Originally Posted by
SoCalDep
I know most here now probably know how the system works, but in case others search to this thread for information, the Mantis can attach to rifles, pistols, and shotguns (and do archery stuff but that’s not me) in a few ways. The unit can mount to any Glock or Pic rail, including upper rails on ARs. You will enter the unit’s orientation (forward/backward and top or bottom rail) in the settings. It can also be mounted to barrels or magazine tubes using a clamp rail that came with mine, and Mantis offers both mag bases and rail sections that can be glued on mag bases or other “parts” to make the system work. When I was doing the “Double Action Diligence” course, I used the barrel clamp to attach it to the front of my S&W Model 15 and it worked fine.
The system works through accelerometer and gyro stuff to sense the orientation and movement. It documents cant as well as the movement in the .25 sec prior to the shot (if I remember correctly), as well as the times of various parts of movement in the draw and recoil, depending on what drills one is doing and whether live or dry fire. In fact, there is a graph you can view that will re-trace the .25 sec before up to right after your shots - it’s interesting to compare to what you remember about the shot and, I think, may have some benefit for learning to “call” your shots or self-identify errors, but that’s something to consider (at least for me) down the road.
Since the unit doesn’t “see” a target, it uses some techno-magic to determine the “center” of the hold - as best as I can guess - and this requires a certain period of relative stability to identify that sorta point of aim. This means if one is doing a drill requiring a draw and a shot, they can’t simply press the trigger as soon as the sight/dot crosses the target. There needs to be a pause for the system to work. For many, especially skilled shooters, this artificial pause can create bad habits, so I’m not a fan of using the Mantis for any sort of “quick draw” type shooting/dry-firing. I’ve done it to get through some of the courses, but it’s not part of what I “practice” with the system. In addition, if one knows how to “play the game”, they can cheat the shot a bit on those quick draw courses by not caring where the firearm ends up stabilizing. Oh well - I guess that’s on them and if a free patch is worth practicing bad techniques then have at it. Unfortunately I don’t see this limitation improving unless they can figure out a way to integrate the MantisX with a laser target that reads the lasers “impact” to confirm POA and POI.
The last part of the system that can be really frustrating is the false shots. If this is getting really common, there are sensitivity settings in the app that can be adjusted. They’ve even changed dry-fire settings, creating selections to better identify the particular action type (DA, SA, striker, etc.). In addition, like when working with my bolt gun, which would register shots a lot while working the bolt, I ended up setting the system to ignore anything under a certain score, because there was no way the 63% was going to be me pressing the trigger. That reduced the problem, but in certain situations where I was using a rear bag, the bolt would register a 91 or 92%. Most of the time this isn’t the biggest deal because you can delete the shot and move on, except on the last shot of the drill. If that last shot gets a false reading it immediately ends the drill with your score. You can delete the shot, but then the drill only has nine shots and it messes up my nice training record of ten-shot (or whatever) strings. I wish there was a way that after the last shot, it would ask you to delete last shot or confirm drill is complete.
As to working with the system, one can simply set up “Open Training” and start clicking away. There are also a bunch of other drills. Some are timed and some require strong or support hand only. Some have decision-making aspects and there are “daily challenges” that change - every day. Some of these are goofy, but it’s something different to mess around with, and I’ll usually do them just because. When I first started I wanted a fairly quick but comprehensive practice regimen that would allow me to track my progress. I simply did the following dry-fire each day first, and at minimum. I often did other stuff afterwards, but this was my bare-bones routine:
MantisX Benchmark (10 “shots”)
Compressed Surprise Break (10 “shots”)
Primary Hand Only (10”shots”)
Support Hand Only (10 ”shots”)
MantisX Benchmark (10 “shots”)
This gives me basic trigger control practice, practice prepping the trigger (I dislike the term “compressed surprise break” and would rather they call it “time reaction” or something*), and practice with both strong and support. It’s also 50 trigger presses which I think is a good daily beginning goal.
The last thing that I’ll mention and explain for those that aren’t familiar, are the courses. This was also described by [MENTION=24607]piefairy[/MENTION] , but I’ll add a couple of my thoughts. The Mantis app has a bunch of courses. Initially they had a few handgun courses, and I think later came out with rifle courses as well. In the past year or so they introduced a couple more (Double Action Diligence, Basic Concealed, and Gecko45 Proficiency, which is a joke and I want the patch so bad - I remember the original Gecko45 Glocktalk thread for those who know - that I tried but couldn’t do bad enough to get it!).
I can only speak for me, but I thought getting those patches was cool and it certainly motivated me to complete the courses. Besides the mentioned Gecko45 joke course, the only two I have left to complete is Elite Rifleman (damn hard!), and the Basic Concealed course. I think I needed to figure out how to handle the pistol/holster issue for that one because the pistol I wanted to use doesn’t have a rail - I’ll probably order a glue-on rail for an old magazine or something. The challenges (various combinations of minimum round counts and drills) get harder throughout the courses, and the courses definitely get harder as one goes.
*I first learned the concept of prepping the trigger from Ernest Langdon, and while I know others do it, I’ll attribute the way it massively helped me with the concept of trigger control to him. So, when doing the “Compressed Surprise Break” drill in single action or striker pistols, I’ll prep the trigger to that ragged edge just when the last bit of movement is gone and any more effort will result in the “shot” going off, and react by pressing as fast as I can when I hear the beginning of the beep. I’m looking for reaction times of less than .3 seconds. Then I’ll prep again and press. The cool thing about the drill is (to me) it helps reinforce trigger discipline because if the trigger isn’t prepped, I won’t react to the beep. The system resets and it doesn’t penalize you for “not” taking a bad shot (rad), so you don’t feel “encouraged” to just press because you hear the beep, but press because you’re ready and hear the beep. If I got any of that wrong it’s my fault and not Ernest’s.
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