How to Practice in an Ammo Shortage

Unless you have been living under a rock since Spring 2020,
you will have undoubtedly noticed the scarcity or even the absence of your
favorite ammo for your firearms. The ammo crunch has been caused by adding over
eight million new first-time gun owners, people stocking up due to civil
unrest, and some of the manufacturing plants slowing/stopping because of the
pandemic. Scarcity increases ammo costs, so getting enough trigger time is
getting even more expensive per trigger pull. Here are some things I am doing
to help stay sharp and get the most bang (pun intended) for the buck.

First is dry fire practice. I remember training for almost
two weeks in basic training on everything from breathing drills, dime and
washer drills, trigger squeeze, and magazine drills. This training is literally
a no-cost solution and can be done watching your favorite ball team play on the
weekend by aiming at different points on the TV (please make sure the gun is
unladed fully, I am not responsible for you putting a hole in your 65in Smart
TV). This training helps target acquisition, and you can practice fundamentals if
you do them correctly and don’t get bad habits.

For a few extra dollars, you can invest in dummy rounds that
will chamber and simulate a misfire so you can rapidly practice your drills on
clearing the round and rapid magazine changes. You can add to this by drawing
from a good quality holster in a mirror, looking for any issues, walking around
the house and drawing on points of entry, or clearing drills. Just make sure it
is ok with the misses, as that could cause some issues…again, I bear no
responsibility for your actions.

You can invest in a laser training system for a few more
dollars than the current price of a box of 100 rounds. Depending on the model,
you can identify bad habits, work on your accuracy, play games like poker or blackjack,
or simulate plinking by shooting fake cans. This practice can almost replace
shooting at the range minus the recoil. Also, many of these will last a lot
longer than that box of 100 rounds for lots of practice to come.

The final idea is a bit further out and assumes you can find
22LR. Still, there are several good manufacturers of conversion kits for
handguns and rifles that will replace the barrel and magazine, so you can still
get some rounds down range. As I said, this does assume you can find 22LR in
enough quantity to make the purchase worth it, but overall would help get that
trigger time without the limiting factor of cost.

Also be sure to check out JM4 Tactical for your holster needs!

Author: Ian Bolser