A day at the range and shoot house honing your skills is time well spent, but that is not always an option, be it time, money, or access that stands in the way. With that said, that does not give you an excuse not to continue to train and develop your shooting skills. Since marksmanship is a perishable skill it is a good idea to stay on top of your progress. There is a plethora of gadgets that will allow you to work your skills off the range and I am sure some are good and many are gimmicks.
It was a couple of months ago I received the MantisX, training system. I had seen this at SHOT show 2017 and had a chance to try it out. Now I have had some real world time with the system I can go over with you all what I have learned about it. To explain a bit more about what this system is, the MantisX attaches to the accessory rail of your firearm and communicates with your mobile device via the free app. If your firearm of choice does not have an accessory rail MantisX makes adaptors. Before you get started you have to select handgun or longgun. First you select what firearm you are training with, if yours is not listed it can be added. First, to calibrate the device you have to attach the device and let your firearm lie still for a few seconds and it calibrates itself. Next you select the training protocol and choose live or dry fire. The MantisX relays information to your device in numerous ways to judge how you are doing and even offers suggestions based on those results to improve your score.
My friend Derek showed up for some live fire training and after a few drills we pressed the MantisX right into service on his Glock 21. The MantisX was able to determine right away that Derek was anticipating the recoil, ever so slightly, and he was able to begin working on that. In just a few minutes the MantisX helped us figure out why he was shooting just a bit low in what would have taken a lot more time to discern. After that I installed in the my Dan Wesson Discretion and we took turns training each other. Not only does the app give you a score, suggestions to improve, but is also a shot by shot score and shot timer. I have found this to be a very useful tool in training others and myself.
The SIG Sauer 1911 BB gun provided an excellent host for the MantisX for inexpensive training, you can read the SIG 1911 BB gun review by following this link.
Training screen showing each shot score and suggested improvements.
Shot by shot analysis.
Blue line indicates sight movement, yellow is sight movement during trigger press, and the red is recoil and follow through. Shots are grouped according to movement pattern but each shot score is tracked individually. Trends are tracked and illustrated through the graph. Green: hold/sighting. Yellow: trigger pull. Red: Shot breaking and recoil pattern.
Acknowledgments
always well done!
Something I can definitely use, but I didn’t see any adapters for a S&W M29. 🙂
The Mantis works with the Picatinny or Weaver style rails. They also make adaptors for other applications.
[…] If you’ve been following along on my experiences with the MantisX training system you already know I’m a big fan. It’s a great tool to improve your shooting and know what you may be doing wrong. If you aren’t familiar with the MantisX you can read my last post about it HERE, or Hunter’s take on it HERE. […]