"Safe" direction from inside a home

I can understand how a ND would make you paranoid, but the wonderful part about your revolver is that there is no magazine to drop free and accidentally leave a round chambered. No live ammo in the room. Double and triple check the gun, and use snap caps.

Be very deliberate about everything, and you should be fine with your revolver. It just means mental clarity needs to be a priority.

A friend of mine years ago had an ND while dry firing and took out a perfectly good light switch in his apartment. He did all of the right things and everything was going great until he got a phone call. After he completed his call he commenced dry firing again......BANG. He forgot that he had loaded his revolver while speaking on the phone.

Which direction did you say was safe?

You could just go to your local library and 3-D print up half a dozen .44 mag dummies - or even print up a blue cylinder with blocked chambers for your revolver... once you download the plans for your gun.

I don’t know if they still do, but Ruger used to ship their revolvers with an orange disk between the cylinder and frame that made it, so the gun couldn’t be loaded. Maybe you could dig one up.

There are different ways to think about this - either you are confident in your ability to prove and maintain the condition of your firearm for practice, or you aren’t. Setting up a safe backstop in a condo seems like too much for the circumstances. Where the round goes matters, of course, but if you accidentally shoot, you’re going to be charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm, reckless endangerment, who-knows-what-else, etc.

If you are confident, make it unloaded and click away.

If you aren’t, don’t ever pull the trigger unless you’re in an environment where a shot is acceptable.

I’ve seen people fire into clearing barrels because they didn’t clear first, and one time through an office wall while on a deployment because he “knew” his M16 was empty. Me? I never pulled the trigger when clearing and I didn’t dry fire off the range.

Point the revolver at the bucket cock it and pull the trigger six times. Then you are sure you are safe if you need to take it that far. Loading six red snap caps in your revolver and then verifying that all six are indeed red would be what I would do. The laser dot will move around if you are not holding the aim exactly on target when you pull the trigger. Using this type of laser is cheaper than a dedicated red dot for that firearm.

Always verify with your eyes. Dropping a magazine and cycling the bullet will clear a gun 99% of the time but it's possible a bullet can be jammed into the rifling and not pull out.

Any Ruger redhawk should be simple to verify if clear. Looking through the frame window should show whether any thing is in the cylinder. I always open up the cylinder and push the ejector rod just for added safety along with looking at the cylinder.

I prefer not to use snap caps. When dry firing I prefer to verify nothing is in he gun.

I am of the mindset that says all four rules always apply. It is easy for me to dry fire without busting the rules because I live in a house with a basement. I have never had the loud noise happen, but if it ever did, the target on the basement wall is backstopped by the planet.

The ideas about rigging something bulletproof in your condo are the least-bad suggestions so far. Is there somewhere else you could go to dry fire?

The most recent one was Friday night I went hammer down on a rimfire rifle, which had no magazine, that I had just cycled the bolt on, yet it fired. So that was a supposedly empty gun, verified in the presence of a range officer,

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Care to explain that further? Because there must have been a mistake somewhere. Cycled the bolt, then removed the mag? Now, I might see it if a round in the chamber failed to extract with the bolt cycle, after being struck once, and then firing again. But I had just such a round, CCI Select, get stuck just this weekend,not once but twice in a 10/22 in the same session, and neither round fired upon repeated cycle/trigger repeats. Had to remove each round with a cleaning rod from the muzzle end (after a really long time waiting for a delayed fire!). After the second, I stopped loading the CCI Select in that rifle...for good.

I have a 458 Lott with a set trigger. The day came when I was doing some target shooting, and the gun fired when I set the trigger. It was a bit of a surprise but it was pointed down range so no harm done. So I thought an easy solution was not to set the trigger. After a few more rounds, I put another round in the chamber and as the bolt closed, it fired again; once again with the gun pointed down range. A full house load with 500 grainers and no brake. Yea, I got the gun fixed.

My policy is NEVER to pull the trigger unless the gun is pointed in a direction that it will not do irreparible or embarrassing harm if it accidently goes off. Whether the gun was double, triple or quadruple checked, if I lived in a condo with no safe direction to fire, I wouldn't dry fire it but that's just me.

