The ever changing political climate has been tumultuous the past few years. Cycles of panic buying and hording guns and ammo have made firearms training very challenging. Fortunately, there are a couple things shooters can do to become more creative about their trigger time to get the training they need for skill survival during an ammo shortage.
First is including a dry-fire element to one’s training. Using a dry fire training pistol, like the SIRT, dry fire offers a safe option to improve skills without live range time. Training implements such as snap caps or laser training cartridges also have the advantage of allowing the shooter to train with his or her personal firearm when focusing on developing and maintaining skills such as trigger control, sight picture alignment, and drawing from a holster. I’m not suggesting that this form of skill development is a substitute for live fire training, but rather dry fire is a means to augment firearms training and help your ammo stretch further.
Another option to consider to help cultivate shooting skills is to shoot .22LR. Many pistol and rifle manufacturers offer conversion kits for their firearms to allow the user to train with their original firearm in .22LR. Trick shooter 22plinkster gave me the advice that a shooter really gets to know their firearm when they can put 500 rounds through it per week. That is how he has cultivated the skills he demonstrates in his .22 trick shots, as seen in the video with this post. Shooting .22 is a more feasible way to get the kind of trigger time that fosters and maintains shooting skills that can be effectively applied to larger caliber firearms.
I reload, and went into this shortage with a decent stock of components, so I have not had to slow down my shooting (yet), but with family and work demands, I am only able to get out to the range two or three times a month. In between, I use the LaserLyte in 9mm with some three inch reflective targets. I spread the targets out along my “safe wall” (the one wall in my house with a safe backdrop on the other side). You can’t practice everything, but you can practice the draw to a shot, trigger manipulation, target/site acquisition, and target transitions. It is not nearly as valuable as a trip to the range, but it helps a lot and also makes that precious range time more productive.
Destiny you should be reloading. With your connections you should be able to scrounge up some dies and a progressive press and some components. You could even blog the womens perspective of handloading.