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Thread: Increased Split Times Using Dry Fire Trigger

  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by TicTacticalTimmy View Post
    I also found my times with LASR and another similar app to be slower than ny normal dry fire times. I think this is due to the frame rate of the camera. If a camera has a frame rate of 20 fps, it will likely be .05s off. I also get a lot of failures to pick up the laser shot, which lead to me just giving up on using the apps in my practice. I have a feeling it has to do with how your phones camera is set up or the camera hardware.
    Had not thought of the frame rate impacting that, thanks. Using a laptop. I'm looking to find a better camera, even though I don't have particular trouble with missed shots.

    Thanks!

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Lehr View Post
    Had not thought of the frame rate impacting that, thanks. Using a laptop. I'm looking to find a better camera, even though I don't have particular trouble with missed shots.

    Thanks!
    Did you try the one sold either by LASR or Laser Ammo? Seems to be the same camera. That’s the one I use. Or is that the one you feel is too slow ? It has a high frame rate setting at least on LASR Classic.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by spinmove_ View Post
    The MantisX is about the only one of those tools that I could see being ultimately useful in some regards. In general, you don’t really need any of those tools in order to get measurably better in dryfire. Like, at all. Stoeger, Anderson, and Seeklander all answer questions all the time on whether these tools are helpful or not and the answer is always one of two things:

    1.) No, it’s almost no help or isn’t actually useful

    2.) I’ve never used it because I just haven’t or it’s obviously not going to provide a benefit.

    If you want to get all LASR’y with your bad self, I’m not here to stop you. I literally couldn’t care less. I’m just saying that it’s probably nowhere near as beneficial per dollar spent on it than other far more valuable resources like ammo or books or even a class.
    Quote Originally Posted by Medusa View Post
    Turns out you can do all of these. It isn’t zero sum. Also, while I don’t personally care who uses it as long as I get a benefit in my own training, seeklander and some others use CoolFire.

    reminder. OP never said he needed lasr to get better. He never said splits are his only concern. Never said it’s either LASR or live fire. He just wanted to know about splits on his resetting trigger.
    Spinmove and Medusa - sorry to get an argument going.

    I'm pretty comfortable with using computer applications for training, I was in charge of the use-of-force simulator program at our state's academy for over 30 years (I'm an old fart). Our first simulator (FATS Gen1) used revolvers an Speer plastic cases with primers to activate the laser, the next system we got (ICAT) used DA/SA pistols in DA only, and Glocks with a dry-fire trigger. We went with 17R's on our third system (FATS Gen 2).

    The systems I described above were not terribly useful for 'marksmanship' training unless you were wanting to hone your DA stroke w/o recoil. For the last 15 years though, I had four systems with either FATS tethered recoil systems or their non-thered recoil systems(maybe licensed by Dvorak?) and Dvorak recoil systems on Ti machines.

    These systems systems were extremely useful for the whole gamut of firearms training with the exception of reload and clearance drills. The lasers on these pistols and rifles stayed zeroed, unlike insert lasers which tend to wander a bit.

    So I'm kinds versed in these things and firearms training in general, although my background is not from the hose three or four on the target and the best two count school of thought.

    I'm pretty sure that I'm outrunning the spring on my reset trigger, on the other hand my wife isn't to that point yet. We've been working on speeding multiple target transition times, her more so than me. I will probably jump to a cool fire setup next month.

    I have the original Stoeger books, but haven't bought any of the 'reloadeds.'

    Thanks.

  4. #24
    Site Supporter EricM's Avatar
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    If someone said that during live fire they never checked their targets and they never used a shot timer for anything but a starting beep and par time, I suspect most here would say that person could get more value out of their training by confirming that their hits matched how they called their shots, and also that there is some useful data when you break down a complex drill to look at the times for draws, transitions, reloads, etc. Yet when discussing something like LASR, which allows you to review the location of each hit and time of each shot in dry fire (among other benefits), it's interesting to me how often that is dismissed as a useless gimmick.

    But back to the OP...Dan, do I understand that the design of your reset trigger mechanism requires the trigger to be fully released in order for the trigger bar to reengage the striker? That additional distance could certainly be a factor. Also, you mentioned it feels like the trigger isn't returning fast enough. In live fire, the striker spring acts to push the trigger bar forward, both when pulling the trigger to fire a shot and when letting off the trigger in reset. With a reset trigger in dry fire, at least the design I am familiar with, the striker spring acts against the trigger bar when firing a shot just as in live fire, but a separate spring is required to push the trigger bar forward after the shot, as without the slide cycling the striker will remain in the forward position. This separate spring typically produces a lighter reset, as if it was strong enough to produce a normal reset, it would cause the trigger pull weight to be abnormally heavy (when firing a shot with the reset trigger, the trigger bar must work against both the striker spring and the reset spring). Perhaps you could experiment with using a lighter striker spring and heavier reset spring, but at some point the striker spring could become too light to set off the laser.

