Can I build basic pistol skills from nothing with an airgun and online resources?

[RJ]

Hi All, I'm a rank newbie with firearms and looking to build some level of basic skill with the Glock 19 I picked up for home defense a couple of years ago.

There are no firing ranges or personal instructor options convenient to my area, and my neighbors would definitely complain about noise if I trained using a real pistol.

I'm planning to start building my skills using a blowback airgun Glock, YouTube videos, and paper targets in my back yard (7 acres). Also, based on the videos I've watched so far, I'm thinking I want to learn on a red dot sight as the easiest way to get some ability to hit mid size targets in the 5 to 25 yard range.

I would welcome any advice about the feasibility of this approach and/or appropriateness of red dot. In particular, if I should get reasonably skilled with the airgun at hitting targets, will this translate to some degree of effectiveness with the real thing? If this is a reasonable approach I would especially appreciate recommendations for books, blogs, or online videos.

Thanks in advance for any advice. And please let me know if there is a more appropriate forum to post this kind of request to.

-Paul in Marble

Hey Paul -

Have you shot your Glock 19? Have you ever shot a handgun?

When you say "convenient to my area", what does that mean? Are there firing ranges which are not convenient? If so, what inconvenience does that involve?

I think if your goal is to shoot an Airsoft pistol accurately, you are on the right track. But no, I don't think shooting an airsoft pistol equates to what you will feel with a real Glock 19, no. While it might be fun, ultimately it would be a waste of time. What you can do with an Airsoft replica (assuming it is a replica Airsoft Glock 19) is to safely perform basic manipulation - handling, holstering, grip, and presentation. Without live ammo though? No.


I think it's great you are trying to learn to shoot your Glock 19 accurately. Many people have used their pistols for justified self-defense without much training, at all. But it would be much, much better for you if when you do that, it's not the first time you've shot your gun.

Good luck and I look forward to your responses in the thread.

[1Rangemaster]

Welcome, sir; I commend you for seeking and asking for information.
It's my belief one can't really obtain decent skills by just dry practice/simulation with a non-firearm. Perhaps it's a little like putting someone in a driving simulator and then telling them good luck on the parking lot/street/highway.
@Clusterfrack is right; safe handling and living with the firearm is the first priority. I can show someone how to manipulate, load and most importantly, unload safely with a simulated piece or a live gun and dummy rounds. I can demonstrate the fundamentals, but it takes life fire to confirm(and coincidentally to build confidence).
I think it was @HCM who said a little while ago that his organization was seeing good results starting with a dot, but I don't think a dot is critical. The students are also firing live ammunition in a controlled environment with supervision and coaching.
Claude Werner, aka the "Tactical Professor" has had a couple of online programs the past two years on Patreon. Even this involves live fire confirmation/evaluation. I would recommend you bite the bullet-pun intended-and get some instruction first. You'll be far ahead of a lot of gun owners if you do.
Last personal anecdote: I had firearms for years before I went to a pistol class decades ago. I had some safety/marksmanship training in the Boy Scouts. A John Farnam class saved me a lot of time and probably grief. It doesn't have to be a "name" instructor/school, but please get some. Best of luck in your journey

[psalms144.1]

Paul - to echo what's been said above by many, no, YouTube and Airsoft are probably not going to "get you there" if you're looking to become competent in the use of your chosen defensive handgun.

A couple of thoughts - if I read your post correctly, you're a new handgun owner. Do you have ANY shooting experience? Do you understand the basics of firearms safety and the fundamentals of marksmanship? If not, I'd really urge you to find a nearby NRA instructor and take basic handgun. I'm an NRA instructor, if you want to PM me your location, I can see what I can find about instructors in your area.

I would NOT recommend "learning to shoot a handgun" with a Glock 19. I'd urge you to drop the $350 or so and get a Glock 44 and a brick of decent ammo. When starting from scratch, it's REALLY important not to teach yourself bad habits like shot anticipation (commonly referred to as "flinch") that's much more likely to develop with a lightweight 9mm than an equivalently sized .22.

Another advantage to the .22 is you might be able to set up your own safe range on your 7 acres, without annoying the neighbors as much. Again, not sure about your specific situation, and before doing any shooting on private property I'd want someone competent in range safety to look over your plan.

Welcome to the forum, and hope we can help you on your journey!

