When examining one of my friend’s unloaded guns, he indicated that I shouldn’t ‘dry fire’ it (fire the gun with no round in the chamber, for those of us who don’t know guns), as it was bad for the firing pin. I have heard this before, and seen it alluded to i.e., ’ …was sitting out for people to handle, dry fire, and generally abuse.’
I don’t know all that much about guns, but the operating principle seems pretty basic - there’s a round in the chamber and the trigger mechanism causes a firing pin to hit the primer of the shell, igniting the powder and firing the bullet. If there is no round in the chamber, there is obviously nothing for the firing pin to hit. So why is it so bad for the gun if the pin hits nothing? I would assme more wear would take place during an actual firing of the gun.
Sorry if this has been asked before, but I couldn’t search on ‘dry’ and none of the firearms threads seemed to address this.
Not a gun expert here, but I think it is a safety thing as well as a general wear and tear thing.
“This thing loaded?”
“Nope.”
“How’s the action?”
“Try it out.”
BOOM.
“Oops.”
Plus, the energy created in the pin/hammer has to go somewhere when it is triggered. That somewhere is normally the bullet. Without a bullet there, where does the energy go? Into the surrounding mechanism. That mechanism, depending on tons of things (size of gun, type of gun, type of pin, etc.), could eventually have a plate warped, or a spring bent, or ??? that would cause damage to the gun. Download and look an ‘exploded’ diagram of a gun (one with all of the pieces drawn as separate units)(should be able to get one from a manufacturer). The trigger mechanism on some of them have some real tiny parts which could be damaged quite easily, I suspect.
The same principle applies to bows. The energy of the bow when flexed and released is transferred to the arrow. If there is no arrow, then the energy released remains in the bow and can snap it, or at least put a good crack in it.
On rimfire guns you can easily damage the chamber wall by dry firing
On center fire guns, The firing pin or striker, and spring may break, some guns are more prone to this than others.
This question has already been answered, but I would also add that many higher-end airguns can also be damaged by dry-firing. Some have a special way of cocking the action that allows it and avoids the damage, and with others it just shouldn’t be done at all – so ask first, or don’t do it.
~
Basically, dry firing a modern semi-auto centerfire pistol will cause no damage.* Provided the pistol is not a piece of crap in the first place (like a Lorcen or a Jennings) you’re not going to be hurting it by dry firing. In fact, some pistols like Glocks and some other similar models (SW99) require the pistol to be dry fired before field stripping. Riding the hammer forward on a 1911 style pistol will actually cause more damage than dry firing it. If you want to see a person freak out hard, just take his $2,500 1911 style Race Gun and ride the hammer forward.
The dry firing paranoia stems from old single actions and rimfires back in the day. Don’t dry fire your 22s or revolvers!
Dry firing your semi-auto is one of the best ways to develop proper trigger squeeze and fundamentals. As an instructor, I recommend people dry fire their pistol a couple hundred times or so in the comfort of their own home. They’ll get more out of this than wasting money at a range developing bad habits. When I go to the range, I’ll dry fire at least a couple dozen times before I ever even load the thing. Then I’ll dry fire a couple times after every 100 rounds or so.
Also, an added step in the safe unloading of a pistol is to point it in a safe direction and dry fire.
So what kind of pistol was he showing you??
*[sup]No. I don’t have a cite. I am a Glock, HK, and Colt armorer. I’m also an NRA firearms instructor, a previous law enforcement/SWAT firearms dealer and I managed a gun range for two years.[/sup]
Speaking only about centerfire guns here, since it’s a non-argument that rimfires are easily damaged by dry firing.
But just as often as I’ve heard you shouldn’t dry fire a centerfire gun, I’ve heard that it doesn’t hurt it at all. I could look up cites…but I don’t see any cites for the original assertion, so you can belive me just the same.
As an engineer, I intuitively know that the energy from the firing pin has to go somewhere. But the real question is how much energy is really in there? It doesn’t need to a be a lot of energy compared to the rest of the firing event, as it’s only setting off the primer. If it were a huge amount, you wouldn’t need powder to fire the bullet, you could just pool-cue it. So the question really becomes whether the energy imparted to the firing pin is under its threshold of failure.
The instructions for both my handguns (a Ruger 9mm and a Sig 9mm) fail to say one way or the other whether dry firing is okay. You’d think they’d warn against doing it if it were damaging to the gun. They warn about every other thing you can think of, even things that are common sense. The Ruger manual does say to be aware of where you’re pointing the thing “even when dry firing.” So they mention it without condemning it.
My dad is a gunsmith on the side, and used to be a dealer. He’s always maintained that it causes no harm, and regularly fires his guns without a round in the chamber.
So I can’t say I know the answer for sure, but I strongly lean toward the side that says dry firing centerfire pistols is harmless.
It occurred to me after my last post that the energy imparted to the firing pin by a trigger pull could practically never damage it. To think so is absurd.
