Why snap caps suck for dry fire practice…
For decades, snap caps were the best option for doing dry fire practice.
Because they were the only option.
But, they had some serious shortcomings…
The more they look like live rounds, the easier it is to mistakenly introduce a live round…with potentially tragic results.It might be that a live round accidentally got mixed in with the snap caps or a magazine that you were doing ball and dummy drills with at the range that still has a dummy round on top and a live round underneath.
Regardless, using snap caps for dry fire takes a considerable amount of discipline.
Dry fire training with a snap cap doesn’t look anything like reality. Oftentimes, it looks like this…you insert a magazine with multiple snap caps (and no live rounds!) into your pistol, rack the slide, and perform a dry fire rep.Then, you rack the slide.
Then, you perform another dry fire rep.
Then, you rack the slide again.
But, unless you rack your slide between each rep during live fire…how’s that realistic?
Somehow…if you do it enough times, your mind is supposed to magically know that it should pay attention to the dry fire reps and ignore racking the slide.
But, it doesn’t usually work that way.
What’s much, much more common is that people develop a completely different neural pathway for dry fire than for live fire.
And they slip back into their old bad live-fire habits after the 2nd or 3rd rep at the range.
(ALL of our dry fire training is taught in a way that creates a SINGLE neural pathway for dry fire and live fire…and one of the secrets is interweaving dry fire and live fire [correctly] when you’re at the range doing live fire.)
When snap caps were the only option, they were the best option…but we don’t live in the dark ages anymore. There are better options.
Snap caps don’t let you do multiple shot strings of fire.If you want to practice 2-to-the-chest and 1-to-the-head with snap caps…good luck. You’re going to be racking the slide between each rep.
Excessive snap cap use can HURT your ability to fix malfunctions.The basic response for when your gun goes “click” and not “bang” is to tap the magazine to insure that it’s seated properly, rack the slide, assess the threat to see if it still needs engaging, and press the trigger if it does.
When someone does a lot of dry fire practice with snap caps, they’re used to the gun going “click” instead of “bang” and the response is to skip the tap and go straight to the rack…but if you’re using quality ammo, it’s MUCH more likely that a malfunction is due to an improperly seated magazine than a bad round. Skipping the “tap” because you’re repeating what you did during dry fire with snap caps means that you missed an incredibly common cause of malfunctions–an improperly seated magazine.
Fortunately, we’re not in the dark ages of dry fire anymore.
There are better (much better) tools for doing at-home dry fire training than snap caps.
You can still use snap caps…you just have to be incredibly disciplined and understand the limits of the effectiveness of the training you’re doing.
But there are GREAT alternatives.
There are laser pistols like the Dry Fire Pistol (SIRT).
You can get an airsoft or CO2 replica of your carry gun and do some GREAT training.
If you’re willing to spend $300-$500, CoolFireTrainer.com is an incredible option.
I recommend all of these options, but if you’re looking for a MUCH more economical option…one that costs less than a single trip to the range that will allow you to use your own firearm for dry fire training, you really need to check out Dry Fire Cord.
Dry Fire Cord is designed to block your chamber with an aircraft grade aluminum chamber block as well as give you a visual indicator that the chamber is blocked at both the muzzle and the ejection port.
You don’t have to disassemble your pistol to use it…2-5 seconds to set it up for live fire, 2-5 seconds to convert your pistol back to live fire. Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy.
Dry Fire Cord will give you a resetting trigger on a Glock, M&P, Sig, H&K, Kimber, Xd, Walther, and more so that you can practice multiple shot engagements WITHOUT having to rack your slide between reps.
And…it removes the “click” from the trigger press so that you can quickly assess and improve your trigger finger isolation and trigger finger speed. With Dry Fire Cord, you’ll see and know IMMEDIATELY how firmly to grip the gun and how quickly you can run the trigger without disturbing sight alignment.
Learn more and get yours now by clicking >HERE<
