Safe Room Training
As a firearms instructor, one of my greatest frustrations is working with clients who do not regularly train with their firearm. Their reasons range from not having enough time, to the expense of ammunition and range time or they just figure they have it all figured out so no need to train. Being able to safely and accurately handle a firearm take hours of repeated practice. Additionally, handling a firearm safely and shooting a firearm accurately is a depreciative skill. If you do not continually practice and refine your skill, you are just shooting yourself in the foot, figuratively speaking of course.
So, how can we as shooters/firearms owners get in valuable, productive training when time and/or money to train may be in short supply? Simple, we conduct dry fire practice. Also know as Safe Room Training, these ammunition free training periods allow us to review and refine our critical shooting skills without leaving our homes. In fact, conducting regular Safe Room Training helps us maximize our live fire training time when we do actually get to a range.
Before we get started on how to conduct Safe Room Training and what drills we should focus on, let’s review the Universal Firearms Handling Rules:
- Treat ALL guns as if they are ALWAYS loaded.
- NEVER point your gun at anything you are not willing to shoot.
- Keep your finger OFF the trigger until your sights are on the target.
- Be sure of your TARGET and what is BEHIND and BEYOND it.
The first step in conducting Safe Room Training is to remember the Universal Firearms Handling Rules are always in effect! Next we need to select the proper time and place to conduct our Safe Room training. Once we have selected our location we must remove ALL LIVE AMMUNITION from the training area. If you are going to use inert training ammunition during your Safe Room Training, be sure to use only orange plastic training ammunition. Lastly, we need to make the mental shift of going into “practice” mode. In this “practice” mindset, we must conduct our drills safely and deliberately while never forgetting that we are handling a real firearm.
During Safe Room Training, we can drill many of the skills needed to safely and accurately handle our firearms. The specific drills that you work during Safe Room Training will greatly depend on how you employ or use your firearm. The below list of drills can be used as a starting point and covers the fundamentals of safely and accurately handling a firearm:
- Muscle Memory/Draw Drills: Perform 10-15 reps of each phase of the draw. Finish with 10-15 reps of the complete draw sequence.
- Load/Unload and Clear Drills: Perform 5-10 reps of the Load/Unload and Clear sequences.
- Dry Fire Drills: Perform 15-20 reps of Trigger Squeeze/Follow Through sequence. If you are using a double action pistol, perform 15-20 reps from double action and 15-20 reps from single action.
- Reload Drills: Perform 10-15 reps of both the Tactical Reload and the Speed Reload Sequences.
- Malfunction Drills: Perform 10-15 reps of both the Immediate Action and Remedial Action Sequences.
Once your Safe Room Training is over, mentally shift back into “reality” mode. Once you have made that shift, you can return firearm to the condition you normally keep it in and IMMEDIATELY return it to its normal “storage” place.
Effective firearms training doesn’t always have to end with a bang. Incorporating regular Safe Room Training into you training schedule can help you master fundamental skills and make your live fire training more productive. The important thing to remember is to train regularly, train safely and training productively.
Instructor William Green
ECCE·EGO·MITTE·ME
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Elite Training Center
1628 South Pacific Coast Highway,
Redondo Beach, CA 90277
(310) 543-1600
www.elitetrainingcenter.net
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