Tools to help improve your shooting...

by MJ Woodland                    

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When it comes to shooting, people always ask what they can do to become a better shooter. You have two options and one is less preferred. The least preferred way is to continue to shoot as much ammo until you get it right. The other option is to work on dry fire drills. Dry fire drills is a process that you can do in the comfort of your home home with no bullets. When you mention this to a few people they will turn their nose up to you and normally the reply is humorous. The repeated process will damage your firearm, and it's boring are probably the two responses often heard by me. If dry fire damages your firearm in any way, wouldn't actually firing it do more damage? Honestly speaking, I never entertained anyone in a debate about dry firing, but I can say it has assisted with my skill set. When conducting dry fire, I have two methods. The first way is I do everything the same but I focus on the weapon and look for the twitch and call it, but when I do this it is not correcting the movement of the gun going left or right from the trigger pull. My favorite drill is to take a empty casing of the same caliber and balance it on the front sight. Yes it is very boring to do, but I challenge myself to see how many times I can pull the trigger and keep the casing standing. This way you focus on every fundamental, and after the trigger is pulled if the casing is still standing you did something correct. Repeat the process for a time frame you think is suitable. The repetitive process forces you to focus on your stance, grip, sight alignment, sight picture (focusing on the fight more when dry firing), trigger control, breathing, and of course, follow through. This is what I do nightly and once you get the casing to stay on the front sight post after you pull the trigger, you will see results with your shots. 

There are other avenues people invest the time to make them more skilled behind the gun. A tool that is greatly used by me is competing in the USPSA and IDPA. By being a member of these two organizations, their website gives me access to competitions going on around the country. The combination of training that takes place with dry firing, signing up for different firearm classes, and competing gives me a distinct advantage over someone who does not train.