Embracing Virtual Reality Firearms Training

When teaching at a firearms training conference a few years ago, I saw a demo of a Meta Quest 2 virtual reality headset and a controller adapter that looked like a modern semiautomatic pistol. The VR headset-based game ACE XR featured virtual pistol shooting stages reminiscent of USPSA, IDPA, and Steel Challenge.

I thought the concept was neat, but as someone who has never had the newest gaming systems or invested much time into gaming in general, I wasn’t immediately compelled to explore it further. That changed when I saw the updated version a year later and got to try it for a couple turns. Then I got bit by the bug.

The gamification of dry fire isn’t new. Numerous other tools and devices allow for electronic scoring, give visual feedback, or otherwise make dry fire more fun. Some are useful to an extent, whereas others are borderline detrimental to good shooting habits.

Traditional dry fire practice has some limitations:

1) The trigger only feels like an actual trigger press once with a striker-fired or SA pistol.

Traditional DA/SA hammer-fired guns and revolvers of course have an advantage here. The traditional wisdom is to keep pressing a dead trigger for multiple shot strings. The VR handset, however, feels like a 4-pound trigger on every single press.

2) There is no visual or kinesthetic recoil feedback.

There’s no felt recoil in VR either, but the sight lift and visual recoil is present and is very realistic in terms of visual sight recovery.

3) Traditional dry fire targets do not have the capacity to move.

VR stages feature bobber targets, swinger target, drop/turner targets, Texas Stars, and a couple varieties of plate racks.

Virtual reality dry fire also has limitations, of course:

1) There is no tactile recoil feedback.

Lack of tactile recoil removes the necessity to grip the pistol as you would a live gun. If you aren’t cognizant of that fact, your grip could get lax and lead to a training scar.

2) Existing holsters probably won’t work with the handset.

The VR handset is bulky and probably won’t fit in your AIWB holster. It may fit in some existing OWB holsters, and several companies and individuals are now making holsters specifically for VR controllers. There are also a bunch of folks 3D printing aftermarket handsets in the dimensions and weights of other popular handguns such as Glocks, VP-9s, PDPs, and others.

3) Reloading sucks.

The in-game reloading procedure is pretty artificial, and I don’t find much training value in that aspect.

Why to Consider VR Training

VR does a couple things well that make me believe it’s worth the investment.

First, it’s immersive and a ton of fun. You can shoot a favorite stage a hundred times or shoot 50 different stages and never have to paste or reset a target.

The physics of the various movers and bobbers and swingers are 1:1 perfect to the real world. Visually tracking those is a skill that is challenging to practice for most people.

The system tracks your times, splits, and reloads. It “gamifies” dry fire practice like no other tool. It awards you a score based on how well you performed. Practice runs are just that, but ranked runs contribute to your overall categorical ranking: Steel, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Ace. The tiered system helps track progress.

Currently, after 147,000 rounds fired, I’m a level 23 Diamond rank. All your ranked runs are factored into your ranking, so the more of them you shoot, the longer it takes to elevate your level. Leaderboards also show you how you stack up against other users.

Numerous very high-end competitors and trainers use ACE XR regularly. I see Matt Little (GreyBeard Actual), Tim Herron (Tim Herron Shooting), Rhett Nuemayer (Demonstrated Concepts), Chris Bean (TacticalADV), Sam Callahan, and others.

There is also a feature that allows you to “meet up” in virtual space and shoot together with friends. The avatars are quirky, a bit like Lego people, but it is still a fun way to get some practice in with friends who live far away. You can record video of you shooting stages and snap pictures of your high scores to share. A few social media pages have even popped up dedicated to the use of this particular system. Users share their videos, and often I see stage approaches I hadn’t considered.

Final Thoughts

ACE XR is compatible with the Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3 and 3S. I’ve played it on all of them. If you can swing the price increase, get the 3. It’s worth the upgrade: less lag, more storage.

Overall, I find it VR practice to be highly useful. It’s not 100% of my dry practice routine, but it has definitely absorbed a good chunk of it. It’s a phenomenal tool to get folks to dry fire more and have fun doing it. If you decide to use ACE XR in the future, come find me: ApacheDDB (Dan Brady).

For further exploration, read Matt Little’s thoughts on using the ACE XR in pursuit of making Grand Master in USPSA from October 2024 here.