If a 22LR failed to extract, I guess, based on recent experience, I'd suggest testing with the same product to see if it happens again in the same gun. My CCI Select problem was as pictured below. The 5 rounds, in order from left to right, are CCI Minimag--CCI Select (failed to extract)---CCI Select unfired and unchambered---CCI Select (failed to extract)---Remington Subsonic 38 grain. I don't know for certain if the "ring" around the bullet of the two that failed to extract were because the round was jammed into the chamber or whether it was created by the brass cleaning rod from the bore used to extract them (I'm betting the latter), but both were stuck tight. I noticed these CCI select bullets are a little less tapered than the CCI Mini-mag or Remington rounds, so I'm speculating that the barrel (Green Mountain) has a tighter chamber that didn't like the CCI Select profile. The 10/22 bolt fired on both rounds with a normal firing pin mark on one of them and a light mark on the other, but neither fired upon a second or third strike and both were wedged into the chamber tight enough that I couldn't turn them to strike another part of the rim, nor could I pry them out with a dental pick under the rim. I'm open to other thoughts than my bullet-profile/chamber theory, but regardless, I'm not using up the remainder of my CCI Select in this rifle (I only bought one box to try it out and haven't been impressed....CCI Standard Velocity is more accurate).

Aim at a 5 gallon bucket of sand, dirt or water. Home Depot has buckets for cheap.



If you're worried about it tipping over add a lid. Tape a target on the side.

Or duct tape your phone books together and add a target clear taped at the top and tip them over.

Do phone books still exist anymore? Haven't seen one in years.

berettaprofessor said:

Do phone books still exist anymore? Haven't seen one in years.

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We get one delivered every year.

Quite a bit thinner (maybe an inch and a half thick instead of 3.5 in) than in the 90's or ought's, but maybe the OP has some in his garbage or he could substitute newspapers, coupon books or even outdated real books. Any kind of compressed junk paper works.

If not sand, dirt or water in a bucket. That's cheap.

My Glocks MUST be dry fired to remove the slide for cleaning and again after reassembly to verify function. My golden rule is No ammo in the same room, period. I unload in a separate room, double check, bring the gun to my cleaning station and double check it again. I feel comfortable using this procedure. I can see how a ND happens with ammunition in the equation but if there is NO ammo in the equation there can be no ND.

For all my time carrying and handling guns, when loading/unloading I point at where the wall meets the floor and or into a corner. "Look" behind the wall board and that is where there is a concentration of studs, beams and floor board that will stop even a 44 magnum.

Bandit67 said:

My Glocks MUST be dry fired to remove the slide for cleaning and again after reassembly to verify function. My golden rule is No ammo in the same room, period. I unload in a separate room, double check, bring the gun to my cleaning station and double check it again. I feel comfortable using this procedure. I can see how a ND happens with ammunition in the equation but if there is NO ammo in the equation there can be no ND.

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While laudable, I find it a tad over the top. I own Glocks, take out mag, work the slide to empty the chamber and check, and then proceed to fire and disassemble. To feel the need to physically leave the room? I guess I am either real lucky or just not as manic........This is NOT rocket science; if you do not know how to clear your gun safely and securely, get a revolver.....

It might be over the top to you George but it's just the way I've always done it. No ammo in the same room while cleaning. My entire point was if there is no ammunition there won't be a problem. I'm not a rocket scientist but I certainly know how to clear my pistol. BTW the OP WAS talking about his revolver.

Bandit67 said:

It might be over the top to you George but it's just the way I've always done it. No ammo in the same room while cleaning. My entire point was if there is no ammunition there won't be a problem. I'm not a rocket scientist but I certainly know how to clear my pistol. BTW the OP WAS talking about his revolver.

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And I can have ammo in the same room - sitting in a box or the magazine or something similar without any fear of having live ammo in my gun; and that doesn't matter if it is a revolver or a Glock or similar

Agreed