Blake Drill:  1.80s dry, 2.50s live is fast for me.

Of course recoil adds time but I think stress has a lot to do with it.  When you are dry firing you are relaxed in your home and there's no pressure.  When you live fire it's like a test.  Now you are using real bullets, now it's for real.  With a match being the ultimate test.  Which would explain why I my match shooting is always my worst.

I mean I expect there to be a gap, there should be one, i just didn't intend for the gap to be quite so dramatic.

[GunBugBit]

I've experienced letdown a few times relating to how little several hours of dry fire helped my match performance.  Live fire including match performance is of course quite different from dry fire because presence of recoil and bang and flash and people watching make quite a different experience from recoil-less, quiet, private dry fire in your own home.

Perhaps try to increase the frequency of live fire practice and note your times on various live fire drills so you have a more realistic notion of what your match shooting will be like.

I have proven to myself that dry fire helps me very much and not doing it for even just one week shows up in a bad way at the next match.

Edited October 10, 2016 by GunBugBit

[ArrDave]

in no way do I plan on stopping dryfire - I think i'm just going to make dry fire harder so I'm hammering visual processing speed more. On everything.  

[AngryFive0]

How often do you live fire?  In your original post you mention every 6 weeks.  You should be doing a lot more live fire if you want faster times.  

As good as dry fire is it can not replace live fire.  Take transition for example.  In dry fire you only worry about a good sight picture, possibly a trigger press then move to the next target.  Once going live you now have to overcome recoil too.  It's going to be slower and until you train the recoil management it will probably be a lot slower than dry fire.  There is a lot more going on movement wise.  The recoil is not simply gun up gun down but there will be time spent getting the sights back on target.  Depending on stance, grip, moving while shooting, and a lot more you will have to do a lot more work to regain that sight picture compared to dry fire.

Dry fire with out the proper amount of live fire can be detrimental too.  Same example of transitions.  If you practice them in dry fire a lot and rarely live fire you may find yourself pulling off of targets at a match.  Misses every where and you don't call them.  Well, your training tells your brain that you aquired a good sight picture and it's now time to move on.  Your live fire training tells your brain to wait on the sights to lift before you move to the next target.

[Jake Di Vita]

So the main thing here is I'm guessing that you let things slide in dry fire that you just can't get away with using real bullets.

To me, each dry fire session should be an evolution of your approximate actual skill level (when you start, cold) to the most savage hot stanky version of your skills that exists (after you've warmed up and made adjustments). If you're doing it right, you're noticing little things and making tiny adjustments on every single rep. An example would be drawing to a 15 foot light switch at full speed and noticing that your sights are pointed 2 inches left. You try to fix that in the next rep but this time you draw with the same speed and land .5 inch right and 1 inch low. Then next rep you adjust again at the same speed and maybe this time you're dead on and the shot practically breaks itself. The goal is to have the first glimpse of the sights be with them in the perfect position for the shot with no adjustment. The same thing goes for reloading. It isn't enough to have a rotational error on the fresh mag but bang the mag in there. I want to move at full tilt and feel like the mag doesn't even touch the sides of the gun until it clicks into place. You can apply this to all aspects of shooting. Every transition that lands off the target point should be noticed and accounted for. Try to do as many "perfect" reps as you can at full speed. Maybe you do a dry fire session and do nothing perfect, that's fine...the pursuit of it is going to make you improve. Ultimately as you become a better shooter you'll see less of a difference between live fire and dry fire.

I would also recommend doing more dry fire in between live fire drills if you have the time.

[ArrDave]

I can live fire once a week at an indoor range so the monthly or so eval is just checking in on more skills than just shooting dots.

Thinking about and attempting long range in dry fire this morning I seem to hesitate on sights, which was very evident to me in live fire. Watching my shotcoach match vids it's pretty apparent to me as well.


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[johnbu]

I'm in the same boat, have no words of wisdom only an interesting observation.  At a Ben Stoeger class we did dry fire then live fire the same drill. EVERYONE in class did a real quick DF and we all got scolded. Ben then did his dry fire SLOWER than everyone in class and then live fire FASTER than everyone in class (all A hits). The interesting observstion was that his DF time and LF times were nearly identical. Yet his DF was slower than ours....interesting, eh?

[GunBugBit]

It makes me think about how valuable it would be to have a better connection to my realistic live fire speeds as I dry fire.  Most of us already know we can dry fire a given drill faster than we can live fire it.  When it comes time to put holes in the paper, there's no kidding ourselves about whether we're seeing A's or not.

Edited October 17, 2016 by GunBugBit

[CrashDodson]

Ive been frustrated with the differences in live/dry for a while.