[1Rangemaster]

I’ll echo what @psalms144.1 said: a .22 rimfire is an excellent trainer, and the G44 duplicates the G19 envelope. I’ve introduced a lot of folks to handgunning with one. It’s a significant step up from Airsoft; it’s a REAL gun, so practice safety accordingly.

[JHC]

IMO and IME you can develop significant precision skill with airsoft just as people do shooting .22s. It used to be pretty common for internet advice to new shooters was to get a baseline of fundamentals established with a .22 before jumping into centerfire. I don't see why an airsoft would be any different.

During my youth, I rarely had the opportunity to live fire handguns. Like a handful of times a year. But I dry fired incessantly; like almost daily for years (with a K-38, single action and double action). My coaches were my dad and a few magazine articles. I developed enough precision skill to hunt squirrels with a K-22 pretty well. The majority of my fundamentals of trigger work was built during this period.

Some years back I met a former SF senior NCO and we did some shooting. One time he brought his then 17 year old son to the range and the lad had only trained with his airsoft guns for the previous several years and I was struck at how well he was shooting GSSF plate racks with this dad's G19. Not match winning speed but 6 for 6 in like 5 second range stuff.

Recoil management in strings of fire will be more challenging to learn.

[NETim]

Any serious training with that Glock (or any handgun for that matter), involves developing a dry fire routine with that pistol. For starters, aim it at a plain white wall WITH NO LIVE AMMO anywhere in the room and learn to pull the trigger straight to the rear while working to minimize front sight disturbance. This will come from a correct trigger pull and grip on the handgun. You must develop those. Dryfiring will go a long ways to getting you there.

The plain white wall will help you focus on the front sight, which is where all of your attention should be.

[paul-mf]

Wow, thank you everyone for the thoughtful and helpful responses. I thought this forum might be too advanced for a newbie and really appreciate the warm welcome.

I have shot our Glock on one occasion about 3 years ago at my mother in law's ranch. That side of the family does a good bit of hunting and gave me some bare bones gun safety instruction, but no marksmanship instruction whatsoever as they only shoot rifles. I was not by any means a natural-- with a 12" target about 5 or 6 yards out I managed to put only 3 of 15 rounds anywhere on it .

As for how the definition of "convenient" and location, here's the part where you will all want to slap me. In my defense before I fess up, I define 'convenient' pretty narrowly because I'd like to be able to practice daily or at least multiple times a week. I tend to be pretty intense and immersive with new hobbies. Okay, I'm running out of ways to avoid the question: I'm in central Texas about 2 hours outside of Austin. The nearest gun range is about 45 minutes drive, so I won't be using it more than once or twice a month at best. And frankly, I've been too intimidated to go to as a know-nothing. The range is closer to ranch land than to any sizeable city so I suspect everyone at it will be life-long shooters and perhaps not very tolerant of a "hobbyist".

Your guidance is firm and consistent about the importance of getting a real instructor. I'm sure Austin has dozens of options and I just need to suck it up and plan a 2 or 3 day trip around an intro course, perhaps one with an instructor who can do video follow up sessions.

If I haven't annoyed you too much by coming in as a Texan saying there are no "convenient" options, I do have a couple of follow up questions that I'd appreciate your thoughts on:

In general, would you consider dry practice better than airgun target practice? Intuitively, it seems like the feedback of whether I actually aimed correctly and managed to pull the trigger without disrupting the shot would be highly valuable. However, I don't want to actively undermine building my real skills if the differences in trigger, recoil, other dynamics are such that the airgun practice would do more harm than good.

Does a red dot sight seem like the best approach for my objectives? I have no iron sight skills or habits to unlearn, and I'm not worried about keeping up with batteries or ability to function without them.

[Chance]

I am going to echo @NETim and suggest that dry fire practice with the actual pistol might be more useful than trying to mimic live fire with an airsoft pistol. It's easy to underestimate the value of dry fire, but it can work wonders when practiced correctly and consistently.

Consider picking up a copy of DryFire Reloaded or researching folks like John McPhee, who are adept at coaching via video.

[frozentundra]

When I began the process of learning to train serious skills for defensive handgun applications, I think I wasted a great deal of time and money by not getting quality formal training immediately. Eventually, I traveled around to train with some recognizable instructors, but I learned most of what I know today from the internet and books. Good initial training from a QUALITY instructor is certainly ideal (they are not all created equal, unfortunately). That being said, I think there are some things that really helped me out more than others.

