Dry firing milsurps?

[aprayinbear]

I know this sounds like a pretty basic question but..........

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.) 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?

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[browningautorifle]

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.

[tbonesmith]

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.

[jmoore]

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.

[c&rdaze]

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.

[jmoore]

Good example, C&rdaze! I'd completely forgotten about those. Too right, CZ-52s are NOT to be dry fired.

[Pattern14]

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.

[bearhunter]

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.

[emmagee1917]

...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

[browningautorifle]

Focus men, he asked about military surplus...