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The following was found on the Beretta Blog, posted by Tom McHale on Aug 6, 2014.

To Improve Your Handgun Accuracy In One Easy Step

You must learn how to press (not pull) the trigger without moving the gun. If you learn how to do that, every time, you won’t miss - assuming you have the gun pointed properly at the target.

How do you learn to press the trigger without moving the gun? Dry fire practice. Basic dry firing simply allows you to practice pulling the trigger pull on your gun without all that distracting flash and bang. All kidding aside, it’s a way to train your eyes, body and trigger finger to pull the trigger smoothly, without moving the sights off target. The real benefit is that you can do all this without that instinctive flinch when the gun normally goes bang. By conditioning yourself to perform a smooth trigger press, without a flinch reaction, you’ll eventually find that you do the same with a real gun when it does go bang.

The most important consideration is safety. You have to develop your own method that insures that you will never, ever, ever have "live ammo" anywhere near your gun when you dry fire. All four gun safety rules apply when dry firing too: 

Treat your gun as if it’s loaded.
Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire, or even dry fire.
Never point your gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy.
Be sure of your target and what’s behind it.


Here’s a dry fire practice checklist:


Step 1: Remove all ammunition from your gun. 

Remove the magazine from your gun. Next, rack the slide to remove the cartridge from the chamber. Look in the magazine well and chamber to verify that your gun is truly empty.

Step 2: Move the ammunition away from your practice area.

Humor me here. Get the live ammo you just removed and place it out of reach from your practice area. Get it out of the room! It’s amazing how life’s distractions can cause you to forget you just reloaded your gun after dry fire practice.

Step 3: Choose a safe target and backstop.

Since we’re obeying Rule 1 and treating our gun as if it’s loaded, we need to aim at a safe target and backstop during dry fire practice. I use a dresser that’s backed up against a stairwell wall. If I did manage to launch a bullet at it, the dresser full of junk would stop the projectile.

Step 4: Focus on your front sight!

Focus on your front sight, so it’s crisp and clear. Your chosen (safe!) target will be a bit blurry and that’s OK. You want all of your focus on the front sight. Your sight will move around a bit as no one can hold a handgun perfectly still. This is OK and normal.

Step 5: SLOWLY PRESS the trigger. 

Never try to press the trigger quickly the millisecond your sights are where you want them - that leads to moving the gun and a missed shot.
Slowly PRESS the trigger as smoothly as possible while the sight is in the vicinity of your target. As you practice, you be able to hold your gun more steady and the sights will move around less on target. The goal here is to complete the full trigger press until the gun’s action releases – without moving the sights off target. Just accept the little bit of wobble.

You’ll notice I say “press” instead of “pull” and that’s deliberate. If you practice a slow and smooth “press” perfectly every time, your brain will acquire an excellent habit. When at the range, you’ll find that the smooth press is automatic.

Step 6: Follow through!

As the gun dry fires, keep watching the sights until the action is complete. After the gun “clicks”, you’ll want to see the exact same sight picture as before the shot. That’s where your shot would have hit had you been firing a live cartridge. Think of this last step as follow through. Train your eyes to see the sight alignment just after the gun “fires.” Eventually, you’ll know where your shot hit without looking at the target.

Step 7: Reset if necessary depending on your gun type.

Semi-Automatic Pistols (Double / Single-Action)

With a double-action, you can configure your dry fire practice depending on what you want to accomplish. You can always just pull the trigger to simulate a full, double-action firing sequence. However, in real life, after that first double-action trigger pull, your handgun will cock itself so the second shot is a light trigger pull single-action motion. When you’re dry firing, you’ll have to pull back the hammer manually to prepare the gun for a single-action shot. It’s up to you if you want to simulate a first double-action shot, followed by a series of single-action shots or some other scenario. Do practice double-action shots, immediately followed by single-action shots though. The transition from heavier to lighter trigger takes some getting used to.

