Use of a timer in dry-fire

[YVK]

Quote from another thread:

Also, while opinions vary, the shooters I know and respect the most tend not to use a shot timer as part of their dry practice most of the time. Dry practice is an opportunity to get lots of perfect reps, building neural pathways that you can then "trigger" on demand.

I admit I approach dry fire the same way as life fire: sometimes I go slow without any timer just to build/reinforce a technique , sometimes I push myself to failure and see what breaks down, and to do that I use decreasing par time. Not uncommonly, I'll set up a low par time but do the rep in my comfortable pace to get an idea of "top vs on demand" difference. As such, I end up using the timer during my dry fire most of the time. Am I in a danger zone of ingraining bad habits by doing so?

[CCT125US]

I understand and agree with the perfect rep. However, I found myself getting lazy and slow when it came to dry fire. I now use a decreasing par to push myself faster durring dry fire. If I can't beat the par in the comfort of my basement, I sure as heck won't beat it with live ammo. I have hit my goal of getting 2 hits <2 seconds on the 3x5 at 7 yds more times than not, using the decreasing par. I am now just working on consistency. But that is just me. Without the timer, I fall into the trap of "feeling it was fast" when it was neither fast nor fluid.

[JDB]

I understand and agree with the perfect rep. However, I found myself getting lazy and slow when it came to dry fire. I now use a decreasing par to push myself faster durring dry fire. If I can't beat the par in the comfort of my basement, I sure as heck won't beat it with live ammo. I have hit my goal of getting 2 hits <2 seconds on the 3x5 at 7 yds more times than not, using the decreasing par. I am now just working on consistency. But that is just me. Without the timer, I fall into the trap of "feeling it was fast" when it was neither fast nor fluid.

I just started using Steve Anderson's dry fire drills a couple weeks ago. For most of those, he's using a timer. Its been hugely beneficial for me, after doing it about 3-5 hours per week, my draws, turns, site tracking, reloads have really smoothed out and speeded up. But, not everything is on the clock, and not everything is at warp speed. Also, on most drills you're not even pulling the trigger - he wants you to have a perfect sight picture by the par time. This seems to help smooth out the draw as you're not trying to cheat the system by rushing the shot. If you don't have a good sight picture, then you're shooting faster than you're capabilities (your par time).
Anyway, I recommend the use of a timer for some things. Its definitely help me break through some plateaus.

[YVK]

Also, on most drills you're not even pulling the trigger - he wants you to have a perfect sight picture by the par time. This seems to help smooth out the draw as you're not trying to cheat the system by rushing the shot. If you don't have a good sight picture, then you're shooting faster than you're capabilities (your par time)

While I understand the idea, this doesn't seem to be helpful to those of us who use long-pull triggers and utilize pressout, working the trigger and breaking the shot simultaneously with acquiring the sight picture.
This is the small point, though, as I intended the original question to be more general: is using timer with dry fire bad, good or ugly...

[jetfire]

I've always felt that the answer to the use of a timer in dry fire was the same as a lot of things: "it depends." Did you just get a new gun and you're trying to master all the new controls and stuff? Probably don't use a timer. Are you trying to learn to go faster a very a specific skill with a gun you've known for a while? Use a timer.

Example: I switch guns a lot, due to the nature of my job. Whenever I make a big switch, like from a Glock to a revolver, I'll spend about a month of regular dry fire practice without a timer, just to master the new manual of arms and get used to doing things differently. I'll slowly start working the timer in using a decreasing par time for specific skills like reloads. It also depends on what I'm practicing for. When I'm training for Bianchi Cup, I'll use a timer in dry fire all the time so I can get a mental sense of how long each par time is.

[Corlissimo]

There is definitely no 'S.M.E." next to my name, but my take, from reading this forum for a while, is right along the lines of what Caleb mentioned.

In my case, I've been learning my P30L V3 for the last couple months. For dry fire, I decided to use ToddG's 4 Week Dry Fire routine and am now on my 3rd rotation with it. I've also just recently acquired my first shot timer and plan on using decreasing PAR with it 1-2 times a week to establish a baseline of performance. Once that's accomplished, I'll proof it during live fire at the range and see how things shake out.

Since I still consider myself a pistol n00b, I too am very concerned about ingraining anything negative. After all, you're only really able to lay the foundation once. I think that judicious use of the timer is a good thing for me. But, that is just me.

[ToddG]

From the recent AAR of Bob Vogel's 2-day Pistol Class:

Good trigger control is developed and mastered through dry fire. It is important to maintain the same firm grip used in live fire during dry fire sessions; he feels most shooters are far too lax with their grip when dry firing. Bob reports dry firing 8-10 times for each of the 20,000 rounds of live fire practice he averages each year. He uses 1/3 scale targets when dry firing, but does NOT use a timer. (emphasis mine)

The first person who mentioned the whole idea of ditching a timer for dry fire was Julie Golob. I'd never really thought about it before and had spent plenty of time chasing record speeds in dry fire. As soon as she was done explaining why she approached it that way, it was like a giant lightbulb going off in my head.

[Surf]

I am not a competition shooter but use a timer quite a bit. It has definitely improved my skills and has been a highly effective training tool that has helped to show marked improvement in skill sets for guys that I teach and train and they are definitely not competition shooters.

As for dry fire training I do both. I do far more non-timer training however. I think it is important to go at a deliberate (I try to avoid the word slow) pace that ensures correct repetition to work on our motor learning ie. "muscle memory". I am also working on what that "mental picture" looks like on target with the muzzle, sight alignment, sight picture. Increasing the pace is part of the process and pushing the pace with induced stress is also an advanced part of the process. When I am pushing my pace in an attempt to perhaps isolate functions or trying to induce stress I may use a timer. Personally I can effectively do this with a timer during both dry and live fire practice.

[jar]

On the other hand, Ben Stoeger and Mike Seeklander are both big advocates of using par times in dry fire. I agree with those above who say that honesty is the key. Making a crappy trigger press to beat the beep is clearly counter productive. On the other side, without a timer, you don't know if what seems faster actually is.