Depending on what caliber pistol you have, and where you live, going to the range can become an expensive hobby fast. While there is no substitute for live-fire to train accuracy, speed of fire, and gain comfort for beginners, not all training requires going to the range. In fact, there are aspects of defensive pistol training that are crucial to self-defense and don’t require firing a single shot. Here are 3 drills you should be doing to increase your defensive pistol skills that can be done at home.
Draw from Concealment
You won’t be able to use your gun if you can’t get it in the fight. Dress the way you usually do, place your pistol in your preferred carry position, or a position that you want to try if you are unsure. Start with your hands at your side in a casual position, then draw your pistol as quickly as you can, getting it to a retention position or fully extended and aimed in. This might sound like a waste of time, but you will quickly realize how often your hand or your pistol will get hung up on clothing, but this will be reduced with practice.
Dry Fire
The next logical progression is to train for accuracy on your first shot, because most defensive shootings aren’t all out gun battles like the movies, most only involve 3 shots and the first one to put a shot on target generally wins. Aim your unloaded, but cocked pistol at a small target, while maintaining your visual concentration on proper sight picture, squeeze the trigger until it dry fires. You should be able to tell if you are dropping your sights or pulling them to your strong side because of improper trigger pull.
Tactical Reload
Although most defensive shootings are quickly over, you don’t want to count on that. With your pistol, magazine in chamber, aimed at a target, use your weak hand to get a second magazine, while keeping your pistol in a position to fire (not lowering it to look at the magazine release button), release and retain the magazine that is inserted and insert the fully loaded magazine.
If all you are training shot placement, then you are both wasting money and neglecting crucial defensive shooting skills that will enable you to get those shots off in the first place.
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