This weekend we ran the "front sight" classifier.  Which is half an el prez on the first string.  Turn and draw 2 on 3.  And then 2 on three facing the targets (blake drill).  I knew I had to have a 4.45 second total with all A's for 100%.  In dry fire I can do this all day.  A 2 second blake drill dry is no problem.  Doing a half el prez in 2.45 dry is no problem.  Given multiple trys I know without a doubt that I can hit a 100% run on this classifier in live fire (as can many of us non gm's im sure).  Doing it with only one try, your first try, is a whole different story.  At the match I ran the first string in 2.92 seconds.  The second string in 2.61 seconds.  8 A's and 4 Cs.  This results in a 75.7259%.  In dry fire I am using 1/3 scale targets that are about 3 feet apart.  The classifier targets are 7.5 feet apart.  Even when using the scaled targets the transition is still 7.5 feet either way.  I dont have 15 feet of wall space to use but I should start dry firing with the targets as wide as I can I think.   

On my second string I did not hit my weak hand grip as solid as it should be, even though I do it 100's of times every morning in dry fire.  I think a big thing is trying to get your semi-relaxed state of mind that we have in our living room or garage and perform in that state at the match.  Calling two good trigger presses on a gun that doesn't move or go bang in dry fire is a lot different then calling two good shots with an explosion in front of your face.  Maybe its all just mental.  In dry fire running as fast as I can I know instantly if I shoot a C/D/M.  In live fire I can call mikes (except on damn steel) and some D's but not C and close D's.  

I think in live fire I am not running my mental program every time like I should.  I am not running the same routine every time.  I do some draws and take my sight pictures, I run through the stage in my mind, but I need to come up with something that I finish with every time before being "ready".  Perhaps that would help me clear my head and run my program a little better. 

 

[Jake Di Vita]

47 minutes ago, CrashDodson said:

Ive been frustrated with the differences in live/dry for a while.

This weekend we ran the "front sight" classifier.  Which is half an el prez on the first string.  Turn and draw 2 on 3.  And then 2 on three facing the targets (blake drill).  I knew I had to have a 4.45 second total with all A's for 100%.  In dry fire I can do this all day.  A 2 second blake drill dry is no problem.  Doing a half el prez in 2.45 dry is no problem.  Given multiple trys I know without a doubt that I can hit a 100% run on this classifier in live fire (as can many of us non gm's im sure).  Doing it with only one try, your first try, is a whole different story.  At the match I ran the first string in 2.92 seconds.  The second string in 2.61 seconds.  8 A's and 4 Cs.  This results in a 75.7259%

I'd like you to run Front Sight next time you live fire practice as if it were your first stage at a match. Prep like you would at a match. Run the drill once and record your results. If you did this once a week or so for a couple months, I think we'd end up with an average that is pretty close to the 75% you just ran it in.

The extra distance on the transitions also does actually make a big difference between a string of Front Sight and a half El Prez.

From my perspective it's amusing that you're frustrated over a 75% run when you were C class just a month or two ago. I think you're making constant practice but it just takes time (yearS). I get wanting to be a GM yesterday, but as long as you're making progress don't let yourself be frustrated. I spent 2 years in B class, that was extremely frustrating because I just wasn't getting better.

53 minutes ago, CrashDodson said:

On my second string I did not hit my weak hand grip as solid as it should be, even though I do it 100's of times every morning in dry fire.  I think a big thing is trying to get your semi-relaxed state of mind that we have in our living room or garage and perform in that state at the match.  Calling two good trigger presses on a gun that doesn't move or go bang in dry fire is a lot different then calling two good shots with an explosion in front of your face.  Maybe its all just mental.  In dry fire running as fast as I can I know instantly if I shoot a C/D/M.  In live fire I can call mikes (except on damn steel) and some D's but not C and close D's.

The skill required to never miss technical things when they really count is waaaaaay higher than most people think. I've gone 30 straight .7ish reloads in dry fire without a bobble more times than I can count, yet I can still go to a match and bobble 3 out of 4 reloads. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I don't think I've had truly perfect execution on any stage I've ever shot. It's definitely critical in our game to minimize mistakes.

I would say that a potential source of the problem is that you're in a semi-relaxed state of mind when you dry fire. I don't want to be relaxed when I practice. I want to be running hot, wound up, focused, and pushing my boundaries. Then I try and take that same state of mind to the match except I replace pushing boundaries with just hitting each target in the middle as soon as I can while executing my plan.

