When is it safe to dryfire?

[scythefwd]

What type of arms is it safe to dry fire? I know ALL rimfires are out due to the whole breaking the firing pin thing.

My blackpowder rifle says no dryfiring in the manual. It uses a transfer bar, and a spring loaded firing pin.

So is it safe to dry fire:

Hammer mounted strikers (no transfer bar, a protrusion on the hammer actually hits the primer)?
With Transfer bar (hammer hits a bar that hits the firing pin)?
Without Transfer bar (hammer directly hits the firing pin)?
Other types that I don't know about?

Why is it safe to dry fire some and not others (I know only of military arms, where dry firing is part of the manual of arms for both clearing the arm and "present arms").

 

[CajunBass]

What type of arms is it safe to dry fire? I know ALL rimfires are out due to the whole breaking the firing pin thing.

Not ALL rimfires can't be dry fired. Rugers rimfires can be. They say so right in the manual. There are probably others now. It's not so much breaking the firing pin as it is that the FP will damage the edge of the chamber. A lot of rimfires today (like Rugers) have a FP block, that stops the FP from hitting the edge of the chamber.

My blackpowder rifle says no dryfiring in the manual.

Then I wouldn't dry fire it. I always take the word of the people who design it, build it and write the book on it, over "some guy on the internet" who might tell you it's ok (or not as the case may be).

The rest of your questions, I'll have to leave to someone a lot more knowledgeable than I am.

 

[scythefwd]

CajunBass,

I know what you mean, but as a general rule it is a problem with rimfires. In general, I only dryfire my milsurps (the non .22 ones) but I am starting to see more can I hurt my firearm by dry firing it type posts here so I started a thread that should show up in searches that should also contain most of the pertinent info (that won't be outdated tomorrow).

 

[Afy]

I dryfire with plastic snap caps.... is that bad?

 

[scythefwd]

Afy,
You aren't dry firing. Your hammer is dropping on something other than an empty chamber. A snap cap is designed to replicate dropping the hammer on a loaded chamber.

 

[halfacop]

Rimfires (exceptions above) and just plan cheaply manufactured firearms are out of the question....

If its a quality firearm then your GTG. Your not going to break the firing pin by dry firing any more then it will down the road after years of service....

Practice away!

 

[nalioth]

Military weapons are designed to be dry fired.

It is part of the manual of arms to dry fire a military rifle/pistol/machine gun/etc. .

Do ya love your milsurps now?

 

[Acera]

(I know only of military arms, where dry firing is part of the manual of arms for both clearing the arm and "present arms").

Dry firing for that purpose is only a small portion of the dry firing that military guns go through. For the most part you are dry firing for trigger pull practice. We dry fired our rifles for practice a lot more than we actually shot them in training.

 

[benzy2]

Many rimfires are safe to fire today. The issue was on certain designs the firing pin could float far enough forward to strike the edge of the chamber. Do this enough and either the firing pin chipped/broke or the chamber face deformed and loading became an issue. On many designs today the firing pin travel is limited and will not reach the chamber face. There is an old trick where you place a small piece of paper in between the chamber face and bolt and dry fire. If the the paper is ripped where the firing pin protrudes then it is not safe to dry fire as it will hit the chamber face. If it doesn't rip the paper then it is safe as the firing pin doesn't make it far enough to hurt the chamber. Even then I find it fairly easy to remove the firing pin on many different rifles to take any concern out of the equation.

 

[scythefwd]

Acera,
I have WAY more rounds down range than dry fire drills. I only did the dry fire drills in basic, and I probably did less than 200 of those (I was keeping my dime on the cleaning rod 90% of the time then). I never did dry fire drills in permanent station, we just went to the range 2-3 times a year. Shoot, I probably cleared my weapon more times than I did a dry fire drill (total hammer drops). I also did a function test every cleaning, so again about 3-4 times a year. The only other time I had to do anything with my weapons were at the Soldier of the Month/Quarter boards (I was lucky enough to weasel my way out of the Year board).

Benzy2, of my .22lr's none are safe to dry fire. My Mossberg M44 is supposed to be, but I won't and my anchutz .... well why risk it?

 

[Acera]

scythefwd, that is why I said training. I did not mean to insinuate that you kept that up when you were assigned to your permanent duty station.

We did more dry firing even then than we did manual of arms. Very little of that after I left basic and AIT.

You guys today don't understand that back in the late 90's those of us in the infantry did not fire that many rounds each year, unlike what they do today. Due to budget restrictions real shooting was not that common even among front line units.

 

[bobotech]

My old Marlin model 70 rimfire rifle was dryfired a lot before I got it. When I got it, it would jam like crazy.

Turns out that the dry firing had peened the edge of the chamber slightly. I bought a 22 caliber chamber ironer and ironed the peening out and it feeds great again.

 

[scythefwd]

Acera, I didn't know that. Back in 98, when I went through... we did more live fire than washer drills. I was at Jackson, and I would bet that we fired more rounds (or blanks) than we dry fired.

 

[Acera]

.misfire.

 

[Guns and more]

I put snap caps in all my firearms now. A-zoom makes the best and they're easy to find, even e-bay.
Cheap insurance.

 

[scythefwd]

Acera,
What do you mean .misfire? We were taught SPORTS, but we didn't practice it till we got to the live fire stuff at the range.

 

[Acera]

Acera,
What do you mean .misfire? We were taught SPORTS, but we didn't practice it till we got to the live fire stuff at the range.

It means that my post had nothing to do with this thread, and I deleted all of the text, but could not get the post to go away.

Covering up for a brain fart.

 

[Roadkill]

For center fire guns you can take an empty shell casing, pop out the primer, and fit a pencil eraser in the primer well. For guns with exposed hammers you can trim down a larger eraser and fit it between the hammer and the pin. Dry fire away.