coloradokevin
Member
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2008
- Messages
- 3,285
Why is it that the "Don't EVER dry fire your gun" myth still seems to persist, even among so-called experts, and especially with guns where dry-firing is a totally safe practice?
In the past week I've heard people being told not to dry fire AR-15s in two different gun stores, and in one case the employee gave the customer a butt-chewing about how he might have "ruined the firearm" after he tested the trigger (before receiving a warning about the supposed "dangers" of dry-firing).
For those of you who may not have figured this out yet, that's utter nonsense with most of today's guns. I'm not saying that every single gun is safe to dry fire, but an AR-15, a Glock, most bolt guns, and many other common firearms are completely safe to dry fire.
In some of my guns that I've trained extensively with I'm sure I've dry-fired them far more than 10,000 times each, without issues.
I won't dry fire a bow, I won't dry fire an AR-15 with the upper receiver removed (without a hammer block), and I won't dry-fire old collector pieces. But, to suggest that you'll damage a modern combat-platform firearm by dry firing it is simply silly. I've been regularly dry firing one of my Glocks since 1996, and one of my AR-15s since 1997… no problems.
Whew… ::End Rant::
I fear I may have just opened the flood gates on this subject… Flame away if you'd like, but please back it up with actual evidence of damage done, not anecdotal reports from gun shop employees. Every competitive shooter I know routinely dry fires, and very few ever use snap caps.
In the past week I've heard people being told not to dry fire AR-15s in two different gun stores, and in one case the employee gave the customer a butt-chewing about how he might have "ruined the firearm" after he tested the trigger (before receiving a warning about the supposed "dangers" of dry-firing).
For those of you who may not have figured this out yet, that's utter nonsense with most of today's guns. I'm not saying that every single gun is safe to dry fire, but an AR-15, a Glock, most bolt guns, and many other common firearms are completely safe to dry fire.
In some of my guns that I've trained extensively with I'm sure I've dry-fired them far more than 10,000 times each, without issues.
I won't dry fire a bow, I won't dry fire an AR-15 with the upper receiver removed (without a hammer block), and I won't dry-fire old collector pieces. But, to suggest that you'll damage a modern combat-platform firearm by dry firing it is simply silly. I've been regularly dry firing one of my Glocks since 1996, and one of my AR-15s since 1997… no problems.
Whew… ::End Rant::
I fear I may have just opened the flood gates on this subject… Flame away if you'd like, but please back it up with actual evidence of damage done, not anecdotal reports from gun shop employees. Every competitive shooter I know routinely dry fires, and very few ever use snap caps.