Why not dry fire a rimfire rifle?
- Thread starter heavyshooter
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I personally switched to snap caps because it takes me about three times as long to fumble an empty into the chamber as it does a snap cap. I dry fire for 1-2 hours a day and the little bit of money spent on snap caps is absolutely worth the aggravation saved thereby.
Having said that, if the OP's need is just to have something in the chamber to unload his spring upon, and is not dry firing extensively for practice, then the empty case is the perfect solution, IMO.
This applies to coil springs only:
heavyshooter -
RE: Sweeney's quote.
When you learn more about gun springs, you may find that chrome silicon springs are affected very little by normal use. Cycle them, compress them, cycle them some more. As long as you stay elastic and don't go plastic (don't deform the wire) their life span is nearly the same as yours.*
So Sweeney's quote has less meaning for high quality chrome silicon springs.
However, much of the gun industry is still in the Dark Ages. Plain music wire springs are still common. When they are first compressed, they take a mild 'set', which means that the free length shortens slightly. Then it begins to lose spring rate in tiny increments with each compression cycle, until it finally cannot store the energy necessary to function the gun. So the Sweeney quote may have some validity if the gun depends upon full spring energy when new, but loses some spring energy during its life.
*Footnote: Your throttle spring on your car is chrome silicon. That's why you don't have to change it every 3000 cycles like a plain music wire gun spring. 3000 cycles is one or two months of driving for most car owners. If the gun industry were to adopt chrome silicon coil springs (at 20 or 30 cents per spring) this entire debate will be lost to the dust of history. But the gun industry chugs along happily on 18th century spring technology, just to save 2 bits. ISMI makes chrome silicon replacement springs for guns at the same cost or less than Wolff Gunsprings, but most gun owners don't buy them because they just don't know the difference.
Can you imagine what would happen if the four suspension springs on your car were plain springs? All cars would sit on the ground after a year or two.
Go learn about springs on your own. Don't trust any of us, including me, until you get third-party confirmation.
heavyshooter -
RE: Sweeney's quote.
When you learn more about gun springs, you may find that chrome silicon springs are affected very little by normal use. Cycle them, compress them, cycle them some more. As long as you stay elastic and don't go plastic (don't deform the wire) their life span is nearly the same as yours.*
So Sweeney's quote has less meaning for high quality chrome silicon springs.
However, much of the gun industry is still in the Dark Ages. Plain music wire springs are still common. When they are first compressed, they take a mild 'set', which means that the free length shortens slightly. Then it begins to lose spring rate in tiny increments with each compression cycle, until it finally cannot store the energy necessary to function the gun. So the Sweeney quote may have some validity if the gun depends upon full spring energy when new, but loses some spring energy during its life.
*Footnote: Your throttle spring on your car is chrome silicon. That's why you don't have to change it every 3000 cycles like a plain music wire gun spring. 3000 cycles is one or two months of driving for most car owners. If the gun industry were to adopt chrome silicon coil springs (at 20 or 30 cents per spring) this entire debate will be lost to the dust of history. But the gun industry chugs along happily on 18th century spring technology, just to save 2 bits. ISMI makes chrome silicon replacement springs for guns at the same cost or less than Wolff Gunsprings, but most gun owners don't buy them because they just don't know the difference.
Can you imagine what would happen if the four suspension springs on your car were plain springs? All cars would sit on the ground after a year or two.
Go learn about springs on your own. Don't trust any of us, including me, until you get third-party confirmation.
heavyshooter
Member
Ants,
I will take you advice and confirm your information with a third party, but it was pretty convincing. And you have addressed my spring compression concern.
Heavy
I will take you advice and confirm your information with a third party, but it was pretty convincing. And you have addressed my spring compression concern.
Heavy
280shooter
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I always used a spent case in the chamber of my 22's,when i was working on the trigger and replace it after a while.soft brass wont hurt the firing pin,if you dry fire,But you will flaten your firing pin,or break it,
Crazy Fingers
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I don't see how it is such a big deal. Most .22s do not have bolt hold backs on their magazine. 90% of the time I find out the magazine is empty when I pull the trigger and just get a click. I am positive I'm not the only one that does this.
I have yet to see it ever cause a problem.
I have yet to see it ever cause a problem.
This is a wz 48 Polish "Mosin" trainer, which I imagine had about two or three decades worth of Polish recruits dry firing it.
The gun seems to be about as accurate as I can get with the iron sights at 50 yards, but it FTFs a lot. Even with the bolt nut fully tightened (which tends to slip quite a bit in these guns) I could not get quite a few cartridges to light off no matter how many times I re-seated it. Maybe 1 in 10, when I know Fed 510 seems to be about 1/100 as far as duds go.
My modern .22s, I dry fire after cleaning or practicing with the trigger, but I make an honest attempt to not do it too much.
graygun
Member
Dry firing is releasing the fp to a no-load condition if it's just "striking" air. Will this have an undue wear affect on the spring? I personally don't like causing a mechanical action that is not met by a corresponding "load".
What say you mech gurus?
What say you mech gurus?
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