Whats the point of dry firing?
- Thread starter GmanVP9
- Start date
Blackwing
Well-known member
Read it somewhere when I was a a kid and tried it. I packed the action of my old double-action .22 revolver with that really granular style Coalgate toothpaste and dry fired it about 10k times. Cleaned it all out and that trigger action was smooooooth.poor man's trigger job. After 5000 pulls, it will smooth it out a little
Guyanaman1963
Well-known member
Never realized how abrasive tooth paste and saving cream was until Basic Training. We were using it to take heel marks off the floor when the “TI” caught us and made us strip and re-wax the dorm floors!
So yeah…. I can see it smoothing out a trigger!
M.
When trying to become proficient at something, the only way you're going to get there is putting in the reps. There's a lot of science behind it but, the simple explanation is you are going through the motions and building up "muscle memory" (more correctly called "neural memory" IMO) until that thing becomes second nature for you. Same goes with firearms and dry fire. It's effectively a "cheap" way to get reps in and start developing your competence towards the ultimate goal: subconscious competence.
When it comes to pistols, they're one of the most difficult platforms to shoot. Every little deficiency in technique can create a substantial effect on target. I once saw a new shooter with a rental Glock 17 anticipate recoil so badly that they yanked every single round low left and OFF target of a B-27 target at 3 yards! For reference, that's nearly a 2ft x 4ft target! Seeing as ammo is still so expensive, dry fire is exceedingly important these days. You don't want to be burning valuable reps on live ammo for every single trigger pull.
For some that dry practice religiously, they might put in 5-10 dry fires for every live round they plan to fire. Let's say you plan to go fire a box of 50rds on a Friday night. Maybe you might do 50 dry fires per day, including Friday, so you're getting in over a couple hundred dry fires, equating to roughly 5 per live round. Don't get too caught up on the specific numbers, it's mainly about the principle of putting in reps consistently. For some of the more competitive sport shooters, I've heard as high as 100 dry fires for every live round they plan to fire. At one point many years ago, for a very short period of time, I pushed myself to 1,000 dry fires per day! That got old real fast, but I did get some serious gains from it. I was never highly competitive for the few years I participated in IDPA, so my dry fire dropped off to ~100 per day.
Hopefully some of these numbers help start to put things in perspective. In terms of how to dry fire, I would probably recommend some sort of dummy round or snap cap that allows your firing pin to strike something that offers a bit of resistance (snap caps are the most obvious for this). Certain guns, like some models and generations of Glocks, M&Ps, and maybe a few other types of pistols have been known to suffer from cracked breech faces with high dry fire counts, over time, and without any sort of snap cap. Additionally, some other stuff to take into account:
When it comes to pistols, they're one of the most difficult platforms to shoot. Every little deficiency in technique can create a substantial effect on target. I once saw a new shooter with a rental Glock 17 anticipate recoil so badly that they yanked every single round low left and OFF target of a B-27 target at 3 yards! For reference, that's nearly a 2ft x 4ft target! Seeing as ammo is still so expensive, dry fire is exceedingly important these days. You don't want to be burning valuable reps on live ammo for every single trigger pull.
For some that dry practice religiously, they might put in 5-10 dry fires for every live round they plan to fire. Let's say you plan to go fire a box of 50rds on a Friday night. Maybe you might do 50 dry fires per day, including Friday, so you're getting in over a couple hundred dry fires, equating to roughly 5 per live round. Don't get too caught up on the specific numbers, it's mainly about the principle of putting in reps consistently. For some of the more competitive sport shooters, I've heard as high as 100 dry fires for every live round they plan to fire. At one point many years ago, for a very short period of time, I pushed myself to 1,000 dry fires per day! That got old real fast, but I did get some serious gains from it. I was never highly competitive for the few years I participated in IDPA, so my dry fire dropped off to ~100 per day.
Hopefully some of these numbers help start to put things in perspective. In terms of how to dry fire, I would probably recommend some sort of dummy round or snap cap that allows your firing pin to strike something that offers a bit of resistance (snap caps are the most obvious for this). Certain guns, like some models and generations of Glocks, M&Ps, and maybe a few other types of pistols have been known to suffer from cracked breech faces with high dry fire counts, over time, and without any sort of snap cap. Additionally, some other stuff to take into account:
- Pick a room to dedicate for dry fire
- Ensure there isn't a single live round in that room
- Consider buying some dry fire targets (not necessary, but useful)
- Consider buying some snap caps
bewivobsrea
New member
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2025
- Posts
- 1
Dry firing helps improve trigger control, grip, and sight alignment without using live ammo. It builds muscle memory, helps fix bad habits like flinching, and lets you train safely at home. It’s a cost-effective way to get better.
