Dry Firing

[FlyPenFly]

I personally have snap caps and use those but I've been told that this is an obsolete myth that dry firing hurts the pistol. I'm hearing that modern quality firearms (Sig, HK, Glock, CZ, etc) don't really care too much how many times they've been dry fired and a pistol that breaks from dry firing is probably one that would have failed on you anyway. Good thing you found out from dry firing.

What are people's thoughts on this?

 

[Frosty_]

Most modern guns are capable of being dry fired. Your manual will tell you if your firearms is allowed to be dry fired. Dry firing, however, is not a good practice for weapons of antiquity, as the metalurgy today is not what is was back then. Some brittle pins were/are susceptible to failure.

A good rule of thumb, despite what any modern day striker fired fans may say, is to do as you do and use a snap cap, all the time, even for disassembly. This will reduce wear and increase the life of you firearm, in the end saving you $$, remember metal hitting metal is NEVER your friend.

And always use snap caps for the oldies too.




Shoot safely, shoot often and share your sport.

 

[Mastiff]

Dry firing just a few times will destroy the original firing pin on a CZ-52. An aftermarket replacement is highly recommended . FWIW.

 

[Nnobby45]

A Sig Tech, back when you were allowed to talk to a real smithie at Sigarms, told me to always use snapcaps. The firing pin has a tendency to want to keep goin if it doesn't hit something. Snapcaps keep the FP return sprg. from getting as stressed out, also.

If you use A-Zooms with poly "firing pin", you don't get little minute pieces of brass in your gun's mechanism as with some brands.

 

[32winspl]

Just my opinion, ok?
Don't make a habit of dry firing a rimfire. If you do, you'll evenyually flatten the firing pin and peen the breech end of the chamber. When this happens, you'll start having misfires because the pin will have become wide enough to no longer reliably "crush" the rim of the case (it contains the priming compound).
As for centerfire rifles, I havent dryfired mine much, but I have no fears that they'd be hurt by it.
As for pistols, I must say that most of my experience is with 1911s. I used a Springfield Armory shooting in IPSC and USPSA for several years, and practiced a lot. I KNOW that I put more than 170,000 rounds through it. I'm also pretty sure that I dry fired it in the 200,000 range, mostly in drawing from my competition holster, dropping the safety, and firing at a little orange dot on my wall (brick on the other side). When disassembling the slide for detailed cleaning, I always inspected the firing pin and never found any cracks or ring forming where the pin contacted the back of the of the firing pin hole. I did occasionally replace springs; and Wilson Shok-Buffs.
I've never read an owner's manual that advised against dryfiring (except rimfires) and if I come across one, it'd make me seriously question the quality of the gun. One company, NAA I think, actually encourages the owner to df a lot to be familliar with trigger control.
One other thing, if I had a S&W or the like with the firing pin mounted on the hammer, I wouldn't do it much. Probably should have said that on the front end of this letter.