Dry firing a charter arms 38 special

[GooseGestapo]

My Charter was given to me in 1979 by my wife-to-be as a graduation present for graduation from the police academy. I’ve done a trigger job on it and dry fired it thousands of times over the 4+ decades.
It’s no worse for wear. Very smooth, however...
I’ll let you know if the firing pin ever let’s go. Don’t hold your breath...

 

[Spug]

And the Charter Arms transfer bar has a nice sharp corner in it, compared to the Ruger.

This is true.

 

[Spug]

That said, I still like and trust my .44 Bulldog and would not dismiss the Charter .38 out of hand solely based on this weakness. Although now I'm thinking about buying a spare transfer bar.

There are tradeoffs with a simple, inexpensive and lightweight revolver like this and the transfer bar may be the Achilles' heel of the Charter design.

 

[gonoles_1980]

I use snap caps. My biggest issue is the screw in the cylinder latch keeps coming lose and locking the cylinder. I get tired of taking it apart, putting on locktite and having to redo again after about 200 rounds.

 

[RougeLeader1]

One thing to mention here is that the quality of manufacture has not been the same for all iterations of Charter Arms. It is possible that broken transfer bars (which really should not have any reason to fracture under any kind of operation, much less dry fire) are due to a manufacturing defect.

I have an Undercover from the first iteration of the company. I picked it up used 3 years ago. Since then I have dry fired it about 300 times a month on average just working the action while 'listening' to useless conference calls. I have never had a problem, nor do I anticipate one.

The reason why you see some warnings about dry fire on centerfire revolvers is that back in the day the firing pin was directly attached to the hammer. The connection between the two components is small and thin and is a stress concentrator, as is the case with my 10-4. Under excessive use the connection could fracture. This really was the case back when steel hardening methods were more uncertain and the chances of forming brittle steel was high.

Now, that is wisdom from long ago, and it really didn't even apply in the 60s. Neither myself, my father, my grandfather, or either of my great uncles have broken or have seen a centerfire firearm broken due to dry fire and we have all been avid shooters.