I have a M70 in 7mmRemMag. Is daily dry fire bad for your gun? I have a few snap caps, but after a bit of shooting the plastic primers look concave, and I wonder if they help at all. What do you all think???

when I close the bolt on an empty chamber I first pull the trigger and then let the bolt down and there is no drop of the firing pin and I have released the spring on the firing pin.

It don't hurt at all to store the gun with the firing pin cocked.....not at all.....so there's very little reason to dry fire a (at least) bolt action rifle.

That said it happens and I've never encountered any problems because of it.....not with any American made firearm not Mauser.

I did braek firing pins in an American Arms double once by dry firing......and I believe dry firing a 22 rimfire can damage the chamber a bit.

\As far as I'm concerned it's over rated as a bad thing to do.....Avoid it but it's not the worst thing ever done.

Dry firing is probably not a good idea, but I doubt it will hurt your Remington if you did occasionally.

Hello Wolfgar,
Having shot long range matches for several years and used mostly Rem. 700 actions or one of their clones, dry firing is almost a daily practice. In fact at the range an accepted practice is to dry fire 2-3 times, call your shots, and then fire one live round. Saves on ammo and accomplishes the same goal-learning to hold the rifle and break the shot when the target picture is center X. Most match shooters will dry fire a lot regardless of the mfg. of action. If the mfg. would tell the shooter to not dry fire, probably would not use that action. Just my own experience and have never broken a firing pin in over 40 years and many thousands of rounds fired.

In a modern guns it won't hurt. I know target shooters that literaly dry fire their guns thousands of times with no problem. I had a discussion last winter with a gunsmith that was an authorized Remington repair center. He was coaching a small bore team and he encoraged them to dry fire alot.

Now if your are talking older guns or expensive doubles I would limit dry firing.

IF the gun is a rimfire or a double, dry firing is bad.

otherwise, it's SOP for competition shooters and some military training...

go figure
jeffe

Since the Sixties, I've dry-fired centerfires hundreds of times more than I live-fire and I've never had any problems. It's part of being "one with my rifle," and I like to think it helps me improve.

I also agree with the others that one should avoid dry-firing rimfires. The firing ping is designed to crush the rim of the ammunition against the barrel chamber face, and the ammunition cushions the fall of the firing pin. If the ammunition is not there, nothing slows down the fall of the hardened firing pin and you can get a peening effect at the chamber/barrel, possibly denting the chamber/barrel, possibly causing misfires in the future (though I've never seen this), or possibly causing the firing pin to break. I generally avoid this, but still do it occasionally.

Jaywalker

Its already been said but worth repeating... center-fire bolt actions - yes its OK. Break-actions and rimfires - NO it's not OK. In the case of the break actions, frequently the FP is broken on opening the action if it is not a spring loaded pin. I've also had two ocassions personally where the pins broke seemingly from being unsupported as they fell. Also, a break-action gun is cocked by opening. Never ever drop the hammers on a double after removing the barrels unless you know how to re-cock the gun without the barrels as thats the only way the barrels will be able to be replaced! As for rimfires, not only do their firing pins contact the breech but worse, most have a wedge shaped point to the pin which causes a chisle-like action to indent the breech AND raise that displaced metal around it - particularly extruding into the chamber. This impares feeding and extraction.

One point of clearification on rimfires. The Ruger 10/22 and the MarkI thru MkIII can all be dry fired as the firing pin is captured at full forward before it extends past the breech face.

Do not dry fire any old Marlin pump shotguns or Win 97's, the firing pin tips on these have a tendancy to snap off easy.

All the highpower shooters I know dry fire thier rifles. They also have a spare striker assembly in thier kit.

Thanks fellas. Mine is a M70, and I would like to dry-fire as practice in the house. I just don't want to break the pin the day before my hunt in august! What do you think of the snap caps? The primers do get dented-in....are they still effective??

There are spring loaded snap caps, I don't know if they are made by "snap cap" though. Get a spare stiker assembly for it, then don't worry about it.

I live in the country, in the morning there are usually a lot of deer out front for dry fire practice, it hasn't harmed any of my bolt rifles yet and I don't see where it ever will.
Timan

Snap caps seem the way to go, even if the spring plunger becomes dented with repeated use, it is still cheaper to replace them at a few dollars each rather than run into a problem with your rifle at the least opportune moment no matter how unlikely theis may see.

I think some one like A-Zoom may make what you are looking for

FWIW,

When I was in bootcamp back in the dark-ages we spent the first week at the rifle range doing little more than dry firing our M14’s. They called in “snapping-in†and over that week each rifle was probably dry fired thousands of times.

When it came time to start firing live rounds for qualification I don’t recall one single broken part on any of those rifles.

I still dry fire all of my rifles quite frequently and have never had a broken firing pin or a problem that would be attributable to dry firing.

Much ado about nothing, IMO.

I use the snap caps from A-Zoom when dry-firing without any problems. Being fairly new to rifles, it makes alot of difference to work the bolt, pull the trigger, work the bolt, etc. A much more realistic approach than with nothing in the guns.
That may just be me, but if it works for me then I'm okay with that.

Also, A-Zoom has the snap caps in just about any caliber you could want.

I don't know of any centerfire bolt guns that can break a firing pin by dry practice. Most bolt designs have a firing pin stop that limits protrusion, and also stops forward movement of the striker.

I always figure rimfire rifles and breakk action guns might not like dry firing, so I use snap caps in the chambers on those.

A clerk in a gun store once told me not to dry fire a SAko rifle, claiming it would break. He didn't know what would break, or how it would happen though. I put it down to gun clerk noise.

jim

For those few who still think its a bad idea I hope they are never in a custom rifle shop while a trigger is being adjusted.