You have several options, to use less ammo and keep up your perishable shooting skills. A good website I recently found that discusses these issues is: http://www.studentofthegun.com/
Here are a few options:
1) Dummy guns.
2) Dry fire.
3) Laser training.
4) Airsoft.
5) Air guns.
6) Rimfire.
7) Maximizing your ammo use.
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1) Dummy guns are great for combatives and role-playing scenarios. You can safely practice many aspects of shooting with an inert plastic training gun. This is a great way to introduce new shooters to firearms.
2) Dry fire is terrific for developing and maintaing excellent trigger control and sight alignment, critical skills for marksmanship.
3) Laser training is terrific for training to clear your own home or doing target practice. Using a laser trainer is how I learned to shoot just as well with my non-primary hand. These cost about $100, but will quickly pay for itself in saved ammo costs. There are only two popular and reputable systems available today- Laserlyte and Sure Strike. Bottom line, if you are a one caliber pistol shooter, just get the Laserlyte; if you want to practice with multiple calibers and shotgun, get the Sure Strike.
LaserLyte:
This video discusses the differences:
4) Airsoft is a great way to practice force on force and tactics. This is a fun way to make training a game. The best airsoft guns can get expensive and you'll need to decide on gas or electric. They also make some great airsoft rifles, and many serious trainers have switched from simunitions to airsoft because it's cheaper and safer.
5) Air guns have the advantage that they actually shoot a metal projectile, so marksmanship skills and all firearms safety practices must be observed. BB and pellet air guns serve the double purpose of training and varmint control.
6) Rimfire ammo is a fraction of the cost of centerfire ammo. Good options are to buy .22LR replicas of your primary firearms, conversion kits, or entire upper slides for your firearms in .22LR. These are available for both pistols and rifles.
7) Maximizing your ammo use has never been more relevant than now. So when you go to a shooting event make sure that ever round has a purpose. The most important aspect of shooting live, full power rounds through your defensive firearms is that you are comfortable and can properly manage the recoil. Secondly being able to confidently and efficiently manipulate the firearm as well as rapidly fix any malfunction is critical. These are skills you can not easily emulate with any of the above 'alternatives' to using live rounds through a real defensive firearm. One of the more subtle aspects is knowing how fast you can effectively shoot while managing that recoil, where the round will actually strike at various distances, and the confidence of shooting the actual firearm you would use in a life-or-death situation if needed.
A good way to think about maximizing your ammo usage for training and something I've been struggling to perfect is how would you use a simple 50 round box of ammo to best maintain your skills and abilities? The folks at Student of the Gun have made an effort to put a course of fire for pistol together, if you subscribe they will email you their "1 box workout", but heres a video of it in practice:
Here are a few options:
1) Dummy guns.
2) Dry fire.
3) Laser training.
4) Airsoft.
5) Air guns.
6) Rimfire.
7) Maximizing your ammo use.
------------------------------------------
1) Dummy guns are great for combatives and role-playing scenarios. You can safely practice many aspects of shooting with an inert plastic training gun. This is a great way to introduce new shooters to firearms.
2) Dry fire is terrific for developing and maintaing excellent trigger control and sight alignment, critical skills for marksmanship.
3) Laser training is terrific for training to clear your own home or doing target practice. Using a laser trainer is how I learned to shoot just as well with my non-primary hand. These cost about $100, but will quickly pay for itself in saved ammo costs. There are only two popular and reputable systems available today- Laserlyte and Sure Strike. Bottom line, if you are a one caliber pistol shooter, just get the Laserlyte; if you want to practice with multiple calibers and shotgun, get the Sure Strike.
LaserLyte:
This video discusses the differences:
4) Airsoft is a great way to practice force on force and tactics. This is a fun way to make training a game. The best airsoft guns can get expensive and you'll need to decide on gas or electric. They also make some great airsoft rifles, and many serious trainers have switched from simunitions to airsoft because it's cheaper and safer.
5) Air guns have the advantage that they actually shoot a metal projectile, so marksmanship skills and all firearms safety practices must be observed. BB and pellet air guns serve the double purpose of training and varmint control.
6) Rimfire ammo is a fraction of the cost of centerfire ammo. Good options are to buy .22LR replicas of your primary firearms, conversion kits, or entire upper slides for your firearms in .22LR. These are available for both pistols and rifles.
7) Maximizing your ammo use has never been more relevant than now. So when you go to a shooting event make sure that ever round has a purpose. The most important aspect of shooting live, full power rounds through your defensive firearms is that you are comfortable and can properly manage the recoil. Secondly being able to confidently and efficiently manipulate the firearm as well as rapidly fix any malfunction is critical. These are skills you can not easily emulate with any of the above 'alternatives' to using live rounds through a real defensive firearm. One of the more subtle aspects is knowing how fast you can effectively shoot while managing that recoil, where the round will actually strike at various distances, and the confidence of shooting the actual firearm you would use in a life-or-death situation if needed.
A good way to think about maximizing your ammo usage for training and something I've been struggling to perfect is how would you use a simple 50 round box of ammo to best maintain your skills and abilities? The folks at Student of the Gun have made an effort to put a course of fire for pistol together, if you subscribe they will email you their "1 box workout", but heres a video of it in practice:
. When I was a SSG in Bosnia, I wrote Lenny a letter (free mail service out of country for deployed troops). I asked him to send me his latest CCW video for free so I could use it to help train some of our guys that were carrying CCW in country. Long story short, Lenny did send me his latest VHS for free and I've always respected him for it. This is in part why I picked his little YouTube video to discuss .22 conversion kits; that and I've heard a lot of great things about the Glock kit.
