Dry fire training… is boring, but in an attempt to be a judicious marksman, I do it often. I mean, extremely often. Clearing my carry gun carefully, and practicing draw and fire repetitions at home is something I do so frequently, it’s almost become a subconscious habit. I may focus on a light switch or an outlet, I may balance something on the front sight post to judge my movement, I may do 20 repetitions, or I may do 200. Does it even help? Well… no. Or, kind of?… maybe what I should say is, I didn’t really think so until now.

When the Mantis dryfire training packages came in this month, they were dropped on my desk. I was told to “set it all up” and “see how it all works.” I was supposed to figure it all out so I could share the knowledge with the rest of the staff to be able to help educate you, the customer, to make an informed purchase. I was out of my element, and to be honest, I was stubbornly resistant to the whole thing. Dry fire practice was, to me, similar to spending time in the weight room, a necessary chore. It was something that I did to keep me proficient, but certainly not something that I looked forward to. I’m always off in my own world, thinking about new rifles, planning hunts, and trying to configure my equipment to hit targets further and further away. Defensive shooting as a whole is something I almost force myself to practice, and in fact, that’s exactly what I was thinking about as I went through the Mantis gear, unpacking each box, shaking my head at the more and more pieces of equipment that I pulled out and unpackaged, all the while wondering, “Why would someone even spend the time and effort”… Maybe I was the wrong person for this task, or maybe I turned out to be perfect for it.

Attempting to be the eternal optimist, I borrowed an empty gun from the store and attached the Mantis X to the rail. I downloaded the app the instructions told me to download, made sure everything was charged, and fired everything up. “Let’s see what this is all about,” I thought. “In fact, let’s SMOKE this thing,” I thought, and with the most obnoxiously cocky attitude you’ve ever seen, I presented the gun like lightning, and squeezed the trigger. I focused on my front sight post and held the pistol ROCK SOLID until I heard the click. Satisfied, I looked to the screen for my “grade A results” that were surely displayed there.

Yeah, that was pretty awful” is essentially what the Mantis told me…

“Pssssht (audibly), this thing doesn’t even work,” I reset my trigger and fired again, this time applying even more force with my off-hand and squeezing my palms to the grip to ENSURE that my trigger break was clean and on target.

“Yeah, still no,”… I’m paraphrasing a bit here, obviously, because what it actually showed me was that I was allowing movement to my left before the break, I was dipping my muzzle, and I had almost zero follow-through. I may be cocky, but not enough to not be introspective, and the truth is… I do tend to see those results on the range when the pistols come out. I reset and tried again… and again… and again, each time diagnosing my grip and trigger pull. It was at this point my tune started to change, I had inadvertently stumbled onto the core concept of what the Mantis system was designed to do for you, give you actual data on your dryfire reps, and give you the chance to make the appropriate correction. All the THOUSANDS of dryfire repetitions I had done in the past seemed a bit more silly to me. They certainly helped, but only as much as I was willing to scrutinize my own performance. I was presenting an unloaded gun to a mark on a wall and pulling the trigger, and if I decided that it “felt good” or “I would have got em’” I was giving myself a passing grade.

The Mantis, as it turns out, does not share in my ego, and with absolutely no regard for my own pride, will tell me exactly what I’m doing wrong, and all jokes aside, that really does take dryfire training to the next level. In fact, in hindsight after using the system, it seems so obvious that it would. On the range, you have a miss; a bullet hole on the target that’s not where you meant it to be. Obviously, when you’re home dry firing, you don’t have that (at least I truly hope not), so the Mantis is providing you feedback when you’d otherwise have none.

I was intrigued. The next thing that I found in the box was one of the “Pink Rhino” laser cartridges. I threw it into the chamber, and out of curiosity I presented the gun as I always had, the way that felt instinctive to me and pulled the trigger. I saw a small laser blip right to the left of the point of aim I’d chosen, confirming exactly what the Mantis had been telling me. At this point, I lost track of time, and spent most of my work day presenting my pistol and firing at my chosen point of aim, working with each repetition to get the laser blip right on target, and competing for the approval of the unfeeling Mantis device that I’d personified into a harsh-but-fair shooting coach.

The next morning, I was ready. I’d brought my carry gun, emptied and ready, and installed the Mantis on it. I wanted to practice with my equipment, and on my terms. I inserted the laser cartridge into the chamber, and cleared out a space to take a stance. I hung a target on the wall, I booted up the tablet and opened the app. I was ready.

