Over time I have seen many training aids come and go. Some had some real use others not so much. There is now a wave of high tech training aids, everything from laser guns and targets to expensive video game-like systems that have some merit but are decidedly cost-prohibitive.

In this field of High Tech training, the Mantis system stands out as being very effective as well as affordable.

I have been training daily with both the Mantis X and now with the X10 for more than a year. I have over 50,000 combined rounds both live fire and dry fire with these units. The Mantis has become my #1 training partner in daily use. Read on and I think you will understand why.

What is the Mantis?

The Mantis is a small sensor and transmitter package that fits on your firearms rail (your gun doesn’t have a rail not to worry mantis has an adapter to attach it to any gun even a revolver). It will work on both pistol and rifle the X10 will also work with a shotgun and archery.

The sensor unit connects by Bluetooth to a free app on your smartphone or tablet. This will work on apple or android. You will download this app from the app store or play store just search for mantis X.

I find the app to be very intuitive and they include an introduction feature in the Drills section.

How does it work?

The sensor unit contains among other components an accelerometer that precisely measures the movement of the firearm. It is making thousands of measurements per second and calculating where the muzzle of the gun is. It also can sense the pressure being put on the trigger during your trigger press though to breaking the shot and recoil (there is a lot of math going on here) literally thousands of data points per second.

All of this data is displayed in easily understood graphics, targets, and graphs. In short, this takes all of the guesswork out of how well you held on target as you broke the shot and in the case of live fire controlled your recoil. The X10 can even time and graph the movement of your draw stroke from your holster. I know what your thinking this indeed sounds high tech but how does it help me?

How Does This Help Me Shoot Better?

The key to good mechanics and trigger press is trigger time there is just no getting around it and hundreds of rounds at the range each week get expensive. Most instructors recommend dry fire training as a daily practice. This will certainly help with the cost of range time and ammo but even at it’s best dry firing is a bit of a guessing game.

With the Mantis, you can review the individual shot graph allowing you to accurately see the movement during your hold indicated in blue then it changes to yellow indicating movement during your trigger press up to the X that denotes where you broke the shot. absolutely no guesswork here.

So now your dry fire training is real training and your time at the range is just confirmation that your training is working.

The Mantis system does not require special targets, in fact, the algorithm in Mantis makes one assumption that assumption is that you are attempting to hold your sights on a point that you want to hit the unit then calculates how well you held on that point during trigger press and shot break. This allows you to use anything that you can see and hold your sights on as a target. I have even sat in my living room watching television when a commercial comes on I dry fire at the buttons on my TV. Not only does this give me trigger time but I get to practice a good sight picture and trigger press from an unorthodox firing position.

What if you want to train to fire at multiple targets with movement with Mantis you can do that and get accurate data for each shot.

How about training in a dark house with a flashlight? Dry firing with this unit you could do this in your own house.

Mantis opens up a host of new training scenarios to the average shooter. This is why Law enforcement and military units around the world are training with mantis. This is proven technology.

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to training with the mantis.

At the bottom of the app, you will find various tabs one labeled history will show you every training season that you have done with the unit. The app is automatically building a training log for you with all of your data preserved.

You will also see a tab for groups. No matter what kind of shooting you participate in someone has started a group of like-minded shooters. The groups are free to join and now you can shoot with others from around the world. You can also start your own group. It can be public or private. I have met a group of guys that were all friends in college but now live in various states. they formed a private group so that they can compete with one another. I think that’s pretty cool.

There is also a page of drills that you can shoot (at the time of this writing there are 17) everything from open training to out of battery reload and Compressed Surprise Break (this one is a tough one to master).

Mantis is constantly updating and improving the app.

As you can tell I am a huge fan. I am not kidding when I say I train with it every day.

Now I started this article by asking the question does it work. I will without reservation say YES on several levels. I have tightened up my groups and gained smoother mechanics and trigger press as well as improved my consistency. Click here to learn more. Discount code rollo2020

Bye for now

Jim