The primer helps to absorb the shock of the firing pin when dry firing. Extensive dry firing without a primer can damage the firing pin and hammer. Primers might also benefit realism if there are “point of view” shots of the gun being loaded. Whether these marginal benefits are worth of the marginal risk of using inert or spent primers rather than eliminating the primer altogether is a judgment call.
If there is one thing we know reasonably for certain is that the armorer missed all the easy checks when loading the gun. What’s one more easy check to miss.
The only way out is if someone else loaded a functional cartridge when it was reasonable for the gun to be out of her control.
Good interview with camera operator:
That’s the whole point behind Snap Caps. Where the primer should be is a spring loaded metal plate that will give a bit when the firing pin hits it, without leaving a permanent dimple as with a genuine primer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_cap#/media/File:Snap_caps.jpg
Is this the clearest naming of producer names we’ve gotten so far? Ryan Winterstern and Nathan Klingher were new to me, though I admit I’m not keeping up with the articles coming out.
How many shots have you seen where the revolver’s cylinder is open so that the hero/villain can reload it or is checking how many bullets are in the gun? That’s my best guess.
I’ve been watching guns in shows in a whole new way lately.
I hadn’t seen that before. He also makes it clear that Baldwin had nothing to do with the actual running of the production.
It looks like the previous info we’ve had about the production being badly run and the crew being treated like shit were understatements.
Even then, the shot is almost certainly an insert and those can be shot entirely at a different time and place than the shots surrounding it, months later in some cases.
The dangers of dry firing are overblown and tend to be conventional wisdom passed down through word of mouth. You can dry fire all day long with most firearms with no difficulty. And I’ve done it in training. The types of Colts being used in this movie are specifically the types of guns where dry firing can damage the pin and hammer. I have no idea if those problems are fixed in the modern replicas.
Good cites. I notice a distinct lack of bowlers. 
If they actually made T-shirts mocking their employees then I would be inclined to believe the employee’s version of what happened.
I have no issues at all with having realistic guns that can only shoot blanks on the set, etc.
I can’t really see any good reason to have a real live gun used, however.
Yes, this seems egregiously hostile (just a joke, yuk, yuk) and would seem to speak to the attitude toward the less powerful workers on the production.
Yeah, I was wondering about that a little. I’ve been told to never dry fire a gun, and mostly adhere to that. Kinda makes me wonder though… If the firing pin is actually on the hammer, and it falls on nothing (no primer), how does that damage the hammer or firing pin?
It’s a rim-fire issue. If there isn’t a bullet to absorb the impact of the firing pin then it can damage the gun with the firing hammer hitting the breech. Here’s a video showing the damage.
Of course. Should have thought of that. I have a number of .22s growing up and was always told to not dry fire it.
The Colt Single Action Army is not rim fire. The way it’s designed can lead to damage to the firing pin by dry firing. Modern center fire guns do not have the same issue. You can dry fire them all day long without a problem.
Know it’s not a rim fire. But surprised that the CSAA firing pin on the hammer can be damaged by dry firing it. Can you explain it?
I don’t own one. I can only go by what I read. The original SAA does not have a transfer bar. That means the firing pin is on the hammer and slams into the frame with each shot. The original firing pins were dense but brittle. Later model reproductions might fix that problem I don’t know.
This video shows the action pretty well. He first shows a SAA, then a 1911 and then a Colt Python. The difference between the Python and the SAA is the most important.
For a firing pin to be damaged it would have to travel past the normal strike zone arcing downward into the breech. Not sure if you call a cylinder a breech but you get the idea.