With cold weather coming on, I'm always looking for interesting ways to practice indoors. It seems like Mantis may be an improvement over the older laser trainers. Not cheap, but the break even point is closer with ammo prices.

I have not used laser academy or Blackbeard, yet. It's in the plans depending on funds. I have used the mantis x10 (I think) and thought it is a good system. Lots of pre-programmed drills and little tutorial videos to diagnose problems.

No experience with the two systems you mention. I went with an S.I.R.T training pistol. The 320 replica model. Pricey, but for me it has been worthwhile. They had a Black Friday deal going on but I dont know when it expires.

I use Laser Academy daily. It is an excellent way to dry fire.

Or you could just dry fire.

All you have to have is an unloaded gun. I did it for about 20 minutes this afternoon and it cost me exactly $0. And the best part is it costs the exact same pistol and carbine.

My wife bought me one last year for Christmas, as she is always trying hard to find a gift for me.

It works well, but has what I would say is a big flaw. Unless you have a DA pistol, or the Blackbeard for your AR, you need to manually rack or cock your firearm. So drills that take multiple “shots” are slower and require manipulations that you don’t do when shooting. There is a CO2 cartridge setup that you can add to the MantisX, but it is from a separate company and costs more.

quote:

Originally posted by Nuclear:
My wife bought me one last year for Christmas, as she is always trying hard to find a gift for me.

It works well, but has what I would say is a big flaw. Unless you have a DA pistol, or the Blackbeard for your AR, you need to manually rack or cock your firearm. So drills that take multiple “shots” are slower and require manipulations that you don’t do when shooting. There is a CO2 cartridge setup that you can add to the MantisX, but it is from a separate company and costs more.

Which is the same flaw you would have without the Laser Academy. And no, it is not the same as using an unloaded gun, it's better.

I have laser cartridges for several of my calibers, as well as a LaserLyte Trainer--which works in pretty much everything. Then I have these



taped to a couple book shelves in the living room. The end of the hallway that opens opposite of that is better than twenty-five feet away.

Works perfectly for dry-fire practice.

Those circles are 4 in. diameter and that partial bowling pin profile is to scale.

We have a Mantis X set up at the shop we play with when it's slow. I'd love to have one for both 9mm and 38, but the revolver would involve the purchase of at least 5 cartridges to keep it entertaining. Still, it's less than the cost of a new gun or ammo over the course of a year. I'm thinking about it.

If you want a middle ground solution Shot Verifier LT (iPhone App) works quite well with any laser cartridge.

As JJones said just dry fire without anything else works and works WELL but if you are looking to add some fun or drills etc. you may want to try the above. Much cheaper than the Mantis solutions.

That said the AR trigger reset bolt systems seems like a worthwhile piece of tech.

I typically just dry-fire, however I do have one of the cheap laser cartridges that I use in conjunction with a phone app to practice daw and fire drills on a timer. The laser keeps you accountable for accuracy, and also tells the app when your shot happened in relation to the buzzer. My whole setup was like $35 ($30 for the laser cartridge and $5 for the app...I had to pay to unlock the timer functions). I found it to be helpful for that particular drill, but for simply practicing trigger press it's just extra work and time to monitor and reset the app, with no real value add.

Chief made us get a Mantis. I dumped it off on a dayshift guy to figure out. It came in and I gave him a spare gun and I haven't heard back.
It's been two months.

The Dryfire Magazine gives an artificial reset that lets you go click, click, click without racking the slide. They don't guarantee it will work with a Mantis, but provide instructions on how to set them up together.

CAVEAT: I don't have one, doesn't work with a 1911.

I tried the Dryfire mag for Glocks early on and while it gave you a trigger reset so to speak it never “felt” like my Glock trigger. Felt more like a clicker.

The product seems well made, did what it said it would do but just didn’t replicate an actual trigger pull to me. I returned and went back to normal dryfire routines.

quote:

Originally posted by Chowser:
Chief made us get a Mantis. I dumped it off on a dayshift guy to figure out. It came in and I gave him a spare gun and I haven't heard back.
It's been two months.

He probably took it home and is using it everyday.

I'm on the fence with mantisx/blackbeard and coolfire.

I would want both together and that increases costs.

I've only seen videos of guys using them and it seems to be fun as well as worthwhile for training.