No. The app will not show you how to properly perform handgun manipulations. The app will provide you verbal tips for properly performing these exercises, and for passing the Front Sight skills test. To learn how to properly perform these techniques, you need to attend a Front Sight 4-Day Handgun course, or purchase Front Sight's Handgun Dry Practice Guide.
DryPractice.com strongly recommends that you never use snap caps or other types of dummy ammunition. Why not use them? Dry practice with a real firearm is a serious business and there is no room for mental errors or sloppiness. A student who dry practices with no ammunition of any kind is more likely to notice the introduction of ammunition into their weapon during dry practice. A student who expects to see "bright yellow" snap caps may not notice the "bright gold" live rounds being introduced into their weapon. If the student knows that no ammunition (live or dummy) should be in the dry practice area, they are more likely to identify an error like this. If anything other than an empty magazine is being put into your firearm during dry practice, alarm bells should be going off in your head. To further make this point, in 2013 a Front Sight student negligently fired a round of ammunition during dry practice at a hotel in Pahrump because they thought it was one of the snap caps they had been using. Additionally, the flip side of this experience is true. We know of at least one instance where a law enforcement officer had snap caps loaded into his duty magazines. Had he needed those rounds to defend his life, he would have heard a "click" instead of a "bang."
The Dry Practice App contains some of the functionality of a traditional shot timer. The shot timer functionality within the Dry Practice App beeps to the standard times used by Front Sight for the skills test. The times used for the beeps cannot be changed by the user and are specifically fixed to those times that have been in use for years by Front Sight. There is no functionality within the Dry Practice App to determine the time between dry presses of a handgun to determine how fast a user is completing their drills. A classic shot timer will listen to live rounds being fired from a weapon, and will give you the times between the beeps and the discharge of those live fired rounds. Since this application is only for dry practice, that functionality is not present.
No. The times are set to Front Sight's standard test times, as a benchmark for your Dry Practice. Changing the test times takes the App in a different direction than our current vision. When you go to Front Sight, you don't turn around to to the Range Masters and tell them to add another second to the times for you. So we decided that this app should not have that capability either.
Yes, we have tested the Dry Practice App with most modern Android Smart Phones, from major manufacturers, back to the Samsung SII. We deliberately went back to devices that were manufactured in Mid 2011, to test on some older phones. All of them seem to work fine. The app also works great with the larger devices like the Samsung Note II, and the 7 Inch and 10 Inch tablet devices too. We have even recently bought some $75 cheapo-generic 7" Chinese tablets, and the App seemed to work fine on these as well. Of course, we cannot certify that it will work on every device. Below is a list of devices we have tested on.
Tested and Works for:
1. Galaxy S II
2. Galaxy S III
3. Galaxy S IV
4. HTC Razor
5. Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0/10.1)
6. Galaxy Note 2 (Not tested on Note 1)
Yes. The app works fine on the iPhone 4, 4S, and 5. We have tested the App on ALL versions of the iPad with good success. The Dry Practice App does work well with the iPad 1. We have also tested the App on the iPad Mini. The app should also work on the latest version of the iPod Touch.
No. The Kindle Fire, while originally being an Android based device, gets its applications from Amazon, and not from Google's Marketplace (Google's App Store). As a result, you can not buy the Dry Practice App. However, if you are savvy enough to have a Kindle, then we are willing to bet you probably have a smart phone you can use for the Dry Practice App.
Actually, the Dry Practice App listens for sound over a certain decibel threshold as its trigger to continue to the next drill. Programming it to listen for certain words in everyone's languages, dialects, and accents would be WAY too complicated for the vision that we have set forth. When we are ready to continue, we normally just say, "READY", in a clear voice, as we want to stay focused on the training. Our 13- and 15-year-olds, on the other hand, tend to want to spend more time trying to cleverly insult the app, instead of focusing on the dry practice.
The loud sound brings out some interesting situations. First, if you're in a loud environment, then those sounds will set off the App. So we built a microphone sensitivity setting into the app that you can adjust up and down. There are 4 different settings.
One other interesting situation is that during Dry Practice, people can get into the habit of slamming their handgun back into the holster when the drill is over. This is DANGEROUS because if you get a piece of your shirt stuck in the trigger guard, you could cause a Negligent Discharge of the Gun if you do this in real life with live ammo (e.g. at the range, or out in the field shooting targets, or even at Front Sight — although they will gladly and clearly correct you if show this habit there). You're going to shoot yourself in the leg! Very Bad. Where this is relevant to this app, however, is that slamming the gun into the holster can make a lot of noise, which will also set off the app, because it hears the loud sound. So if you're putting your gun back in the holster loud enough for the app to hear it, there is a good chance you're doing it too fast and being careless. It should largely be a silent operation, except for maybe a quiet "click", which won't set off the app.
Dry Practice isn't designed for a party with friends. It should be a focused activity with NO distractions, and no other noises. If you are not familiar with Front Sight's recommended Rules of Dry Practice, they are available in each of Front Sight's Dry Practice Manuals, or you can learn them by attending a Front Sight Course. We highly recommend that you follow those rules, as they are carefully thought out both to ensure your safety (and that of those around you), AND to maximize the benefit you receive from your Dry Practice.
The best way to send in your ideas for improvement is to contact our Support Team, here.
Not yet. We are looking at this for a future version.
Not yet. We might be able to support this in the future, but that would depend on several factors.