On dry firing.

Monday, June 22, 2009 Filed in: General gun stuff, Revolvers

One of the great advantages of the double action revolver is that the mechanism makes dry firing easy. Unlike the majority of autoloaders, you don't have to break your grip to operate the slide or recock the hammer; just maintain your grip and pull the trigger, over and over. As a result, I suspect most revolvers are dry fired with greater frequency than most autos.

Various pundits have opined over the years that it is perfectly safe to dry fire any modern gun without regard to mechanical consequences. Some have even gone so far as to claim snap caps to be some sort of conspiracy against dry fire!

In my experience, that point of view is a bit misguided. I recommend the use of snap caps for any extensive dry fire practice, and with good reason: I have to fix the guns that break!

The problems involve broken firing pins, both hammer mounted and the in-frame variety. I do occasionally see broken pins that, upon investigation, would seem to have been caused by dry fire practice. Colt revolvers are probably the worst offenders; their firing pins tend to be harder than those of other makes, and subsequently a tad more brittle. I've seen many broken pins in Pythons and Detective Specials, and more than a few in the other models. If you have a Colt, I consider snap caps an absolute must.

Smith & Wesson revolvers seem to be a bit better in this regard, as I've not seen the number of broken pins that I have with the Colt products. They will occasionally break, however, and as a result I do recommend the use of snap caps if one is planning to do a significant amount of dry firing.

I've never seen a broken Ruger firing pin (though now that I've put this in print I'll no doubt hear about a rash of them!) However, snap caps seem to reduce peening of the back side of the firing pin, which serves to maintain ignition reliability. I don't consider their use as important as for their competition, but I believe them to be a good long-term care strategy.

-=[ Grant ]=-

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