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I know this sounds like a pretty basic question but..........:help:
I've been surprised lately when visiting local gun shops to see people dry firing Mosins, Swedes and Enfields without thought or concern. I always thought dry firing could be damaging unless the gun was made for it (as with certain target pistols.) :nono: Am I way off base here?
I'd love to dry fire my guns as a way of practicing, but don't want to damage the firing pins, etc.
What do you guys think?
As a matter of fact, we taught dry firing practice in the army to improve trigger manipulation. There are only certain firearms (rimfire) that you might not want to do that with. The rest are certainly sturdy enough.
I think that doing HEAPS of it can weaken the springs or otherwise be less than ideal, but it's only a real no-no for rim fires where you can damage the face of the chamber and/or the firing pin.
People make snap caps so that the firing pin strikes something in place of the primer or rim for all calibers for doing buckets of dry fire.
I think it's pretty well fine to do dry though.
There is a little extra stress on the firing pin/striker as there's no "cushioning effect" of the soft primer, and the assembly hits its hard stop. I've seen plenty of shotgun f/p failures and other commercial weapons w/ dramas from dry firing, but only one 1891 Argentine firing pin actually break of all the military weapons encountered.
There may be a few others that you must not dry fire. The CZ-52 comes to mind as it hsa a brittle firing pin. As others have said, generally it's fine.
Good example, C&rdaze! I'd completely forgotten about those. Too right, CZ-52s are NOT to be dry fired.
Just to be on the safe side I cut a piece of pencil eraser and glue it into the empty primer pocket of an empty round fitted with a bullet if I want to do a lot of dry firing. Normally though I don't worry about the occasional pull of the trigger on anything other than a rimfire.
x2 P14. If you don't like that idea, buy a "snap cap" in each cartridge configuration. They're cheap, feed nicely and cant be confused with a loaded round. Any decent gun shop will carry them. If not, go on line and google snap caps.
...can't be dry fired. Any gun with an angled in firing pin ( Trapdoors , SXS shotguns , etc.) , or with firing pins with sharp 90 degree angles in them should not be dryfired. Just because a dry firing does not cause a breakage then and there does not mean excessive strain has not been placed on it.
Use snap caps.
Chris
Focus men, he asked about military surplus...
My son and I shoot service rifle highpower and use AR15s. I started with a DCM M1, moved to an M1A (semiauto M14 clone), and I also have a M1903 for Springfield and vintage rifle matches. I can't even begin to guess how many millions of dry fires I've put each through. We practice almost every day. No issues with any of these rifles. I also have a Kimber M84 in .308 for hunting. This Winchester M70 copy's owners manual not only allows dry firing, they recommend it for practice. I don't know about other milsurps but these I have experience with.
Dry fired my Mod. 91 Argentine "one" time and broke the firing pin, you ever try to find a firing pin for a Mod 91? not easy but it can be done. I dont dry fire anything I dont have to.
Regards
BudT
"...can weaken the springs..." Nope. Neither does keeping a mag loaded.
Dry firing any milsurp won't bother it in the least. It's a long recognized military and competitive shooting training technique for sight picture, trigger control and breathing. Not with a rimfire though.
"...CZ-52s are NOT to be dry fired..." Not a milsurp either.
[QUOTE=Sunray;124451
"...CZ-52s are NOT to be dry fired..." Not a milsurp either.[/QUOTE]
And how is a former Czech military pistol NOT a milsurp?
Consider the command "ease springs" for the enfield. (dry fire) but then the design of the striker causes it to stop on the collar, not the firing pin hole
Now if you have ever seen an AG42B on a gun store rack, the trigger snappers can't figure out how to close the bolt.
On inspection arms with the M1, the last step it to pull the trigger after closing the bolt. On the SLR there ain't no way to decock it but to pull the trigger.
For mauser style actions - Lift bolt handle - pull trigger - close bolt - firing pin will ease down w/o the snap.
Yep, I too was always told dryfiring would damage guns. But our Dept of Corrections fire arms instructors had us dry firing our Glocks to practice proper trigger pull, sight allignment, etc.. Surprised me, but I reckon they know what is up.
FB
My personal take on all of this is to dry-fire my equipment as little as PRACTICAL. This is mostly because I do not have three tons of parts in my basement and Mr. Laidler neatly installed in the guest room.
On the Rifle, Short, Magazine Lee-Enfield Mark III*, the cocking-piece butting against the body of the Bolt is what takes the impact on dry-firing. Nevertheless, I have here an Ishapore 1943 with a perfect barrel which has been dry-fired a lot. The firing-pin is broken in two INSIDE the cocking-piece. Fortunately, I HAVE the part and need only get off my over-spec butt and install the thing.
Similarly, on the Pattern of 1914 rifle, which is a pure Mauser design, the cocking-piece butting against the body of the Bolt takes the impact of dry-firing. That said, I have seen a very ugly injury to a man's hand which occurred on a hunt as he was chambering a round in a P.-'14. The firing-pin let go, igniting the round out of battery. The cocking-piece disappeared across the landscape, taking the rear of the firing-pin with it and has not been recovered. MOST of the firing-pin remained in the rifle, only blowing out when pressures rose and gas blow-back through the striker hole in the bolt-face toasted the mainspring. New cocking-piece, striker and spring and the rifle was cured. Now, it is NEVER dry-fired. Fortunately, the shooter regained full use of his hand.
BOTH of these incidents occurred in rifles which were War-time manufacture. Times were rough, delivery schedules were rigid and it can be easy to check to see if a part is hard ENOUGH, but more difficult, on a mass-production basis, to check every part to test if it is TOO hard.
But those both were with rifles which are regarded as suited to dry-firing. Luger pistols, as one example, are known widely to have very hard strikers and they are NOT suited to dry-firing. I dry-fire my Lugers by raising the toggle and letting the weight and mass of the toggle ease the striker down. That said, God HELP the person who attempts to dry-fire my mint 1916 DWM!!!
BTW, John, there IS a way to let down the hammer on an SLR, if we are talking about the FN-FAL type. You allow the action to go forward fully under its own power, rotate the safety to "FIRE" position, pull back gently on the charging-handle and start the bolt-carrier back JUST enough to begin raising the bolt from its locking-recess, pull the trigger and ease the bolt-carrier forward by reducing the amount of pull you are exerting on it. The hammer will slap forward and butt against the carrier, a short strike, and then everything eases forward gently. Works on the SAFN-49 and you can also do much the same thing with the US M-1 (Garand) rifle and that son-of-a-Garand, the M-14/M-15 series and their Chinese copies.
Hope some of this is of some help to someone.