22LR snap caps for 10/22

[judaspriest]

Has anyone been able to find usable snap caps in 22LR?

I don't have much experience with the caliber, but have heard that dry firing without a snap cap is really bad for all rimfire firearms, much more so than for the centerfires. So unless you carefully count your shots, you always end up dry-firing once per drum when you run out of ammo. An ideal solution would be some sort of a hold open on empty, but the 10/22 does not work this way because of its drum mags. So I always end up striking against an empty chamber at the end of each drum, which is supposed to be quite detrimental.

Also, the 10/22 does not seem to have a way to bring the hammer down without firing (to relieve the spring tension), something that a snap cap would also resolve.

Unfortunately, I could not find any commercial 22LR snapcaps. I bought the AZoom's 22LR, but when they arrived, they turned out to be "dummy rounds" not designed for repeated dry-firing. So far, I've been using spent shells which does the job, but is a real nuisance (they wouldn't feed from the mag and to insert them into the chamber, I need to use small pliers).

Has anyone found a more convenient solution to this?

Thanks,

JP

 

[Matt-J2]

The only snap caps I have seen for these are red plastic. I've also seen those dummy rounds for working the action, blue aluminum IIRC.

Midway has the plastic snap caps here.

 

[judaspriest]

These, according to the reviews won't cycle through the magazine and inserting them by hand into the 10/22 chamber likely won't be any easier than just a spent 22 shell...

 

[ArmedBear]

Ditto on the red plastic.

Dry-firing the 10/22 shouldn't hurt anything as long as you make double-damn sure the metal pin that functions as a firing pin stop is in place!!!!

The reason it's a problem to dry-fire a rimfire is that the firing pin dings the edge of the chamber. However, many rimfires are designed to stop the firing pin just before it hits the chamber face. This includes the 10/22 -- a good thing, too, since the 10/22 doesn't have last-shot-hold-open like most other currently-made guns, so I often found myself dry-firing it when I was out of rounds at the range.

If the pin is not in place, dry-firing can trash the gun. The manual shows which pin I'm talking about, with a similar warning.

Now I'm not suggesting that you do dry-fire practice without any caps, but when decocking for storage, cleaning, etc., just pull the trigger when you are sure the gun is unloaded. It will be fine.

Do not assume this is true for any other gun. This varies from gun to gun; read your manual and heed the warnings. There have been recent guns made, not cheap ones, either, that can be destroyed by dry-firing. Most notable is the Sig-Hammerli target pistol.

 

[jzimm9mm]

The 10/22 manaul says:

8. With the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, push the safety to the “off”
position and pull the trigger to decock it. The rifle can be “dry fired” for
practice as long as it is empty and pointed in a safe direction.

Jer..