[Jester7677]

we are worried about repeatedly dry firing? what about the dry firing needed to "uncock" the trigger?

I have to ask this too. When you dry fire with a Glock, are you racking it after every trigger pull? I've not tried putting a snap cap in my G26, but I can't see how I'd be able to take more than one dry fire shot with it.

 

[faawrenchbndr]

Snap caps,.....cheap insurance & it just can not hurt.

 

[faawrenchbndr]

No, only smart people listen when Butch speaks.


You new people might not know who Butch is.

He has won the Gunny Challenge twice!

He is Not some keyboard expert, but the real deal!

Yep,........Butch is the only person Chuck Norris stands for when he enters a room. :wow:

 

[faawrenchbndr]

Dry fire all you like... Buy snapcaps if you must to feel secure you won't break
anything but remember its a Glock ffs, not a $20 chinese .22 rimfire rifle...

Anyhow, here's a snippet from page 2 of "The Glock Report" 1992 volume 4.......

Outdated material is bad material.

CAUTION from Glock on Dry Firing!
I do NOT want to get into a "religious battle" here, but I was asked to pass this info along
by a senior technician at Glock-USA's customer service department, so here goes!
[If you doubt it, please contact Glock and ask them yourself]

- Glock-USA stated on 6 September 2007 that we SHOULD use snap-caps for extensive dry fire sessions.

- That the pictures of "punched out" slides I've seen and the damaged product that Glock has replaced are
due to repeated dry-fire sessions without anything to support the area that a case would normally occupy in the chamber.

- Glock has NO caution in the manual (the technician told me that this was an oversight/mistake on their part),
therefore if you don't do this and punch out a slide, they WILL replace it under warranty.
But this is a risk that you run in not using snap-caps.

End of Glock customer service message.

 

[azboricua]

Just bought some Snap Caps for practice. Thanks!

 

[KC Kahr]

While I believe the whole snap cap concept is a good one, the fact remains that these things only provide a slow-down buffer for a very few operations. After which, they do nothing.

If they were tough enough to actually slow down the pin after tens or hundreds or thousands of actions, they would have to be so hard, eventually the firing pin would be damaged.

A sharp-pointed firing pin, especially like Glocks, will pound a hole very quickly in any "primer" material put into these things - brass, goo or any synthetic material, spring or not.

 

[lethal tupperwa]

NOTE

when using a snap cap you do not have to eject it to reset the trigger.

Retract the slide about 1/8 to 1/4 inch-just until the trigger resets.

 

[Butch]

Agreed... I know of no one who's stuffed their striker dry firing...

Firing pin damage isn't the primary damage you avoid by using a snap cap.

 

[Butch]

While I believe the whole snap cap concept is a good one, the fact remains that these things only provide a slow-down buffer for a very few operations. After which, they do nothing.

If they were tough enough to actually slow down the pin after tens or hundreds or thousands of actions, they would have to be so hard, eventually the firing pin would be damaged.

A sharp-pointed firing pin, especially like Glocks, will pound a hole very quickly in any "primer" material put into these things - brass, goo or any synthetic material, spring or not.

I don't believe that's an accurate statement, got any evidence that it's correct?

I have some well used snap caps, and can still hear the difference in the sound of the firing pin hitting the snap cap instead of the rear wall of the breechface.....which is very thin.

 

[KC Kahr]

Firing pin damage isn't the primary damage you avoid by using a snap cap.

I didn't say that.

It's the repeated pounding inside the breech that can weaken/fracture the face. The snap cap theory being that the firing pin is slowed down enough to mitigate the effects of the pounding. A shock absorber. But to be truly effective, the absorbsion should be between the firing pin collar and the area that is contacted - the inner side of the breech.

Just take a looking glass and examine the "primer" area of a used snap cap, especially in the brass/spring designs. Quickly that area becomes dimpled and non-recoverable.

I'm not a scientist or metallurgist, just a shooter and this is my opinion. Disagree as you want, but using a snap cap that has been struck 10 times - you might as well be dry-firing.

A punching bag may recover from hits with a fist, but not from an ice pick...

 

[Electrikkoolaid]

I have seen pictures on the internet that show damage from excessive dry firing.

Supposedly it will damage the breechface over time.

What defines "excessive" is anyone's guess, but from the pictures (I was only able to quickly find these 2 on my cluttered hard drive) I imagine there is SOME amount of damage created from dry-firing a glock. At what point that creates the pictures shown is anyone's guess -- and I doubt it happens abruptly.

 

[MiamiFed]

I have dry-fired all my GLOCKS for many years now... I don't go crazy on them, but if I had to guess, it would be about 300 times per gun... never a problem and some even say it gets the trigger smoother. Life is short and don't believe in complicating my life even more... Dry fire away, if anything ever happens because of it, post it here in GT and watch GLOCK HQ get so flustered that they will repair the problem 4 free to avoid embarrassment.

 

[golls17]

This topic comes up now and then.

A lot of people say dry-firing a Glock is fine because in order to field strip, you have to dry fire an empty chamber, anyways.

In my police academy, we all did dry-firing without dummy rounds, no matter what kind of gun you were shooting.

The biggest argument I've heard for using them is, "I'm just paranoid that something strange might happen so better to be on the safe side."

My take on it: I'm just paranoid that something strange might happen so better to be on the safe side.

Besides, I like practicing reloads, malfunctions, etc., and it's a lot easier to clear malfunctions with dummy rounds than to just pretend they're there...

 

[bentbiker]

- Glock-USA stated on 6 September 2007 that we SHOULD use snap-caps for extensive dry fire sessions.

I don't go crazy on them, but if I had to guess, it would be about 300 times per gun...

I don't believe that Glock's reference to "extensive dry fire sessions" includes a gun with 300 dry-fires over its lifetime. There are people who dry-fire tens of thousands of times if you believe posts here.

 

[MrOldLude]

As stated above, damage can occur in the most extreme cases. I've never seen any photos beyond those shown above, and those are years old.

So I dry fire whenever I want to. Probably no more than a few times per month on average. If I planned to dry-fire thousands of times, I'd make some dummy-rounds with a silicone primer.

 

[Jack Black]

I once had an HK USP Compact firing pin break while dry firing. Maybe it would have broken while firing, I don't know. But I dry fire constantly. I'm sure thousands of times per week. So I use snap caps. I also like snap caps because it's easier to see the red plastic than an empty chamber. Not much of a difference, but I prefer it.

I use the plastic spring loaded snap caps because I've had A-zooms deform and get stuck in the chamber. And as I said, I like to see the bright red plastic. But the brass "primer" isn't very durable and gets bits of brass all over. So I drill it out and fill it up with silicone caulk. I think the silicone is even more durable than what A-zooms use. The A-zooms seem to get chewed out after a while, but mine look good after years of use. And of course if they ever showed wear I'd just gouge out the old caulk and reapply.

 

[fwm]

You can dry practice with an empty gun. No problem.

With an empty GLOCK. Not with just any gun. Some NEW guns WILL be damaged by dry firing.

 

[fwm]

The snap caps that I have checked out have a pretty stiff spring and a hard brass primer.
It almost seems to me that the snap cap is actually harder than what an actual primer in a real round would be.

To smooth out a new trigger on a Glock is just dry fire OK or are snap caps the better choice?

Thanks

To smooth out a new trigger, I usually just take the mechanism apart and do a little 'stoning' to the parts and put it back together. Takes a lot less time and I learn the workings of that new gun. (It can also prevent some nasty scratches on the works while a burr is being worn down)

 

[Bowtie]

Let me post these AGAIN for all the new members in this thread..

 

[Bowtie]