after cleaning dry fire???

[Paul82]

Every time after I clean my shotgun I have to dry fire it so I can uncock it. Can it hurt the gun to leave it cock 24/7? I would not like to dry fire it but I heard leaving guns cocked are bad??? mossberg shotgun.

btw if you leave it cocked you have to press the little tab to pull the slide back you cant pump it.

 

[RandKL]

Unless you have an older hammer gun with a short firing pin, your shotgun is fine to dry fire. Don't worry about it. It's cheap practice. Dry fire it all you want.

richard

 

[TomADC]

Same is true for the O/U's that have the flat leaf style hammer springs, but with those you can use snap caps, pull the foreend off and clean it after you reassemble just don't break it open againf the the hammer springs are relaxed.
I don't think the coil springs are affected much.

 

[zombienerd]

I dry fire both my 870 and Maverick 88 all the time. Never had an issue.

Then again, I don't see the issue with leaving them cocked either.

 

[average_shooter]

I'm pretty sure my shotgun has been cocked at least 95% of the time for the past 5 years. I don't shoot much shotgun so it tends to sit a lot, but every time I want it to go bang it does so just fine. I don't think it will hurt a modern gun with modern coil springs much if at all to leave it cocked in between uses. But if it really concerns you just get a snap-cap.

 

[harmonic]

It's all spring steel, right? This discussion comes up frequently re handgun magazine springs. It's not leaving a spring compressed that dulls the spring. It's the cycle of compressing/decompressing that wears out the springs.

Leaving a shotgun cocked that uses modern spring steel isn't going to hurt it.