    To be honest, I never gave any thought to my splits when I used LASR -- without recoil I didn't see much value in paying attention to them, so my focus was on draws, reloads, and transitions. But I went back through some of my saved runs and I did see a number of splits under .20, so I know the software is capable of tracking them. The framerate suggestion made above is a good one. Another thing I would look at is the resolution setting for the camera in LASR. It's been a couple years since I used LASR -- life changes have meant the closest I've been to any kind of shooting has been reading this forum -- but it really needed quite a bit of processing power. The camera resolution setting, along with the number and size of target areas, has a big impact on the amount of CPU it requires to keep up. Try a command fire drill -- sights on target, finger on the trigger with the slack out, fire at the start of the beep...put it on repeat mode for 10 times or so to get an average. If that number in LASR seems high, I'd lower your camera resolution (while keeping the framerate up) and/or simplify your target zones and see if it changes.

    Another thing you could do would be to record a video to verify that LASR is properly processing what your laser is actually doing. Of course, that would require that you are using a visible laser, or that your camera picks up IR. Most cell phones and digital cameras can record at least 60fps, some can do 120 or 240fps or higher...set it to the highest framerate, use a tripod or have your wife film the target while LASR is timing also, and pull the trigger rapidly. You could then examine the video frame by frame to see whether LASR's interpretation matches up with the raw data. (If you don't have access to video software to do that, PM me and I'd be happy to help.)

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by EricM View Post
    But back to the OP...Dan, do I understand that the design of your reset trigger mechanism requires the trigger to be fully released in order for the trigger bar to reengage the striker? That additional distance could certainly be a factor. Also, you mentioned it feels like the trigger isn't returning fast enough. In live fire, the striker spring acts to push the trigger bar forward, both when pulling the trigger to fire a shot and when letting off the trigger in reset. With a reset trigger in dry fire, at least the design I am familiar with, the striker spring acts against the trigger bar when firing a shot just as in live fire, but a separate spring is required to push the trigger bar forward after the shot, as without the slide cycling the striker will remain in the forward position. This separate spring typically produces a lighter reset, as if it was strong enough to produce a normal reset, it would cause the trigger pull weight to be abnormally heavy (when firing a shot with the reset trigger, the trigger bar must work against both the striker spring and the reset spring). Perhaps you could experiment with using a lighter striker spring and heavier reset spring, but at some point the striker spring could become too light to set off the laser.
    Yes, that is pretty much what I have, and yes it does increase the triggers weight quite a bit if I use a stronger one. It simply isn't returning fast enough.

    Quote Originally Posted by EricM View Post
    The framerate suggestion made above is a good one. Another thing I would look at is the resolution setting for the camera in LASR. It's been a couple years since I used LASR -- life changes have meant the closest I've been to any kind of shooting has been reading this forum -- but it really needed quite a bit of processing power. The camera resolution setting, along with the number and size of target areas, has a big impact on the amount of CPU it requires to keep up. Try a command fire drill -- sights on target, finger on the trigger with the slack out, fire at the start of the beep...put it on repeat mode for 10 times or so to get an average. If that number in LASR seems high, I'd lower your camera resolution (while keeping the framerate up) and/or simplify your target zones and see if it changes.

    Another thing you could do would be to record a video to verify that LASR is properly processing what your laser is actually doing. Of course, that would require that you are using a visible laser, or that your camera picks up IR. Most cell phones and digital cameras can record at least 60fps, some can do 120 or 240fps or higher...set it to the highest framerate, use a tripod or have your wife film the target while LASR is timing also, and pull the trigger rapidly. You could then examine the video frame by frame to see whether LASR's interpretation matches up with the raw data. (If you don't have access to video software to do that, PM me and I'd be happy to help.)
    I'm going to call LASR first thing Monday morning. I did not want to use my phone as ultimately I'm going with a recoil system and they said that their phone app wouldn't handle that. I bought the LENOVA Thinkbook they recommended and took their advice about the camera - any webcam will do. Going to talk to them seriously about cameras to see if they can recommend one that isn't autofocus and has some zoom.

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