My wife and I recently attended a class with JJ at Pro Gun near Las Vegas. Before I forget, JJ is moving to Tampa, Florida for family reasons. Our loss out west, but a great opportunity for east coast folks to get more of JJ. JJ is constantly evolving, and one drill he demoed for the class, that I had never heard of, stood out.
This drill is done with a loaded pistol, on the range. How you do the drill is to set up a difficult array, draw and prep the trigger simulating whatever shots would be required based on paper or steel targets, transitioning and prepping through the various targets, until you reach the last shot, at which point you fire that shot, giving you a total time on the timer for the drill. You do that a number of times that way, working on prep and transitions. After that, you shoot the entire drill live fire, and get your time, which should be the same as what you were seeing dry fire, assuming you were conscientiously prepping and seeing a proper sight picture.
JJ developed this drill when he didn’t have enough ammo, since you only need one cartridge per run, and can still get a time. As he got to the point he had all the training ammo he needed, he realized that the prepping and transitioning without live shots masking imperfections in technique, had big training benefits. The loaded pistol keeps you honest with your prepping, since you get an immediate loud noise if you don’t do that part properly.
My wife have been using this drill the last few days and feel it is valuable. See what you think.
PS, for DA/SA pistols, you need two rounds. Fire an initial DA shot on shot one, prep in SA throughout the array, and finish with the final shot on the timer.