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Dry firing & holding drills

Two shooters have one evening each. One fires 60 pellets at a target. The other fires 60 dry releases at a blank wall, with no pellet and no target. Who learns more about their trigger finger?

Think first: Which session teaches the trigger more, and why?

  • Live: you see the score, so you know how well you did
  • Dry: with no hole and no score, all your attention goes to what the sights do as the shot breaks
  • They are the same: a release is a release

Dry fire is real training

Dry firing means going through the whole shot with no pellet. Many match pistols have a dry-fire mode, and on some electronic triggers the release feels identical dry and live. So every dry release can be a full-quality repetition.

That only works if you treat it as real. Wear your full kit, shoes included. Run your whole shot routine on every release: stance, grip, breathing, take-up, press, follow-through and call. A lazy dry shot trains a lazy live shot.

Research on one elite pistol shooter over 360 shots found that what separated good shots from bad ones was how still the aim stayed in the last fraction of a second before the shot. Dry fire trains that fraction of a second, thousands of times, for free.

Check the pistol is unloaded before every dry-fire session, and keep it pointed at your wall or dot. The habit of checking is part of the training.

The wall drill

Stand close enough that the muzzle is a few centimetres from a plain, blank wall. With nothing to aim at, there is no target to chase. Align the sights, press, and watch the front blade as the shot breaks.

Think first: In the wall drill, what tells you a release was clean?

  • You heard a crisp click
  • The front blade did not move in the notch as the trigger broke
  • You held for at least 10 seconds first

About 15 minutes is a typical block. Because there is no target, it isolates the trigger from the hold.

The dot drill

Next, put a small dot on the wall, 3–4 mm across, and dry fire at it. Now you have something to aim at, so the drill joins hold and release.

Think first: How high above the floor should the centre of your dot be?

Two short tracking drills round out a session: move the aligned sights slowly along a spiral drawn on the wall, then along a straight line, 3–4 minutes each. The pistol moves, but the alignment must not.

Holding drills

Holding drills build the endurance to keep the pistol steady for a whole match. The common format is a long hold followed by a long rest, repeated several times.

A typical holding plan: hold on the dot for 60 seconds, rest 120 seconds, 6–8 repetitions, 3–5 times a week. A coach or training partner watches how the hold drifts as fatigue sets in. Treat the numbers as a starting point, not a tested prescription.

The blank-target ladder

Many beginners snatch the trigger the moment the sights touch the black. The cure is to take the scoring rings away and add them back slowly. One coaching programme uses this ladder:

  • Hold on a large black circle, with no rings, to learn a calm sight picture.
  • Hold, then close your eyes for 1–2 seconds while keeping the pistol still.
  • Live fire at a blank target. Do not score anything.
  • Fire 20–50 shots, then score them.
  • Move on to targets with no rings, then fewer rings, then half-size targets.

Think first: Why fire live at a blank, unscored target before going back to a normal one?

  • It saves pellets
  • With no 10 ring to chase, there is nothing to snatch at, so you learn to accept the wobble and keep pressing
  • Blank targets are easier to see from 10 m

When scores dip

Every shooter has spells where live scores fall and releases feel rushed. The dry-fire guidance has a clear answer for that.

Think first: Your scores have been sliding for a month and you keep catching yourself snatching. What does the dry-fire guidance suggest?

  • Shoot more live matches to get used to the pressure
  • Go back to dry fire only for 3–4 weeks, then return to live fire
  • Change to a heavier trigger
  • Dry firing is the main way to train the trigger: there is no hole or score to distract you from the sights at the break.
  • Wear full kit and run the full routine on every dry release.
  • Wall drill: blank wall, front blade must not move. Dot drill: 3–4 mm dot, centre 1400 mm above the floor.
  • Holding drills build endurance; the blank-target ladder brings rings back gradually to cure snatching.
  • If scores dip, 3–4 weeks of dry fire only can reset your release.

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