Key Dry Fire Practices with your EDC Pistol

All shooters should be dry firing regularly to keep their skills sharp, especially if you are going to conceal carry.  As serious gun people, we often prioritize our practice to perform at the range, for classes and matches.  These are places where we are using a specialized setup and maybe even particular guns.  We can’t forget, though, that we also need to practice skills relating to everyday carry (EDC).

Some people may use the same gun for everything, others are going to have a variety to choose from, and your favorite range gun might not be your carry gun.  It’s important to make sure you incorporate dry practice with your concealed carry gun doing concealed carry things.  Just like you should go to the range at least every now and then in your EDC setup and pressure test shooting live.

We all know dry fire is where we do most of the work though, let’s take a look at some key practices for using our carry gun in dry fire.

Safety Oriented Key Practices

When using our carry gun to dry fire, the first thing we need to do is unload it to prevent a negligent discharge and make it safe.  Remove the magazine and rack the round out, easy enough right? This needs to be done in a safe manner, and that is up to each of us to designate that safe place.

The gun should be pointed in a safe direction, meaning something that will stop a round if it does go off.  I don’t know about you but I don’t have a bullet trap in my house, a good substitute would be a 5 gallon bucket full of sand.  

Once the ammo is out of the gun make sure you lock it away, put it in a drawer, or even better, move it to a different room. This goes for your spare mag too if you carry one. This ensures there is no live ammo that can be accidentally loaded or mixed in with dummy cartridges.  It also gives us a mental transition opportunity through intentional actions.  Check your gun again before you start and you can even announce the start of dry fire practice to reinforce the transition.

After you have completed your dry fire session, you have another touch point where an accident can happen: reloading.  You likely have a full mag, maybe two, and a singular round - the one that was ejected.  Without thinking, many people will just reload the gun like they are at the range.  If you practice often enough, this means the first two rounds on the primary mag are exchanged back and forth between chambered and top round.  Over time, this constant rechambering can damage the casing or cause bullet setback.  At the very least, inspect the round for any deformities, but it is good practice to rotate more than just the top two rounds if you are going to let the same stack sit in your mag for an extended period.  You can even mark the round so you know how many times it has been chambered and if it needs to be replaced.

Depending on when you practice, you may very well be re-securing that holstered gun to your body to resume its normal duty.  This is where the intentional action comes in.  Make sure that you mentally transition out of practice mode and into hot gun mode.  Leaving your dry fire dojo to get your carry ammo starts the process, but it’s a good idea to give yourself a transition ritual to cue your brain that the gun is not to be touched anymore. 

There is no going back to practicing, no “one more rep” once the gun is loaded.  While we all feel we can be responsible, we can’t ensure it, better safe than sorry.  Announce aloud to yourself the gun is hot, do your beginning of the day gear up routine, or some other cue that shifts your mind out of practice and back to carry mode.  This helps keep you, your family, and your property safe and intact.

Skill Oriented Key Practices

During the dry fire practice with our carry gun, make sure you dedicate time to do the things that are specific to concealed carry.  This is a great place to get in the reps and work out any issues concealment may present.

This means that it’s worth the extra few minutes to secure your holster, grab an extra dummy mag, and strap on any other gear you might typically carry.  Put on your normal shirt, add a jacket, or whatever you typically are wearing when concealed.  First, check out if you have any printing, might be something to look into fixing.

As you practice, don’t spend all your time on trigger control, make sure you incorporate a draw with a garment clear.  If you like to go fast at the range, compare your concealed draw time to your open one, they should be pretty similar.  

As you get towards winter and wear more layers or gloves, make sure you practice in that too; you want to ensure you can execute the skill regardless of the variances in attire.

On range we are typically optimized in our setup, but in everyday carry we might have to make some adjustments.  If you carry a spare mag, where is it?  If it is on your belt line, practice that one handed garment clear and pin to grab the mag.  Perhaps it is in your pocket; that’s much different than a pouch on the hip.  Maybe you use a fanny pack, purse, or bag rather than a holster; get those reps in and down pat. 

If you wear a dump pouch on range, remember you won’t have that walking around town, so stowing a partial mag, flashlight, or anything else will look different.

Lastly, if you carry an extra item like pepper spray, kubaton, knife, tourniquet, etc. think about how they might work into your tool kit.  What order do they go in?  What triggers which option?  If you move up the tool list, do you stow or discard?  Is everything within reach?

A gun is far from the only option of what to carry in EDC so how does everything work together?  Does any one of them prevent you from effectively deploying another?  This is all good stuff to figure out in dry fire.  An EDC class is likely gun and maybe medical focused.  Edged weapon and pepper spray classes will also be focused, so it is up to you to put it all together.

Safety First

Every time we handle our gun, we give an opportunity for an incident to happen; that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t handle them, it just means we need to ensure we are being safe and careful.  This goes extra for our carry gun as we know it is loaded.  

Take the time to practice with your carry gun, use dry fire tools like a laser cartridge or X10 Elite for feedback, and make sure you are just as proficient with it as you are with your range gear.