Drills to do at home (no live fire required)

IrishCannon

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What are your favorite drills to do at home that increase your proficiency but do not require live fire?

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I dry fire a LOT when I get a new rifle, or swap in new triggers. With bolt guns you can get a really good feel for how the bolt moves and what should feel "right".

I make up 3-5 dummy rounds so I can feel the rounds being pulled from the mag and fed into the chamber. If something doesn't feel "right or normal" during live fire you can stop and figure out the problem rather than having anything bad happen.

Gas guns are my nemesis. I'm trying to train myself to be as proficient with them as I am with a bolt, but it's gonna take more time. Lol
 
dry fire, mag changes, tap-rack-bang, shoot around barriers, and a web app for timed draw and fire.
 
I like to do reflexive fire drills, acquiring sight picture for a quick kill no aim VERY close quarters shot.

I practice left and right pivots, raising the rifle, trigger pulls when I reach center mass with red dot. I practice reloading from a pocket because likely I won’t be wearing a vest or chest rig at home.

And always, practice stoppage clearing. You’ve got the rest of your life to get your gun back up. Think about that
 
I guess it would depend on what you are doing with the rifle.

If it were a long gun with a bipod that I was shooting prone or in positions, I would practice getting into and out of the positions and building a good repeatable base for them. At least that's what I would do with little knowledge of precision shooting. I would find info on correct techniques and practice, for example, dropping down in a solid and repeatable prone position and finding that solid cheek weld and sight picture every time, etc.

I like to shoot action type stuff like 3 gun or 2 gun, so my dryfire includes gun manipulation (like reloads, failure drills, etc), mounting the gun from low ready, mounting the gun from port arms, moving in and out of a sling, and moving into and out of positions, etc.
Because it usually requires two shots I practice a lot of "controlled pairs". If I have the sling on, I can practice transitioning from slinging rifle to my pistol draw. All with movement. So, a lot of running around house with rifle up and both eyes open getting clean sight pictures and breaking off controlled pairs. This gets the blood going nicely and is more work than you'd think and builds muscles you need.

So much can be done in dryfire. It is really where the good shooters separate themselves from the pack. All good shooters dryfire much much more than live fire. It's super important and where I tend to get lazy.
 
I would also suggest having someone get video of you when you start feeling good about it. Its an awesome tool. Then analyze it carefully. Check your body position ruthlessly and make adjustments, based on what you see good shooters doing.

Also, big mirrors can help a lot as you can see where you are failing on form and stuff quickly and make adjustments until it looks right. Often times we do things and cannot see what we are doing, so we are doing it horribly wrong but can just not see it. When we see a vid wee think "damn that looks terrible" and adjust things to get it looking better.

A pool teacher (and touring pro) once told me "Dave, all you have to do is learn how to look really good at the table. When someone looks really good playing pool, it is because they are really good at playing pool". There's a lot of truth to that. Pay attention to the small details of your stance and technique and it will start to look good, and as a result you'll start to shoot good, too. Just my hack opinion!
 
To add to what @NKD said about mirrors, get one of those “hang over the door” full length mirrors and have someone hang it over a door in the house at random. When you find it, you’ve found your bad guy (your reflection). Practice getting to it and engaging it. You’ll have a perfect example of a full size target at whatever distance

My wife thought I was nuts. She thinks it’s nuts still I imagine, but she’s used to it
 
To add to what @NKD said about mirrors, get one of those “hang over the door” full length mirrors and have someone hang it over a door in the house at random. When you find it, you’ve found your bad guy (your reflection). Practice getting to it and engaging it. You’ll have a perfect example of a full size target at whatever distance

My wife thought I was nuts. She thinks it’s nuts still I imagine, but she’s used to it

@Slappy McTrigger 's wife:
"Are you guys fake shooting again out in the garage?"
 
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