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Jumping Frog wrote:Also, about 90% of accuracy is directly related to trigger control.

Do not overlook the value of dry fire practice with your regular firearm. Dry firing 200-300 times a week will dramatically improve your shooting if you stay focused on the fundamentals, especially your trigger control. One favorite drill for me is to balance an empty 9mm case on the front sight. Pull the trigger without having the empty case fall off the gun.

If you also get some snap caps, you can also practice drawing, "tap/rack/bang" drills, and reloads effectively.

If you do dry fire practice, make it a safety rule that you never have live ammunition in the same room where you are doing the practice. Make it a ritual to unload your gun, store the live rounds in the same place each time (even something as simple as the same ashtray or bowl). Go in a different room and practice (I practice in my walk-in closet). Afterward, come back to the original room and reload. You want to create a bright clear mental line between practicing with an unloaded handgun versus carrying your loaded concealed carry handgun. My practice session ends when I leave the closet and reload.

I knew of one guy who was practicing dry firing in his family room. Sat on his couch, dropped his mag and cleared the chamber. Practiced acquiring a sight picture by shooting at faces on the television. After a few minutes of practice, he reloaded while still sitting on the coach. Then the impulse to practice again hit him and he shot his television. Mental discipline and safety habits are important.

MotherBear wrote:I'm a new gun owner, working toward getting my CHL this year. I participate in a women's pistol league, and after range practice last week the question came up of what to do about training/practicing if you're having trouble finding or affording ammo. One suggestion was to buy a high-quality airsoft gun in a similar model to what you shoot. That was an intriguing idea as I'd love to be able to practice more, but I'm pretty clueless about airsoft so I thought I'd ask for thoughts or advice from anyone who's done that (or has thought about it and decided not to for some reason).

Would this be something we could do in the backyard, or does it require more of a setup than that? We're in a fairly typical suburban home in Travis County, outside any city limits. Instead of neighbors behind us we have an open field and then a busy road. Our backyard has your standard 6' wooden privacy fence around most of it; a small portion is a taller (7 feet?) stone wall. We do have access to some property outside of Bastrop as well, but it's about an hour away and we have three small kids, so it wouldn't be as convenient as home if home worked. To be clear, though, the first priority is safety and responsibility, not fun or convenience.

How well does shooting airsoft translate as practice for the real thing? I know it wouldn't be a substitute, but is it pretty beneficial overall? How do you get the most benefit out of it? Any major pitfalls to avoid?

In case it helps, this is specifically what I was looking at: http://www.airsoftgi.com/product_info.p ... s_id=12274" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; It's not actually available yet and we don't want to rush into anything anyway, but it looked like about what we'd want.