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With the ammo crisis are air guns a good alternative for training?

Ammo is scarce and expensive. There are quality replicas that are identical to the build, weight, and action. My question is would this be a practical alternative that would cross over well for for aiming, target practice, and simulation for the real deal?

A few years ago, A 17-year-old Japanese boy who had never touched a firearm in real life, but had been an airsoft enthusiast in his home country,

and who made it a point to diligently practice drawing, shooting, and hitting the target rapidly with various airsoft weapons (both pistols and AR carbines) finally came to the USA and was taken shooting as a guest of some gun writer / blogger affiliated with some gun or ammo company.

The Japanese kid had mad skills right from the start! He looked very professional; he knew how to handle these weapons with minimal coaching (just a few minutes, mostly regarding how the optics worked & range safety rules).
When cleared to fire on the very first magazine full of live ammo the kid had ever discharged, he was off to the races, doing much better than most Americans and even doing better than some of the shooters' coaches at that range that hosted him.
So yes, non-recoiling or minimally recoiling air guns or airsoft guns can definitely let you up your skills and improve your game for real firearms that you'll go back to later.
I remember that kid. Trex Arms did a video with him.

 
A multi-pump 1377 (or 1322) can get some reasonable accuracy. Although it does have a longer barrel.
A metal co2 pistol that cycles the slide can get you at least some movement.

You can also get a phone app that uses the camera to score your shots.
Yep, that's exactly what I have. When I can't make it to the range, our entertainment room has plenty of space to practice. My son even has a bunch of blow up nerf obstacles up there I can use LOL
 
Dry fire practice with your actual gun is the best alternative.
If you can draw quickly and put the gun on target every time and move quickly while keeping the gun on target while you are in awkward positions you have 80% of the shooting game accomplished.
Almost anyone can be trained to manage recoil and get fast follow up shots if everything else is good in a few days.
Drawing and putting the first shot on target in a short time takes repetition. Tens of thousands of repetitions. I have heard more than one pro shooter say they spend 90% of their time dry firing and 10% live firing.
Still think they are exaggerating some but I never knew a pro shooter well enough to know for sure.

They aren't. The top level guys dryfire almost every day, sometimes more than one session a day. When I'm actually putting in the work, at least 90% of my practice is dryfire. I'm no where near top level, but I shoot with some guys who are.
 
If a person wants to learn to shoot well, in no particular order, and this applies to ammo shortage or regular times:

1) SIRT trainer

2) Tac trainers.com airsoft targets and the compressor magazine adaptor

3) 22 LR revolver, speed beez loaders, and 5k round orders. I believe that if a person can actually shoot a double action 22 revolver well you can pretty much shoot any pistol

the electronic computer screen video game things look interesting, but I have not used them
 
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The basic marksmanship skills carry over quite well from air guns to real guns. Sight alignment, breath control, gun presentation, etc all carry over.
 
As others have said, dry fire, dry fire, dry fire. I also have an iTarget, and I find that it helps. More than anything else it helps keep it interesting so I'll actually do it. It really helps with fast presentation and firing. It doesn't teach recoil management - but I figure if it's life or death and I put one in him first it will have a cooling effect on the situation, even if it's only one round.
 
Any trigger time is better than no trigger time. I have always suggested that option for folks with limited training time and budget
I’ve seen performance increases from guys who have heeded my advice.
 
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