Question for Limited/CO/Open Masters/GMs: do you see a lot of difference in Blake/transition drills in live fire vs dry fire?

[Stepan]

Working on my live fire practice plans. 
 

 

Recently added much more accent on Blake drills in dry fire and saw a lot of opportunities to improve: over/under transitions, vertical offsets, horizontal instability and reverse pre-transition swings. Basically all the problems I’ve had in Blake drills in live fire. 
 

 

Some context: My recoil control approach was functional workouts and just precision - doubles cycle in live fire. Precision: 10 shots from draw on 8” plate at 30yd, doubles 20yd IPSC target. Functional training: shooters elbow recovery exercises and hammer levering. Complete brute force, but works. For now. The perception gap between live and dry fire in actual stages is slowly but surely shrinking. 

 

So my question is: do transitions behave differently enough in live fire to dedicate time/rounds for them, like more than 50% of rounds per session. Or is 10-20% per session in the end of it enough?

Outside of actual/simulated stage runs and specific skills like reloads/draws/unloaded/oneHanded/prop/whatever - what is/was your most productive schedule/plan for live fire?

 

 

Thanks!

Edited November 29, 2020 by Stepan

[konkapot]

PM sent. 

[rpm8300]

I would say the answer depends on where you are as a shooter - B and below shooters will have different high payoff training areas for live fire, than an A trying to break in to M or higher.  It sounds like you've already put a lot of thought in to it so I'll skip to the M/GM level stuff.  What may help is looking a little broader for what to spend your training rounds on.  Look at your Level 2/3 match stages and compare them in a broad sense to where you want to be - note, this really only works if you can find some footage of some folks, and you have your own.  If you are chasing a GM level shooter who is pacing you by 2 seconds in an average long course - look at exactly where that time is spent.  Transitions may be the highest pay off for you to close the gap but you may be surprised that its something else. What I've seen personally trying  to close those gaps are 1) efficency in movement, i.e. losing time getting in to the position and getting shots off, and 2) total time in 'tough' engagements -i.e. hard leans, complex techincal swingers or other moving targets, etc.

[TheChewycookie]

My view of dryfire and transitioning to live fire is that dry "should" be faster than live practice given the correct context. If you are seeking to improve - dry times will be faster as you have the ability to focus on vision and ignore the distraction of the shot. You also have to understand your current capability of recoil management as I think most people have a large disassociation between the imagination and reality of what they can do. Always push vision in dryfire when seeking improvement.

 

On the other hand if skill maintenance is what you're looking for, the live times should be close to dry. You're not looking to induce issues that cause bare C or wild D hits that can be diagnosed and fixed, but to consistently create points through As and close Cs fast as you can visually process with minimal mental but maximum physical effort.

[Nobody909]

Generally there is a very small difference is transition speed but not a lot. If you are seeing a lot of variation between dry and live fire times, it probably means you are lying to yourself in dryfire.

 

This also depends on if you are working on your match pace or if you are trying to push your speed in practice.