“How’s the Mantis stuff coming along?” a coworker asked.

“Oh, it’s coming along, I’ve almost beaten it.” I said, full of confidence, competitiveness, and drive.

“… cool,” they said, in a voice that was full of “CJ is losing it”.

At this point, I started to get comfortable, and was noticeably improving. By following the feedback I was receiving from the Mantis, I was re-establishing good habits that I had learned before, and knew were right. I was using more of the software, and seeing what other features were contained in the app. I followed a couple guided drills, I drew and shot for time, I even did a “daily challenge”.

It was at some point on that second afternoon, that I decided to look through the rest of the boxes. I found things labeled “Blackbeard” and “Laser Academy”, which both sound like disgustingly bitter IPAs that cost six dollars per can, but actually turned out to be one of the most entertaining training tools that I’d ever spent time with. Inside the Blackbeard boxes were mocked up polymer AR bolt carriers and magazines that contained lasers, batteries, and yes, another Mantis sensor.

Rifles… now we were speaking my language.

I unpacked it all, the Blackbeard, the Laser Academy, and when it was all spread out on my desk, I saw that I had much more than a simple dryfire training aid, I had everything I needed to build a full on shooting bay in my cubicle.

The blackbeard not only drops into the rifle and integrates the muzzle laser and mantis sensor inside, it also auto-resets your rifle trigger, meaning that unlike the striker-fire handgun I’d been using for the past two days, I could run the Mantis as a semi auto. Pair that with the laser academy, which comes with a tripod to mount up your phone or tablet and uses a second app to read both target position of included targets, as well as score your laser impacts on target… and all of the sudden, my cubicle had become a CQB shoothouse.

It was here that I may have gone overboard. But for the sake of my employment with Fuquay Gun, we’ll call it “thorough product testing”. I can, in fact, confirm that the Blackbeard system works beautifully with an array of AR-15 pattern rifles, no matter which suppressor, muzzle device, optics, grips, flashlights… IR lasers… under-barrel grenade launchers… or anything else you may have mounted. It didn’t matter which of my many rifles I was running with the Blackbeard, or which trigger I had installed, I was having a blast  I was having success in my testing.

I ran drills, I learned NEW drills that I would later take with me to the range, I even did some one-on-one competitions with a coworker. Most importantly, I was training, and I was training with my own rifle and equipment with one to one weight, and I was doing it from the comfort and privacy of my own office. I couldn’t tell you how many trigger pulls I got in between the Mantis X pistol sensor and the Blackbeard system in just those few days, but I CAN tell you that A. had they all been live rounds, my bank account would have been as sore as my trigger finger, and B. it was more dry-fire than I’d done the entire previous year to date. In fact, I think it was the first time I’d drilled with a rifle in any aspect other than actual live fire in quite awhile.

So… All joking aside, what do I think now? As I mentioned, I hadn’t only overlooked the Mantis prior to using it, I was actually resistant to it. I wrote it off as a novelty, and figuratively wagged my finger at the idea that it could replace good ol’ American rangetime. But now? Well, now I have a completely different opinion of the Mantis as a training aid. I don’t think it NEEDS to REPLACE range time, I simply think that it’s an excellent compliment to it. Keep in mind, this is coming from a guy who gets more trigger time in than most people, I mean, shooting and using these products is my livlihood, and that comes with a lot of range time, and yet I still took something constructive from the Mantis. How do I feel about Mantis’ claim that “94% of shooters improve from just 20 minutes?” Well, I feel like that’s a hell of a piece of marketing copy, but I also think it has some truth to it. Is the Mantis that mythical piece of equipment that’s going to make any of us better all on it’s own, of course not, but, it does use technology to help bridge the gap between “going it alone” and “professional instruction” and to me, that’s certainly a positive.

So whether your goal is to LEARN and track your progress with good feedback about your shooting, or to genuinely set up a virtual shoothouse in your garage, Mantis has an array of products for you. Just like most things in this industry, you can put varying levels of time, effort, and money into it, and get an equivalent amount out of it. Right now, we have a big range of the Mantis products in the shop, including all the ones I just mentioned. The boys on the retail floor can get you set up, no matter your weapon or caliber. So if you’re at all curious, or even if you’re completely against the idea as I once was, come check it out, you just might find that it fills in a missing piece in your training regimen.

What do you think? Are you excited to try out the Mantis? Do you think you’ll have the same sort of turn around I did? Have you used the system before? Let me know at cj@fuquaygun.com or comment below! Thanks for reading!