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25 Trigger Pulls a Day....

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depserv:
I was under the impression that as long as your gun isn't a rimfire dry fire doesn't hurt it, no matter how many times it's done.  But apparently there is disagreement on that, or no one would be talking about snap caps.  You'd think the gun community would know for certain one way or the other by now.  All I know is I've dry fired my Glocks hundreds and probably thousands of times and they still work.  Any old experienced gunsmith or gun engineer out there who knows one way or the other? 

JTH:

--- Quote from: depserv on February 07, 2015, 04:04:33 PM ---I was under the impression that as long as your gun isn't a rimfire dry fire doesn't hurt it, no matter how many times it's done.  But apparently there is disagreement on that, or no one would be talking about snap caps.  You'd think the gun community would know for certain one way or the other by now.  All I know is I've dry fired my Glocks hundreds and probably thousands of times and they still work.  Any old experienced gunsmith or gun engineer out there who knows one way or the other? 

--- End quote ---

The answer is:  For most guns, to most levels of dryfire, it is completely harmless to practice.

That being said---I know three people directly (and more indirectly) that have had to return slides to Glock due to significant amounts of dryfire over time cracking the breechface.

Other pistols will demonstrate similar issues.

However, it took tens of thousands of dryfire reps to cause this to happen.  If you dryfire 10 minutes a day for a year, you should be using a snap-cap.

If you dryfire once every couple of months, chances are it will cause no problems.

But of course, since you ARE dryfiring daily (at least 5 minutes a day, right?) you should probably use a snap-cap.

Example: 


Bottom line is that dropping the hammer on a modern weapon isn't a big deal.  If you are going to do good dryfire practice, however, a snap-cap is a good plan.

Fly, I'd suggest just buying spring-loaded snap-caps.  (My biggest pet peeve of snap-caps for Glocks is that you then practice only partial slide-racking to reset the trigger, which is a bad idea.  Unless you have a whole mag full and you rack out all of them then reload them for the next set of 17 trigger pulls, which wastes a LOT of time...)  I made a bunch of dummy rounds with silicon in the primer pocket, but I don't really think that is enough resistance to protect from eventual damage.  So, actual snap-caps for me.

OnTheFly:
For the XD/XDm pistols, the rumored wear for repeated dry fire is on the roll pin which retains/captures the striker.  People insist that without a snap cap, the rear of the striker slot that the roll pin goes through bangs into the roll pin, eventually breaking it.  I purchased a much more sturdy spiral roll pin and have not had an issue since.

It seems to make sense on most all modern firearms.  The firing pin/striker is pushed forward by a spring.  It will travel until it stops and the only way it does that is by striking metal on metal.  Dropping it at a match to demonstrate to the RO that it is empty and hammer down/striker forward, is not enough wear to worry about.  But thousands of trigger pulls for dry-fire, which is what you have to do to get better, will cause some wear.

Fly

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