dry firing

As I say it depends upon design. Some rifles are not as robust as others. I would not be dry firing a Ruger No1 too much as I am not sure about the pin hammer relationship so why risk it. Same goes for soem lever action rifles. The locla gun club seems to have a rifle out of commission regularly while they await new a firing pin. He had trouble gettign one for a Winchester for some reason. I believe they have had some breakages on Marlinsa s well.

Shotguns are not good for dry firing due to the way the firing pins arcs through the breech face. Some rifles like break action single shots or those built on a shotgun type action are also not suitable for dry firing. I am not sure abotu a lot of the modern designs as I have little experieince with them.
 
Centrefire generally ok with a few design exceptions (as Brithunter has already mentioned).

Rimfire - no way!
 
yes im taking about centrefire sak 85 by the way,i see a lot of rifle instructors say dry fire as much as pos as a matter of practice and to get use to the trigger pull.
might be just as well to use a snap cap?
 
Snap caps are not a bad idea just make sure they are light as a heavy, say solid brass one may strain the extractor/ejector. Remember they were designed to tackle empty cases in the main. Drill cartridges usually had alloy or wooden bullets to reduce this risk.
 
Hi Brit :- one of the farmers that I used to shoot for asked if I knew anything about guns, apparently he'd been gifted his grandads Midlands side-by-side 12 bore and one of the hammers had snapped in half,I told him that I may be able to get one, talk about silly money!! £400 they wanted and that was without fitting and vat, being a farmer he said no, I told him if he didn't mind it not being exactly a match to the other side I'd have a go at making one, the hardest part was the tapered square that the hammer sat on, I made it out of a piece of tool steel, silver steel, hardened it, polished it, tempered to a pale straw, polished again then cold blued it, the only thing I didn't like was the cross hatching on the thumb piece, it was a fraction deeper than the other side, other than that it was spot on, the bluing was a shade darker but ok, I tested it by holding a piece of alu against the breech face and dry firing dozens of times, spot on, the other hammer when pulled hardly left a mark on the alu, when I stripped it out there was so much shite and rust it was hard to believe, the other side was equally as bad plus a broken return spring, so I ended up making a hammer, two new firing pins and two new return springs, the pins I made out of silver steel that had been used as ejectors on a plastic injection moulding machine, the springs I made out of other springs that were to large in diameter so I straightened them then rewound them using a piece of stainless mig welding wire as a mandrel, Dave the farmer was well chuffed, I dropped a couple of cartridges in the tubes he fired them and said that it was good as the right barrel only fired occaisionally, he then said after cleaning it he was putting it away for when his lads grew up and that he was going to get decent secondhand one to "throw" in the back of the range rover, I told him I was selling my spanish S-BY-S two trig 12 bore, he had a go, said yes he'd buy it if the price was right and how much did I want for it, I told him £120, I only wanted a£100 but was expecting him to knock me down, he said yes ok as my gun fitted him better than his grandads so I ended up £120 for shotty £70 for making a hammer and £10 for springs and firing pins I then proceded down to gun shop and bought 20G over and under for pigeon bashing, got the deal of the week, somebody went in the shop bought an Investarms, he took it home, decided he didn't like it, the forend was a darker grain than the butt took it back , they obviously charged him/her a handling fee, and put the gun in the rack as 2nd hand, I walked in and bought it for £225, a £300+ shotty, took it home cleaned all the packing grease out, it had never had a shot through it, not very often I drop on but I did tht day....callie
 
Why take the chance , the price of snap-caps is cheap enough and you can gaurantee the part you want would be out of stock .
 
yes im taking about centrefire sak 85 by the way,i see a lot of rifle instructors say dry fire as much as pos as a matter of practice and to get use to the trigger pull.
might be just as well to use a snap cap?

Dry fire all you want with any quality centre-fire. i've dry-fired my Sako a thousand and one times, and it only improves my trigger technique, removes flinch, etc. etc. practise by putting a 10p coin at the end of the barrel, when it sticks, you're doing it right ;) don't do with with rimfire's. don't do it with shotguns.
 
why would rimfire dry firing be any different from centre fire dry firing?
In some rimfire designs the firing pin impacts the chamber face effectively peening a bump which causes no end of feeding problems!
Some designs the pin cannot reach the chamber face...
 
Why take the chance , the price of snap-caps is cheap enough and you can gaurantee the part you want would be out of stock .

I have snap caps for the shotguns so I can ease the springs but the rifles either hold the trigger back whilst lowering the bolt handle or just dry fire after checking it's clear. The only pin damage I ahve had over the years was due to an faulty and vastly over pressured factory round. The primer pocket was hugely expanded and the primer cup was found in the bottom of the magazine well. The anvil was never found from the primer. After inspection and a replacement striker/pin fitted and test firing the rifle is fine and in use. The importers tried to say it was due to excessive headspace but of course they were quoting SAMMI dimensions and not the Swedish ones which are different. The rifle is a Sporterised Swedish mauser made around 1903-1905.

Now bongo looking at your gun list I can see where your concern comes from however with a properly constructed and produced bolt action dry firing is not an issue. The shock caused by the cartridge firing does not travel to the firing pin or striker then?
 
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