NRA Review - The Mantis System: Solo Training in the Digital Age

Want to improve your shooting skills, but just don’t have time to go to the range?  Not sure how to improve on your own?  Holly Marcus with NRA Women reviewed the Mantis Laser Academy and Shooting Performance System products and found that As a “virtual instructor,” the Mantis systems takes the guess work out of how to improve your firearms skills.

One of the most convenient forms of firearms practice is “dry fire”.  You can do this type of training at home with your unloaded firearm, including practicing drawing from concealment, and develop your basic shooting fundamentals. But dry fire is still one step removed from firing live rounds on a range and getting real-world feedback on your accuracy.

Holly goes on to compare that practicing our shooting skills, especially for self-defense purposes is just like if you did not drive a car for years and had an immediate need to use the car and just trust that it will start and all of the systems would work after the inactivity.  Dry fire is a great way to keep up with your skills and equipment so that heaven-forbid we would have an immediate need for it, we would know our skills are fresh and our equipment runs, especially under stress.

The Mantis Laser Academy

Holly discusses the Laser Academy system, covering all of the hardware that comes with the Standard Kit and that our laser cartridges are offered in 9 mm, .40 S&W, .45 Auto, .380 Auto, .38 Spl./.357 Mag, and .223/5.56.  Laser Academy can be used for pistol, rifle and even revolvers.  She calls out that there are limited drills available without an in-app purchase but to get the most out of Laser Academy it’s best to have full access.  The lifetime subscription cost of Laser Academy is just $49.99.  A lifetime purchase code comes with both the Laser Academy Standard and Portable kits.

She points out that the app has tutorials that will familiarize you with the system before you get started with the drills and marksmanship courses.  And she’s right!  We highly recommend starting with the journey track at the top of the app as it will walk you through how to use the app, some fundamentals as well as the courses offered within Laser Academy.  Holly even mentions our Hunt drill and target, which requires you to identify what target the app is requiring you to shoot, adding a measure of stress to find the specific target and make a shot.

One of the great things that is pointed out in the article is that the app will store your target history so you can review data and see how your training has progressed with the Laser Academy system.

The MantisX Training System

In the article, Holly tested the X10 Elite sensor, which is our best seller and allows for some special drills like Holster Draw Analysis, and in live fire only, Recoilmeter.

She shows that the X10 Elite comes packaged in its own case with adapters to mount the unit onto a rifle barrel, or a magazine via a piece of picatinny rail with 3M tape that can be mounted on the bottom of a magazine, which is necessary to run the Holster Draw Analysis drill (unless you have a lightbearing holster and install the X10 Elite on the picatinny rail in place of your light).  Additional accessories can be found in the Mantis store.

The article covers some of the feedback screens within the app, but also how those charts and graphs are beneficial to a user, especially the segment chart which shows where your shot would have landed and possible corrections for common errors.

Direction & Magnitude	History	Detailed Trace

She also points out the Holster Draw Analysis drill which is available for the X10 Elite unit.  She touches on how instead of the sensor looking at the shot, it is analyzing the steps of the drawstroke and the motion of the firearm during the draw.  This is a very valuable drill to those who participate in competition, and those who are concealed carriers.

One thing the article mentions, and many people overlook, is the power that the sensor has during live fire drills (only available on X3 and X10 Elite).  And if you have an X10 Elite, the Recoilmeter drill to help understand what is happening to the muzzle of the firearm during recoil.  This drill can be very helpful in understanding if you control recoil more efficiently on one firearm vs another or using different brands, grain or type of ammo.  

Another functionality that sometimes goes overlooked is the power of putting a MantisX unit on a rifle. Holly used an example of putting a student on a rifle in dry fire with a MantisX unit to practice before going to the range for live fire, and the success of the student in live fire was immediately recognized.  The MantisX units can be helpful for instructors when teaching if range time is hard to come by or having to account for weather.  The units are great for brand new students, or even working with seasoned students to help them gauge improvement.  Using Laser Academy with new students can also give them confidence in knowing they have the fundamentals down before going to the range for live fire.

Finally she discusses how MantisX helps diagnose and correct errors on the fly.  She mentions having another person read the output to the shooter, but in the settings we have added Audio Feedback for the app to call out your score and/or direction of deviation so that you can know real time data for each shot without having to look at your device.

Holly summed up her Mantis dry fire review well.  Mantis systems are designed to help all shooters, from beginners to seasoned competitors. The company states their mission is to “Improve every shooter at every level.” The Mantis systems bridge the gap between traditional dry fire practice and using live ammunition on a range. Once on the range, the MantisX sensors continue to analyze your shooting performance. As a “virtual instructor,” it takes the guess work out of how to improve your firearms skills.”

Read the full NRA review of the Mantis systems here.