The energy in the firing pin can be no greater than the energy of the trigger squeeze. So you just have to calculate the work you did against the trigger spring, and that tells you how much energy is in the firing pin (minus mechanical losses). It’s ridiculous to think that energy delivered by your finger in a single trigger pull can damage a hunk of steel even as small as the firing pin.
The above only applies to double-action firing. In theory a semi-auto could have more energy stored in a different spring by the recoil, but not in a realistic pistol. That’s because you’re using the same spring either way. The same spring held in the same position (fully cocked) will contain the same energy. Manually cocking the hammer for single-action firing also delevers the SAME amount of energy.
In short, no matter how it’s fired, the pin gets the same energy. And that amount is the same as what’s delivered by your finger during a double-action trigger squeeze. Which is small…end of story.
Oh yeah…and second what Bear_Nenno said!
No, you’re wrong here, at least in the case of semi-autos. The main spring that throw the firing pin forward gets it’s energy from the blowback of the previous round. Or, in the case of the first round, from you pulling the slide back. Nevertheless, you’re correct that the amount of energy being stored is relatively small, since it doesn’t take much force to pull the slide back on most pistols, and the blowback action can’t put any more energy into the spring than that. [/nitpick]
Q.E.D., I appreciate the attempted correction, but if you had read my post more closely, you’d see that I already addressed that point.
Since the same spring stores the energy either way, it doesn’t matter if the cocking force comes from the trigger squeeze in double-action mode, or from the recoil when the gun is subsequently fired single-action.
Typically, when firing off multiple shots from a holstered semi-auto, the first shot is double-action and the rest are single-action, the hammer having been cocked by the recoil of the previous shot. In any of these shots (whether the first or any successive shot) the firing pin is delivering the same energy.
But that’s a silly point anyway, since when dryfiring, you’re not going to have the benefit of recoil. You’ll have to cock it yourself or do it double-action.
I’ve Never Ever Ever had the chance to correct QED, so forgive me if this tickles me
He’s not wrong because he’s speaking of ‘Double-Action’. On a Da/SA semi-auto pistol, the trigger squeeze cocks the hammer and spring back and then releases it. The slide cocks the hammer on all subsequent shots fired. I know you knew this, though. You probably just weren’t thinking about that.
Bear_Nenno
You suggest people should dry fire their semi-autos for practice.
Maybe it won’t cause damage (you are probably right).
However, I think that dry-firing can produce a more casual approach to gun safety. When I was growing up, I was taught that any firearm you are handling is always loaded. Always.
Granted there are times you may have to dry-fire (such as after a thorough cleaning and disassembly).
However, when you have the mentality that a firearm is always loaded, you have less of a tendency of jokingly pointing it at someone and letting it click and saying “Bang you’re dead”.
Granted this is perhaps an extreme approach to gun safety, but I am well into adulthood and have never had any mishaps with firearms.
Something to think about the next time you dry-fire.
wolf_meister, I think there’s a difference between dry firing for practice with proper safety precautions and “jokingly pointing it at someone and letting it click and saying ‘Bang you’re dead’.”
I dry fire for practice but I make sure there is no ammunition in the room and clear the weapon every time I handle it. I only aim it in a direction that couldn’t possibly hurt anyone if there was a round in the chamber. The consequences of an AD are too great to do otherwise. ADs (accidental discharge) are not an “if” but a “when.” Follow the four rules and the worst consequence will be a stray round fired downrange.
it’s a courtesy thing, basically. Ask first. Also, verify for yourself that it’s unloaded (if you don’t know how then you shouldn’t be doing it anyway). Good quality centerfire guns of modern (and not so modern) design will not be damaged by this practice
IMO, none really. Some guys will argue that it will damage the sear - that manually lowering the hammer will rub on the sear and cause a bur. Looking at a cutout view of the little parts and how they interact, it looks like it’s possible. Maybe if I spent $2500-$6000 on a pistol, it would concern me too. Add to that, the fact that these guys want every little advantage possible. Not to mention general superstition that comes with every sport…
But mainly what I meant earlier was that dry firing causes no damage, whereas manually lowering the hammer could possibly (however unlikely) cause wear on your sear.
But seriously, gun geeks are worse than the Comic Book Guy…
wolf_meister, “handling every firearm as if it were loaded” is a great rule of thumb. But obviously it’s more of a guideline. If you TRULY followed this rule, you could never clean it. Or even take it apart, or hand it to a friend to look at, or anything. Cause you should never clean a loaded firearm. And every firearm is loaded…
Treat every firearm as if it were loaded until you unload the thing and verify that it is indeed unloaded. Then treat it like an unloaded firearm. This does not mean you can waive it around and point it at people. But you can take it apart, hand it to a friend to finger-fuck or inspect, or even dry fire in your living room.
Once unloaded, if you’d like some practice on grip, trigger squeeze, follow through and other fundamentals, point it in a safe direction and squeeze away. Of course you would never fire a loaded weapon into the wall of your house, or your tv… but it is still a safe direction in that there is nobody standing there or beyond.
