The Mantis Laser Academy is an add-on for dry fire that helps time your shots better than just using a timer with a PAR beep, it provides accuracy feedback, and it’s kind of fun to duel against someone else. I asked Mantis to send me one of these for review so I could dry fire while it was super cold outside and they sent it.
So, the general idea is that you put a laser bullet into your gun, use that to fire a laser whenever you press the trigger, then the app on your phone picks up the laser and where it hit on the target, and it times out the hits accurately. If your gun is DA/SA, you could just run it in DA mode. If you want an SA trigger pull, or you’re running an SA-only gun, you can rip the slide back in between shots or just cock the hammer if you’re running a hammer gun like a 1911.
To get all that rolling, the laser academy comes with:
- Laser bullet in the cartridge of your choice (I went 9mm)
- A dowel to remove the bullet when you’re done (it has no rim so you can rack the slide or whatever during training)
- A pile of targets on nicer card stock
- Some blue sticky tack to put your targets on the wall
- Tripod to hold your phone and aim it at the targets
- A phone app that recognizes the targets and has a bunch of modes
So what can you use it for?
There are a couple things that you can do in dry fire with the laser academy that you can’t do without:
Record draw times really accurately: Personally, this is the use case I found to be the most compelling. To test draw speed most of the time, you’d set your PAR time on your shot timer to faster and faster times until the wheels come off. This setup records the time to that shot and it tattles if you really fuck up on accuracy because it’ll show your hits on target. It automatically logs the times as you go, so you will figure out your draw speed very quickly.
Duel against a friend: You can run 2 targets side by side and put the app into duel mode. I’m a competitive guy, I like anything that can be turned into a competition, including practice. You’ll need an extra laser bullet, but the target sets already come with some duplicates of some of them, so you’ll be set there.
My kids and other family members also really liked the duel mode. It was a fun way to get some practice in while it was -30C outside.
Record times from low ready, high compressed, etc: I mean, the app isn’t your boss, do whatever you want. If there’s a shooting position you want to practice for time+accuracy, do it.
Accuracy practice: If you want to go longer range and practice for accuracy, that’s very easy. If the laser bullet isn’t quite lined up with your sights, you can quickly setup the offset in the app and then it’ll figure out the rest.
The portable version comes in a compact carrying case that’d be decent if you want to use it while on the road at a match or if you’re in a smaller room. The “regular” version also comes with a bigger phone stand and bigger targets that’ll work better in a bigger room or if your accuracy sucks and you need the bigger targets.
Caveats
Practice good safety. No live ammo in your dry fire area, double check all guns before you get started.
This is an addition to a dry fire routine, not a replacement.
Don’t look for the laser, focus where you’re supposed to.
Conclusion
The kit might look expensive until you see that other laser training kits are in the $200 range. IMO, most of the cost is the specialized app. IPSC, USPSA, 3 Gun, IDPA, and other dry fire nuts are just not a big crowd, so the market for something like this is limited. And compared with a shot timer, the cost is decently low.
Just for the duel mode itself, it’s a lot of fun.
