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By David Crane
david (at) defensereview (dot) com
August 31, 2023
Last updated on 9/03/23 with 4K videos (embedded).
Earlier this year, DefenseReview (DR) was fortunate to get to spend some time with Adam Allgaier of Mantis to learn about their high-tech home/indoor dry fire shooting training systems at SHOT Show 2023, and we were really impressed with what we saw. Shooting instructors always empasize the importance of dry fire practice to keep your shooting skills fresh, particularly your pistol shooting skills, which are the most perishable. Well, if you’re going to use dry fire practice to stay in shape as a shooter, if you will, why not use the ultimate home dry fire practice system that optimizes such practice? That’s where Mantis comes in. Mantis is currently making what appears to be that very thing for pistol rifle/carbine/SBR (AR-type) and shotgun. These systems are pretty amazing both practically and technologically. Specifically, they’re the MantisX shooting systems, Mantis Blackbeard and BlackbeardX auto-resetting trigger systems for the AR-15, and the Mantis Laser Academy Training System.
The top of the line MantisX system is the Mantis X10 Elite shooting performance system, which is used by the US Army, Marines and Special Forces. Described as “the next revolution of the breakthrough MantisX”, the Mantis X10 Elite basically gives you the best of everything Mantis offers for pistol, rifle and shotgun training. The only thing you’d have to add to it for the ultimate 3-Gun home/indoor dry fire shooting training system is the aforementioned Blackbeard or BlackbeardX AR trigger resetting system for your tactical AR (AR-15).
For pistol training, you just attach the Mantis sensor module to your pistol’s picatinny rail. As you shoot, the Mantis X10 Elite system tracks the movement of your gun, and shows all of that movement in the form lines on the screen. “Every time you take a shot, it records a trace of what that shot looks like. The movement of the gun during each of those shots. The blue [trace line] represents the whole movement as your aiming [and] coming [onto] the target, the yellow represents the movement right as you press the trigger, right before the shot. The objective is to be tight and steady in your aim, and tight and steady when you pull the trigger. So [a] smaller, tighter circle’s better. Every shot gets scored,” says Allgaier.
Allgaier continues, “Now, as you take shots, you’ll see shots, we map each shot on this directional target that we call the spider chart to look for [identifying] patterns in your shooting. And, what we find is that as you take a large number of shots, we start to see that shooters tend to shoot in a specific direction. In my case, I tend to push up and to the right with my shots. The Mantis [system] looks at that data, and presents to you some possible causes for what might be causing [that]. Maybe I’m heeling. Maybe I’m anticipating recoil. What does that mean? Mantis has some coaching built in. [It] says here’s what heeling is. Here’s what might be happening. So, you can coach yourself while you train, go back, reset, shoot another session, apply what you’ve learned, and hopefully improve your marksmanship.”
Allgaier told us they sell thousands of the Mantis X10 Elite dry fire shooting training system every month. This doesn’t surprise Defense Review, since the system’s so technologically and pracitically impressive. DR digs it.
The Mantis Blackbeard / BlackbeardX AR trigger reset system turns your rifle/carbine/SBR into a training rifle. You get an automatically resetting trigger and a laser for laser training. “So, then you can use your [own] rifle with any training system, any laser training system, any laser simulator, Mantis Laser Academy, or just on the wall at home,” says Allgaier.
Allgaier says the following about the Mantis Laser Academy, “So, [the] Mantis Laser Academy is our second key product family from Mantis. It’s fantastic. We launched it about two years ago. It’s been immensely popular. What it is, is it’s a combination of an app on your phone, software app on your phone, and smart targets that you put up on your wall. The camera in the app records and detects and scores all your targets and all your shots on target automatically, so it knows where you hit, how well you hit, and how fast you hit for all your firearms training.”
Allgaier told DR that most people buy the Mantis Laser Academy Training Kit, since it has all the targets, a laser for your gun, a bunch of accessories, a tripod, and basically “everything you need to get set up and running with Laser Academy”. Watch the video below to learn more about it.
Check out our embedded video’s below to see all three systems (Mantis X10 Elite, Blackbeard/BlackbeardX and Laser Academy) demonstrated and explained in detail.
Company Contact Info:
Mantis Consumer Support (service, shipping questions, technical support, warranty issues):
Phone: (630) 551-8171
Monday-Friday. 9am-6pm Central.
Email: support@mantisx.com
Mantis Consumer Sales (product questions, new orders):
Phone: (630) 318-4468
Monday-Friday. 9am-6pm Central.
Email: sales@mantisx.com
Mantis Specialty Sales & Support (dealer, distribution, government purchases):
Phone: (630) 318-6644
Monday-Friday. 9am-6pm Central.
Email: DealerSales@mantisx.com
Email: GovSales@mantisx.com
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