One of the requests for things to check out at SHOT was to preview the NEXT area (which showcases manufacturers and vendors that haven’t been to SHOT), and I had decided to make Wednesday a day to look for cool things related to training. Based on that tip, I went by to check out some companies that all had something to offer in that realm—this highlight will be about MantisX.

MantisX has a very simple, but arguably very powerful training tool. Basically it analyzes your trigger pull to give you feedback on deviations from your aiming point.

Yep, that’s it. Were you expecting something bigger? 🙂

The unit hooks onto the front rail. It is super light weight.

The device hooks onto the front rail of your pistol (sorry peeps that have a revolver or other pistol sans rail) and pairs over bluetooth with an app (both iOS and Android; tablets as well). Then as you fire your weapon (dry or live) it will record the position of the gun at the time of trigger pull. The sensors inside give you immediate feedback via the app that identifies any deviations (or a pat on the back if you did good). If you have questions it has some instructional slides to explain the problem and offer correction advice. Finally it stores trending data so you can get feedback over time.

The app gives a very simple display of where your shooting is going awry.

MantisX was awesome enough to give me a T&E unit right on the spot, which Tom G and I played around with back in our hotel room. We were up and running with basically no instructions in a matter of minutes—it took longer to download the app than to figure out how to use it. Based on our dry firing attempts it really does seem to pick up the deviations (we forced some aberrations like heeling, breaking the wrist, thumbing, etc). MantisX does indicate that live fire provided better feedback, but in our limited test it looks VERY promising (and they mentioned that a rifle version is in the works!). Be on the lookout for a more detailed review later!

You can find out more at their website: http://mantisx.com/