Dry firing a charter arms 38 special

Yes.

I had one years ago with the 2000 on the barrel. Those were supposed to be the most troublesome. I dry fired the snot out of it with no problems.

I still use A-zoom snap caps, but with Charter Arms they will fix pretty much anything if something does go wrong.

I tend to lean toward no on my old originals. Probably silly but we were handling them way back when they first debuted and the alloy frames had a few problems. How many generations back, I know not. I'm sure there is no real problem. Fine guns but without the slickness of the contemporary Smiths and Colts (60s, remember Colt?)

Yes. I dry fired my centerfire Charter Arms a lot to smooth out the action.

SteadyD said:

Can you dry fire a Charter 38 special? Neither the manual nor the website mentions it. I dry fired it probably 25 or 50 times getting a feel for the trigger assuming it was fine as with other Centerfire revolvers before even thinking about it.

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Yes.

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But.

But be prepared for your transfer bar to break, eventually.

Maybe this is not really relevant, but did Charter used to advertise that their firing pins were made out of "beryllium copper" and therefore extra durable? Or was that only the early Charters, or have I gotten it completely mixed up?

lee n. field said:

But.

But be prepared for your transfer bar to break, eventually.

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Really? Have you experienced this yourself, or in the revolvers of others? I have not heard of the danger of breaking transfer bars before, but there are lots of things I don't know. Learning new things is what I like about this place.

Monac said:

Really? Have you experienced this yourself, or in the revolvers of others? I have not heard of the danger of breaking transfer bars before, but there are lots of things I don't know. Learning new things is what I like about this place.

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I have experienced this myself, with 3 different Charter Arms guns.

lee n. field said:

I have experienced this myself, with 3 different Charter Arms guns.

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Wow. I've had an H&R Model 999 with a transfer bar since 1980. I have dry fired it a lot more than I should, but I've never had trouble with the transfer bar. Yet, anyway.

SteadyD said:

I can see how you could damage a firing pin, but how could you hurt the transfer bar in a way that’s unique to dry firing? The transfer bar is receiving the same amount of force regardless of the presence of a cartridge, right?

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What's unique to dry firing (without snap caps) is the fall of the hammer, the transfer bar, and the firing pin with its spring, are not cushioned by the cartridge's primer.

After the first time it happened, all dry firing was with snap caps, which (in this case) doesn't seem to have made a difference. The last time (for the Bulldog I have now) I kept a rough count of the cycles. At around 800 cycles, the transfer bar broke in the usual place, just below the "flag" at the top.

I bought a couple from Charter, and had a local place install one. The lady on the phone said they're "hardened" now. We shall see.

Well Charters must be special as any other revolver like SW and Ruger centerfire can be dry fired.

Not sure why anyone would dry fire a firearm. But hey, click away, it's your guns.

Wife has hers since 08 previous to a hat it was her dads. Plenty of rounds and dry fires with no problem.

Ugly Sauce said:

Not sure why anyone would dry fire a firearm. But hey, click away, it's your guns.

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You dry fire to smooth the action, learn trigger control, learn sight alignment, and learn proper grip during presentation. It’s all a training procedure you can do at home. When you go to the Range you waste a lot less ammo.

I shouldn't have said anything. Sorry.

Ugly Sauce said:

I shouldn't have said anything. Sorry.

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Some people like to sit in front of the TV or watch a Movie and shoot at all the action scenes. A virtual gun battle. For those excessive movements they might want to use snap caps.

Ugly Sauce said:

I shouldn't have said anything. Sorry.

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It's cool, dude.

Rule3 said:

Some people like to sit in front of the TV or watch a Movie and shoot at all the action scenes. A virtual gun battle. For those excessive movements they might want to use snap caps.

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Like the Outlaw Josey Wales. !

I'm going to back up Lee here. I dry fired my .44 Bulldog a lot, primarily to smooth out the trigger, and got it pretty slick. During the course of doing so I broke the transfer bar however. Charter repaired it promptly at no charge. The Charter transfer bar is pretty lightly made compared to the transfer bar in, say, a Ruger.

(edit: trigger, not action)

Ugly Sauce said:

I shouldn't have said anything. Sorry.

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No problems. I waisted a lot of ammo years ago until I learned some things.

Spug said:

I'm going to back up Lee here. I dry fired my .44 Bulldog a lot, primarily to smooth out the trigger, and got it pretty slick. During the course of doing so I broke the transfer bar however. Charter repaired it promptly at no charge. The Charter transfer bar is pretty lightly made compared to the transfer bar in, say, a Ruger.

(edit: trigger, not action)

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Would snap caps help that?

Spug said:

I'm going to back up Lee here. I dry fired my .44 Bulldog a lot, primarily to smooth out the trigger, and got it pretty slick. During the course of doing so I broke the transfer bar however. Charter repaired it promptly at no charge. The Charter transfer bar is pretty lightly made compared to the transfer bar in, say, a Ruger.

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And the Charter Arms transfer bar has a nice sharp corner in it, compared to the Ruger. Even compared to the transfer bar in my Tauruses. Which bend is where it has broken, every time. Looks like metal fatigue.

I think the phrase to g00gle up is "stress riser".

Haywood said:

Would snap caps help that?

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Should. In my experience it hasn't done much more than delay it, maybe.