Let’s face it: Dry-fire practice can be a little dry and dull. Dry fire practice is like eating our vegetables or flossing regularly: Yes, we know we’re supposed to do it, but most of us would rather chow down on a piece of cake than a carrot stick. However, just like skipping the healthy food shows up when you step on a scale, skipping dry fire practice shows up when you go to the range. Anything that helps make dry fire practice more enjoyable will encourage you to do more of it, which in turn improves your real-world performance.
This is the idea behind the Mantis training system. We’ve reviewed a number of this company’s products in the past, from the X10 stand-alone device to the Laser Academy to the Blackbeard AR-15 trainer. All of these products use a sophisticated motion sensor to track your movements as you do your dryfire practice, but the Blackbeard adds a resetting trigger to your AR, allowing you to do multiple trigger pulls with each training run.
The new TitanX from Mantis takes that same multiple-trigger-press functionality and applies it to your defensive pistol. The TitanX is a training pistol that combines the motion-sensing capabilities of the Mantis system with a red laser that activates with each pull and adds in a resetting trigger. The pistol is available now with a form factor that mimics either the Glock G17, G19 or G45, with other versions which mimic the SIG Sauer P320 and P365 available shortly.
Holster draw analysis is a hidden gem of the Mantis system.
The system works with a smartphone app to track your speed and precision, and has preloaded drills and practice runs. The result is a pistol that looks, acts and (almost) feels like a G19, but has a laser-shot system and a resetting trigger so you can “shoot” and record multiple shots with each run.
This alone is reason enough to get a TitanX, but the TitanX has other tricks up its sleeve. First, because the “magazine” is removable and the system ships with two magazines, you can practice your reloads and still retain all the benefits of the Mantis system. For example, one of my favorite drills is the classic El Presidente drill. This drill comes loaded into the Mantis smartphone app, and the app will grade you on things like the speed and smoothness of your draw and the quality of your trigger press. The El Presidente require a reload, though, and the app refused to track my score until I had swapped out the inert magazine inside my pistol for another inert magazine.
The second feature I really liked about the TitanX is that the top of the pistol is cut for an RMR-pattern red dot. Red-dot optics are all the rage now, but one of the problems that newcomers to the dot have is developing a draw that allows them to consistently pick up the dot as they press their pistol out to the target. Practicing with a dot on top of your TitanX lets you get in all the practice you need, without firing a shot.
What don’t I like about the Mantis TitanX? Well, the trigger on it not comparable to the trigger on most guns: It’s too mushy and light to resemble a double-action or a striker-fired trigger, and it moves too much to serve as a stand-in for a single-action gun. Is this a huge issue? No, not really, as I’ve found that it’s the motion of moving the trigger finger that sends the sights off-target, not the actual feel of the trigger.
All in all, though, the TitanX is a worthy addition to the MantisX lineup. With the ability to perform reloads, multiple trigger presses and work with a red dot, it allows you to closely mimic your live-fire training at home, without costing you a penny in ammunition. Speaking of pennies, I haven’t mentioned the TitanX’s number-one selling point: Its price. At just $199, it combines the functionality of a Mantis X10 Elite with the shot-tracking ability of a laser-cartridge and the swappable magazines of training guns almost double its price, making it a real bargain in the world of dry-fire training systems. More information on the TitanX is available at mantisx.com.
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