Fortunately you've made shot calling a priority to practice as nothing has as large of an effect on our overall performance as the ability to know where your bullets are going before they get there. Be harder on yourself in dry fire. Everyone lets themselves get away with a certain amount of poo. You're goal should be to be the guy that lets the least slide in dry fire.

[GunBugBit]

CrashDodson's post and others on this thread made me think about two modes of dry fire.  One would be the mode where we are pushing our speed, trying to establish better par times we can consistently meet or beat on given drills.  The other mode would be where we dry fire at a pace that's very close to our live fire speeds.  I have plenty of data to know how fast I can accurately shoot a big variety of target arrays, so I could easily contain myself within those times in dry fire drills as I focus on precision, crispness and consistency.

There are other dry fire modes that come to mind, such as the warm-up and warm-down modes, or modes where we are working only on draws or only on reloads or only on micro-drills where we're doing partial draws or partial reloads.

That still doesn't cover all of the possible modes but those are the main ones that come to mind right now.

[CrashDodson]

14 minutes ago, GunBugBit said:

CrashDodson's post and others on this thread made me think about two modes of dry fire.  One would be the mode where we are pushing our speed, trying to establish better par times we can consistently meet or beat on given drills.  The other mode would be where we dry fire at a pace that's very close to our live fire speeds.  I have plenty of data to know how fast I can accurately shoot a big variety of target arrays, so I could easily contain myself within those times in dry fire drills as I focus on precision, crispness and consistency.

There are other dry fire modes that come to mind, such as the warm-up and warm-down modes, or modes where we are working only on draws or only on reloads or only on micro-drills where we're doing partial draws or partial reloads.

That still doesn't cover all of the possible modes but those are the main ones that come to mind right now.

I agree.  And most of the time I am running in balls to the wall mode in dry fire (speed wise but maybe not focus wise) which obviously does not translate to live fire when you are trying to call your shots.  My draw and reload times have improved drastically, and those have carried over to live fire well.  I think my dry fire transition speed and live fire transition performance are farther away from each other than they should be, and I should work to bring those two together.  Granted dry fire is the place to push the limits I need to be more honest with myself.  

Like Jake stated I do want to be a GM yesterday...or more like last week.  The dude knows what he is talking about and has helped me more then I can ever repay.  He tries to keep my expectations realistic, which is not easy.  Following his and others advice I have gone from a 50% to now Mid-B classification in less than a year.  I would pay attention to anything he says.  

I guess like anything, big improvements come early and then the rate of diminishing returns starts, which is when I start getting frustrated but I am working through it.   

20 hours ago, Jake Di Vita said:

I would say that a potential source of the problem is that you're in a semi-relaxed state of mind when you dry fire. I don't want to be relaxed when I practice. I want to be running hot, wound up, focused, and pushing my boundaries. Then I try and take that same state of mind to the match except I replace pushing boundaries with just hitting each target in the middle as soon as I can while executing my plan.

Be harder on yourself in dry fire. Everyone lets themselves get away with a certain amount of poo. You're goal should be to be the guy that lets the least slide in dry fire.

The tensions and anxiety, if thats what you would call it, that I feel in a match are rarely present in practice.  I need to bring this mind set to dry fire and live fire practice...but not really sure how.  It happens from time to time and I can tell/feel the difference.  But repeating it doesn't seem to be that easy for me. 

[pointerman1967]

39 minutes ago, CrashDodson said:

The tensions and anxiety, if thats what you would call it, that I feel in a match are rarely present in practice.  I need to bring this mind set to dry fire and live fire practice...but not really sure how.  It happens from time to time and I can tell/feel the difference.  But repeating it doesn't seem to be that easy for me. 

Poke yourself with a fork every time you call a "D" in dry fire.  

That might bring some focus and intensity to your practice.  

[CrashDodson]

I could hand my wife a taser, that might be some motivation

[GunBugBit]

I had a better couple of matches in a period when in my dry fire I was focusing more on precision -- honestly seeing an A before pressing the trigger and trying very hard to go crisply to that next A with no slop -- while also setting aside some time to work on raw speed.  Today I'm kind of thinking I've been doing quite a lot of dry fire with the wrong mindset.  Thanks to this thread I'm doing some thinking that might lead to the next bit of improvement.

[GARD72977]

There is always going to be a difference. You don't have an explosion going off in your face and there is no recoil. The difference is normal. You will find after a while the sights just show up almost perfect as you draw and transition. The problem is you my not notice this improvement because you are obsessing over something new.

You need a routine that builds your basic skills. I love to read post where draws don't really matter. Next time you are at a match and a guy draws on 20yd steel and misses and it messes up his stage plan, ask him if it matters.

I really like to dry fire things I struggled with in matches.