Striker-Fired Pistols

If you’re shooting a constant action striker-fired pistol, you'll have to cock the gun after each shot. To do this, just rack the slide. Fortunately, you don’t have to do a complete slide rack. With most pistols, you can pull the slide back ¼” or so and the striker mechanism will reset. Experiment with your gun to see how little of a partial slide rack you can get away with.

Step 8: Make a deliberate show of being done.

When you are finished, reload your gun with the ammunition you moved earlier. Now here’s the most important part - immediately store your gun in its normal place - holster, safe or lockbox. People have dry firing accidents when they reload their gun, get distracted, then resume “dry firing” only to experience a loud bang.

Those are the basic steps of safe and effective dry fire practice. 


One more thing. Always check with your gun manufacturer documentation to make sure your gun is safe to dry fire. Some guns, like most .22s, should not be dry fired. Most centerfire pistols are OK though. I perfer to use dummy ammunition when I am practicing.

5x5x5 Drill

 

I saw this drill in the October / November 2018 issue of Guns and Ammo Handguns. This is a fantastic drill that combines many valuable skills and it could not be simpler to set set up. As the name implies you shoot 5 shots in 5 seconds from 5 yards. Your target is a 5-inch circle.

The only extra gear required for this drill is a shot timer. Do not stress if you don’t have a shot timer. There are several good apps for your phone that are free and they work surprising well.

Targets. Cheep 8 ½ inch paper plates work great. The center circle on the plate is approximately 5 inches.

Shoot from the draw or low ready. After you master this drill you can adjust the difficulty by increasing distance, decreasing time, add a reload, ect.

 “Super Test” Shooting Drill

Skills Drills by Dave Spaulding Guns and Ammo Handguns Feb/Mar 2017

This drill is the creation of Wayne Dobbs and Daryl Bolke.

Here’s the drill:

This is a 30-round drill.  All stages start from a low ready position.

15 yards, 10 rounds in 15 seconds
10 yards, 10 rounds in 10 seconds
5 yards, 10 rounds in 5 seconds

This is scored by the numbers on a B8 Bullseye target.  Goal is 270 or better. 

After shooting for accuracy, Try shooting the drill again.  This time shoot it as fast as possible, still keeping all rounds on target.  Shoot the first stage in about 10 seconds, the second stage at about eight seconds, and the final stage around four seconds.

540-338-2486


Training Tip: Mozambique Drill
 
The Mozambique Drill, also known as the Failure Drill, Failure to Stop drill, or informally, "two to the chest, one to the head, is a close-quarters shooting technique that requires the shooter to fire twice into the torso of a target (known as a double tap to center of mass), and follow up with a more difficult head shot that, if properly placed, will instantly stop the target.

You will need an IDPA target or a 9” paper plate for the body target and a 4’X5” index card for the head. Start at 15 feet, from a low ready position. At the start signal raise the gun to a proper shooting position and rapidly fire two rounds (a double tap) to the body. Assess. Fire one shot to the head.   

This is a quick drill but only move as quickly as you can be accurate. After you have mastered this from a low ready position you can make the drill more challenging by drawing from your holster and adding a timer. A good time from a holster is 3 shots in 4 seconds.












Practice this drill from 3, 5, 7 and 10 yards.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and ConcealedCarry Magazine Feb/March 2017

 


Training Tip: Handgun Accuracy

by NRA Training Staff - Thursday, March 17, 2016

[Training Tip: Handgun Accuracy]

MoreWant to test your accuracy with a handgun? Here is a shooting drill that you can use to evaluate just how accurate you are.

Take a 3x5 file card and send it out to a distance of 15 feet. If you are at a range with a fixed backstop, move back 15 feet. Shoot a 5 shot group. If all the shots are on the file card, then it is time to back up another 5 feet.
















Replace the file card, and shoot a five shot group from 20 feet... keep moving back with every completed 5 shot group.
















Here is the catch, if you fail to hit all five shots you have to bring the target closer 5 feet and repeat! Miss too many times and you will find yourself back at the start.... How far can you go out?




















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