Dry Firing
Dry firing is the practice of “firing” a firearm without any live ammunition and is one of the surest steps to becoming a more proficient shooter as the main benefit of dry fire training is that you can do it anywhere: meaning that you can practice your trigger skills at home, in the garden, depending on your circumstances in the area. So if you’re a close protection officer like myself, or you’re operating abroad, or you might just be interested in doing some target practice, or even learning another skill especially now we’re in another lockdown.
Dry fire practice enhances your trigger skills in two primary areas. First, it enhances your trigger control, which is roughly equal in importance in how well you aim. You also build muscle memory with every pistol you dry fire practice with, making you that much more proficient with it.
The law in the UK means that we can’t own firearms. What you see here however are all legal to own – In order from left to right – Paintball marker, airsoft pistol and blank fire pistol. There’s nothing live on the table as we can’t carry them in the UK under the section 5 firearm licence which you’ll never get the UK. We can have section 1, section 2, but not section 5
For safety make sure you wear eye protection and ear protection, have lots of space and a good backstop so that if it fires off a target and you miss, or it bounces off and ricochets, it doesn’t go over to the neighbours garden.
In the video I fire at a figure 11 metal target which is great with the paintball marker, and an archery board from Decathlon which is great with the airsoft but with the paintball marker you might get the rubber balls fly back.
I recommend that before commencing any dry fire training at home or in the garden, you alert your neighbours to what you’re doing and reassure them you are not using a real gun – its paintball markers and Airsoft – so that noise doesn’t spook anybody and they start calling the police.
Paintball marker – perfect for target practice
Paintball markers take C02 canisters. To load: the canisters go in the back of the magazine which you then wind up with an Allan key. Drop the top and it takes paintballs – it also takes chalk markers which are great if you don’t want anything flying back off of a target. Feed the paintball or chalk marker into the top and then just flick the slide and it will lock them in place. Pickup your magazine and pop it inside. Cock it from the top and you can start target practice. Great for hand eye coordination training. If you’ve got a holster ie your drawing from concealed carry, depending on what your job is, I would suggest you use the same holster no matter what you’re doing to enhance your muscle memory.
Airsoft Pistol – great for stoppage drills and cheap ammo
The gas used in an Airsoft pistol doesn’t like being cold. If the gas is too cold it won’t fire correctly and you’ll get some stoppages. As such, in the video you’ll see I have stored the magazine in my pocket until ready to use.
The advantage of the airsoft pistol over the paintball marker is the cost: once you have your Airsoft pistol, the gas and BB’s to load it are very cheap.
If you’ve got more magazines you can practice stoppage drills if you take your magazine out and pop another one in between firing.
Blank fire pistol – Replica gun great for getting people who have never fired a firearm used to firearms.
Its vital that you have a lot of open space, and where people are where people are not gonna call the police on you because its gonna go bang on you like a real firearm. This one take 9mm blanks and loads rounds the same way as a real gun and it will eject the rounds the same way as a real gun although it will NOT fire a real bullet. so its good for practicing the muscle memory of loading and unloading and making the gun safe.
