Alfa Blank Pistols: Which One Is Right for Your Dog?

If you're serious about training a hunting dog, a quality blank pistol isn't optional — it's one of the most important tools you'll buy. I've been doing gun introductions for a long time, and I can tell you that gun shyness is preventable. Almost always. Most of the dogs I've seen develop gun shyness problems got there the same way: somebody rushed gun introduction, or they did it wrong.

Blank pistols are part of how you do your dog’s introduction to gunfire the right way.

The advantages of blanks over live ammunition are significant. You can fire a lot of shots.. You can work in areas where you'd never be comfortable with a real gun. And it's a lot safer — for you, for the dog, and for anybody else around. You can gun condition a dog with live rounds, but why add extra risk and all those limitations when you don't have to?

The Three Calibers

We sell the Alfa Blank Pistol in three calibers: the .22, the .209, and the .32. Let me save you some time — for the vast majority of you, the Alfa .32 isn't even worth considering. It's primarily for a small number of field trial participants and track and field folks. .32 blanks are expensive, and it is loud. Cross it off the list.

That leaves you choosing between the .22 and the .209.

The Alfa .22: My Personal Recommendation

The Alfa .22 is our most popular pistol, and if someone asks me to just pick one, this is it.

The advantage of a .22 is that you have options with blanks. My favorites are acorn crimp blanks — they're small, they look like little acorns, and they're quiet for a .22 blank. When you're introducing a young dog to gunfire, you want to start low on the volume scale and work up gradually. Acorn crimps let you do that.

From there you can step up to CCI short blanks, which are a nice, solid, loud blank when you need more volume.

The ability to control volume based on where your dog is in the process is what I like most about the .22.

The .209: The High-Volume Option

The Alfa .209 uses shotgun primers, which are extremely inexpensive and easy to find locally at most gun stores that carry reloading supplies. If you're doing a lot of training and firing a huge number of shots, the economics of the .209 make sense.

The trade-off is that there's only one volume setting: loud. That means with young dogs doing early gun introduction, you don’t have as much control over the volume. You have to start out further away from the dog and move in very gradually to avoid any issues.

One other thing to know: while the primers are cheap to buy locally, they're expensive to ship and regulated differently than blanks. You can't just order a small quantity online,so you’ll have to purchase them in higher quantities.

Most professional trainers I know have both a .22 and a Alfa .209. They use the .22 for puppies and early work, then move to the .209 for regular training once dogs are conditioned. If you're at that level, you'll probably end up there too. For the average bird dog or retriever guy who's going through a couple of dogs over the next five to ten years, the .22 is a solid choice.

Safety

A blank pistol looks like a firearm, and therefore should be treated like one. "It's just a blank" is not a reason to get careless. There's residue, there's gas, there's a flash, and they are loud — point it away from people and dogs. I shoot down behind me or up in the air, always away from everybody. Wear ear protection. Wear eye protection. Wear gloves.

A Few Other Things Worth Having

Get a holster. Sticking a pistol in your pocket works until it doesn't — a good leather pistol holster on your belt keeps your blank pistol where it belongs and means you're not digging around for it when you need it.

Alfa pistols also have a ring on the handle for a lanyard if you want to tie it to your belt loop.

The orange grips are intentional too. They help identify it as a blank pistol at a glance, but more practically: if you drop it in the field, orange is a lot easier to find than black.

Every Alfa comes with a hard shell case and a cleaning brush. Be sure to keep it clean. A lot of these blanks are black powder blanks, and residue builds up. Clean your pistol on a semi-regular basis, keep a little oil on it, and it will last you a lifetime. Most of the problems we see with blank pistols trace back to one thing: people not cleaning them.

Why Alfa Blank Pistols?

There's a big gap in the blank pistol market between cheap and quality, and that gap matters. The inexpensive pistols are inconsistent and they don't hold up. The Alfas are built on an actual pistol frame, they have a swing-out cylinder that makes reloading fast and simple, and they come with a limited lifetime warranty covering parts and manufacturer defects. We’ve sold Alfas since 2010, and have thousands in the field. They're reliable, and reliability is what you need in a training tool.

Alfa’s aren’t cheap. But this is a piece of gear you buy once, take care of, and have for the rest of your training career. That's the right way to look at it.

Not sure about your training situation? Any questions, give us a call: 1-800-624-6378. We're happy to help you find the right setup for your dogs.