threefeathers

There isn't a training session I go to that a significient number of folks in the class haven't had a Neglient Discharge. Many occur while dry firing.
Here is a suggestion that will reduce that chance to a zero.
1. Take a magazine and paint it a bright color.
2. Put snap caps in that magazine and only that magazine.

This will tell you that there will never be a live round in tha particular magazine.

3. Open the slide and physically check the chamber by looking AND feeling into the chamber.

4. Do not load the practice magazine in the gun yet.
5. Take all loaded magazines and any loose live rounds and put them out of reach. This is especially important if you are going to practice mag changes.

5 Now load the dummy rounds and dry fire into a safe area.

6. Making a safe area. Take a print magazine holder and fill it with old magazines. Place it sideways in a shelf that has another hard object behind it. (I took a steel plate a foot square I found) Put a minature IDPA target on the print magazine holder.

7. To drill changing mags just have 2 or more safe mags.

Mas Ayoob

All excellent suggestions.

Another safe "dry-fire backstop" is body armor, one reason I usually have a lightweight Kevlar vest in the suitcase when I travel. This and ThreeFeathers' suggestion of a deep box of magazines or books also provide the equivalent of a "clearing barrel."

Friend Steve Camp in Illinois came up with "Safe Direction," which as the name implies provides something safe to point the gun at when loading, unloading, clearing a stuck round, or dry-firing. It's a lightweight ballistic armor panel available in the form of a simple sheet, a fanny pack, a gun case, or a three-ring binder suitable for a police academy notebook. The website is www.safedirection.com.

Fernando and company, thanks for creating this section. I suspect it will prove one of the most useful on this forum as time goes on.

Al Thompson

Other tip. When dry firing, go sloooooooowwwwww. Get the action imprinted correctly first, then worry about hitting all the stops correctly. Speed will come - slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

Retmsgt.

I remember pulling a AT at Fort monroe Virginia in the late 80s. The 110th was in Saudi-Arabia and a rolling deployment was going on at their site( They direct the First Tac Fighter Wing). Anyway, their MP Station(Fort Monroe's) was on the way to the site. They had two large, long cans painted red, at the entrance filled 3/4s of the way with sand for clearing weapons. I remember thinking that that was a pretty ingenious safe-direction.

NightSight

I do a lot of dry fire practice too - almost everyday. The above suggestions are excellent; I'll only add: I have the longstanding habit of opening a cylinder or dropping a magazine ('clip' ) and racking the slide twice before starting to practice.

The two loaded magazines that are always with the pistol are placed far out of reach before I'll begin. We've got large fields and wood lots around the place; so, I usually aim out the window at one of the larger (man-sized) trees in the backyard.

Yeah, I've occasionally thought about what might happen if I were to ever screw up. Overconfidence is never a good thing! Even after 50 years of pistol shooting I find that it's impossible to maintain your skills unless you shoot frequently and dry fire everyday.

A-Zoom snap caps are your friend!

threefeathers

Once I had an ND I get shivers when I pick up a handgun until I check it out. One of the loudest noises you will ever hear is a Negligent Discharge.

Well this is the first time I have heard this interesting way I will apply it right now. Thank you for sharing !!!

William R. Moore

I once read an article by Bill Jordan on ND's while/after dryfiring. The root cause of many of them was a failure to completely remove oneself from both the weapon and the area where dryfiring took place at the end of the practice.

I'll also add one from my own experience when coaching others in dryfire practice. Not only require that all live ammo be removed from their person and stored separately before practice, physically search them for other ammuntion/magazines. Someone suddenly remembered another magazine during reloading drills and decided to use it instead of picking up the ones already dropped.

JRWnTN

Mr. Jordan was probably well aware of a Border Patrol member being killed during a gun handling session:
http://cbp.gov/xp/cgov/border_security/ ... tor_ja.xml

I was told about a similar incident, that fortunately did not result in injury or death, at an East Tennessee police department.

threefeathers

I have all of my students physically show me what they are going to do. At the Sierra Vista range recently we had a N D from a student who put a round through the trunk of a car. I wasn't there, but I am as fearful of public ranges as I am a back alley.

whatsit

I heard that it was Jordan himself who fired the shot that killed that other agent.

flipper35

We use the Shootoff app with a laser/camera and projector and when we practice we clear the weapon every time we pick it up whether or not someone just got done with a session and hands it directly to us. (No mags, we practice with our revolves and dummy weapons).