Trigger Finger Register Position
Craig Douglas about trigger finger register position:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1asDqdVoH-U

4 Count Drawstroke
One of the most simple and important things, to me, was learning the 4 count drawstroke as taught by Craig Douglas or the late, great Paul Gomez (RIP). I suppose you could refer to this as a ShivWorks 4 count draw. Even if you're not planning on concealed carry, I think learning this format of working from the holster is invaluable, and it can be done without live ammunition. It serves as a strong fundamental basis of basic gun handling in a very simple, regimented and prescribed format. This basic scheme of motion helps to tie Coopers 4 Rules of firearms safety to an unambiguous, embodied practice, and it can be drilled if you have even one minute of spare time and an airsoft/dummy prop gun.

Paul Gomez-rapid explanation of 4 count drawstroke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OZfgutNufU&t=1s

Craig Douglas-deeper dive into drawstroke counts 1,2,3 and 4:
Count 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEBVimrZ4b4
Count 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dOXCChdw-w
Count 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHmpHNTWXTE
Count 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2qGyIxed9Y

Craig Douglas-some additional videos about drawstroke:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqnaoI11YpA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZwYmNwlVi8


Positions for Muzzle Aversion-Arc of Ready
Another conceptual framework, and simple embodied scheme of motion, practicable without shooting, may be well described by Dave Spaulding's phrase "Arc of Ready". For me, these simple concepts, themselves movement practices, compliment and dovetail into the ShivWorks style 4 count drawstroke perfectly. Although I prefer the nuances of how Craig Douglas of ShivWorks teaches some of these positions, Dave Spaulding's phrase, and some of his explanations about how/why such a scheme of motion is useful, have been very valuable to me in understanding these ideas.

Paul Gomez on Ready Positions and Positions for muzzle aversion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftC6MXFGxCg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLMesZVCZdw

Dave Spaulding on Arc of Ready/Positions for muzzle aversion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6faxyKh7QZ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LetQfjmaJOw

Dryfire
The regimented practice of a robust 4 count drawstroke can be combined with inert training rounds, such as these https://stactionpro.com/product/9-mm...r-dummy-round/ , in a Glock 19 or any other 9mm handgun. They can be used to practice load/unload/reload skills that promote SAFE, combat effective gun handling skills.

Dry fire drills combined with the 4 count drawstroke can help you learn shooting mechanics. However, without live fire recoil for feedback, it's possible to build and ingrain very bad habits. I think one thing that helps me here is to think of gripping the gun in dryfire as a strength training exercise. I want to be gripping hard.

Claude Werner, "The Tactical Professor", has a website and online articles/courses/ebooks that address dryfire and protocols, mindsets, decision making and avoiding common mistakes, at a very practical level. I consider him to be an indispensable resource for any new gun owner thinking about defensive use of a handgun. https://thetacticalprofessor.net/



So, in conclusion, if I were going to go back in time, I would tell myself to get some proper training straight away. Failing that, or in preparation for it, I would tell myself to watch all of the videos on Paul Gomez's YouTube channel in reverse order (oldest to newest), and become obsessive about studying all of the Craig Douglas/Shivworks content I could get my eyes/ears on. I would also take a deep dive into Claude Werner's Tactical Professor content with regard to avoiding stupid mistakes and how to think about dryfire and practice. There are many other great resources available, but this is where I would start. Also, everyone should read The Law of Self Defense by Andrew Branca, and everyone should be exposed to some of Massad Ayoob's content about legal considerations and related context about what may happen after a self defense encounter.

You can do this if you approach it with serious work ethic and reverence for learning an Art. Practice embodied drills for at least a few minutes each day, but pay particular attention to the nuances and specifics. Practice does not make perfect if you are practicing imperfectly; in that case you are just deeply ingraining bad habits. Be very thoughtful and take a quality over quantity approach in the beginning. You will do well if you want it bad enough to seek the knowledge and invest your attention in the correct areas. You have surely come to the right place to start!

[NETim]

Dry fire drills combined with the 4 count drawstroke can help you learn shooting mechanics. However, without live fire recoil for feedback, it's possible to build and ingrain very bad habits. I think one thing that helps me here is to think of gripping the gun in dryfire as a strength training exercise. I want to be gripping hard.

Danger Will Robinson! Danger! This can't be emphasized enough IMHO. It is so very easy to get lazy with the grip during dryfire drills. I have to fight this inattention to detail constantly.