Pistol Reload Drill

On an indoor set resembling the living room of a home, PDN Contributor Claude Werner presents a pistol reload drill using dry fire. In the real world, our initiator for a reload would be a recognition that the pistol is empty, such as feeling it or seeing the slide lock back. We don’t have a way of doing that effectively in dry fire — dry fire is a compromise — so Claude uses the timer to initiate the reload.

Pistol Reload Drill

He starts with the slide lock back and does not have an empty magazine in the pistol, but he still presses the magazine release to simulate ejecting a magazine, then gets his inert magazine out of his pouch and gets the moving parts of his pistol forward, and breaks a shot. The timer is set for three seconds.

After demonstrating the drill, Claude points out what he is looking to do or not do when performing this as one of the recommended dry fire drills: make sure not to have any fumbling while loading the magazine in the pistol, and make sure to efficiently get the slide forward so as to be ready to break a shot when reaching extension again.

Learning Opportunity

When Claude repeats the drill, his hand slips off the slide and he has to regrasp it. He views this — and encourages viewers doing drills as part of handgun training to view this and other small or large errors — as a learning opportunity. When practicing, make sure to get a good grip on the slide of the pistol and let it go forward. Perform enough repetitions of this pistol reload drill to ensure that you are performing all functions and movements efficiently.

Dry-fire drills are useful for defensive shooting practice because you can perform them safely in your home.