I have noticed a lot of talk recently about dryfire but more specifically “managing recoil when dryfiring” A lot of people say no to this but there are a good number of people who claim they can work on managing recoil without actually firing their gun.
I am a nobody but I do shoot pretty often and I have been fortunate enough to shoot with some insanely talented shooters. I do not dry fire really, sometimes I will if I want to work on something I noticed or if I want to try something out. I just don’t have the time to do it or care enough to do it, I tend to work on flaws or adjustments at the range every time anyway. My thoughts on this come from what I have learned myself as well as what I have been taught. I do not think you can “Manage” recoil in dry fire for one main reason: there is no recoil.
You are pretending to know how the gun is going to react/recoil. You have no accurate way of measuring, you are guessing what it is going to be so in this practice you are conditioning yourself or developing muscle memory into either more recoil or less because of what you are thinking it’s going to be. You cannot predict how a car takes a turn by sitting in it parked in the garage. You have an idea of what it will do but you won’t know until you actually push it.
People argue you are working on your grip and your sights which are two things you are using to mitigate that recoil. Sure, but there is no recoil. The first part of managing the recoil is the grip, so I get where that comes from. It is when you are applying the pressure and seeing what works at what time is where the live fire comes in. If you are gripping your gun exactly how you do in live fire, your arms are going to be smoked in 15-20 mins from that. So I guess you can work on perfecting everything up to the recoil happening but managing actual recoil isn’t going to happen without the presence of actual recoil which is then not dry fire.
I am not saying dryfire is a waste of time, it’s a fantastic use of time especially when you are new to shooting and trying to find that perfect draw, grip, or presentation. I think it’s a good tool for transitioning to different targets and a very good tool for dialing that grip in and how you want it.
I do also think that there is no one correct way to dry fire, you may do it to only work on your draw or for reloads, either way, you are doing it. That is the most important part, you are taking the steps to be better.