Hey folks. I am trying to do the things that work this year in terms of improving my abilities.
I am running drills that proficient friends suggest and just in general looking to collect and act on sound advice.
How much can a person benefit from practicing with a 22 pistol?
I shoot an M&P fullsize, so there is the M&P 22 which would give me some of the similarities to my main gun. The triggers are wildly different though.
Thanks.
It's different for different people.
I find that practicing with a .22LR pistol is no better than dry fire with my actual gun. There are other shooters, some very good ones, who find that practice with a .22LR is very useful.
Oddly, I find that practicing with a .22LR rifle is much more useful. I do most of my off-season 3-gun training with a TacSol AR-22.
-C
My blog: The Way of the Multigun
There are a lot of things that I find useful about training with a .22 pistol, the biggest benefit obviously being less expense. The key thing to keep in mind is that recoil is so minimal in a .22 pistol compared to any "LE caliber" that you are cheating yourself if shooting multi-shot drills. But for things like drawing, reloading, basic marksmanship fundamentals... I like it better than dry fire because there is real accounting of where each shot landed.
What he said. I like .22's for the accountability, because that means I can begin to learn to call my shots with a cheaper round. Shot calling is IMO, a valuable skill to have.Originally Posted by ToddG
Some good comments already, not much to add. I've shot vastly more 22's than centerfire. I never would have been able to shoot as much centerfire as I have 22's. Probably never would have gotten very far shooting things in the air only shooting centerfire, or as much moving targets as hunting small game with a 22.
When I hadnt carried or shot a 1911 for a while, running a brick or two of 22's through the conversion kit got me pretty well tuned up.
I use to incorporate a lot of .22 into range sessions. I used an Advantage Arms conversion kit so I could get the same trigger pull and utilize my carry gear. As Todd mentioned, any drills requiring rapid fire were done in .40 but anything I could do requiring fundamentals or, say, drawing to one shot drills, etc. we're done in .22. When I was learning the press out the conversion kit really helped me. It was better than dry fire because I got some feedback of POI.
Ironically, at that time I used the conversion kit to save money/ammo but eventually sold it because I couldn't find ammo to feed it. Now that .22 ammo is available again I may acquire another. A dedicated .22 could be useful for fundemental type stuff or teaching new shooters but I really prefer the conversion kits, if there's one for you primary gun, because the repeated use of that platform can't hurt anything.
I remember Hackathorn saying he didn't see much value in training with 22.
From my Motorola StarTAC.
I'd be interested to know why...
If you know how to call your shots, the value of a RF pistol is slim to none. Shooting RF ammo still costs money, while dry fire is a) free and b) doable just about anywhere.
I don't recall Ben Stoeger recommending 22 pistols as a training tool.
Is there value?
Depends. For some, there isn't any because they don't subscribe to that theory. For others there is value, for whatever theory they subscribe to that led them down that road.
The value gained can only be assessed by the individual involved.
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