Dry firing Garands

[Ted Brown]

Creedmoor Sports sells a dry fire device for the M14 / M1 for only $2.50. It's cheap insurance and yes, dry firing can cause premature failure of the firing pin. It may last thousands of dry fire shots or may break on the first few. Better safe than sorry.

[emmagee1917]

I read it as $13.95 .
Chris

[Griff Murphey]

Yep did the dime thing with M-1s in ROTC... Also had 7 years high school and college ROTC only the last two years with the M-14 rest all M-1, at least two to three formations and one parade per week. Did inspection arms quite a lot. Never broke a firing pin because the rifles did not have any until we went on field problems.

Never saw M-1 thumbs doing inspection arms... Those happened when jacking around with the rifle or in assembly/disassembly. I had two at once one time in each thumb but one was a Remington 11 thumb.

[John Rippert]

I have broken two firing pins while dry firing. Both were well used and very worn. Does not stop me from doing it.

[mousegun]

[bombdog]

I could possibly see that Firing pin protrusion could be effected after a few thousand time, and some wear in the trigger group. But I would not worry about it. If you worry about it use an fired case in the chamber, that will restrict the pin movement some.

Yeah, i've done that before as well. i think the hunting gun world is where these things (snap caps) are supposed to go. Not so much us old war horses' rifles. i really never thought about it, but all the different inspection arms, PMI, trigger squeeze exercises, and all adds up to a bunch of dry fire time........ Tango mike brothers.........

[John Kepler]

The rifle was DESIGNED to be dry-fired! Doesn't hurt it a bit, and is the preferred method for shooter training. Back when I was deeply involved in competition shooting, I popped over 100 dry-fires for every live shot. Barrels are an expensive "consumable" in a competition rifle.....you've got just so many quality shots in a barrel, and want as many of them as possible "for record"!

[Rock]

The rifle was DESIGNED to be dry-fired! Doesn't hurt it a bit, and is the preferred method for shooter training. Back when I was deeply involved in competition shooting, I popped over 100 dry-fires for every live shot.

True, but the military had a lot of spare parts and replaced them when needed. Dry firing does put a small amount of stress on the hammer and the firing pin that will shorten the life of those parts. I prefer to maximize parts life of my rifles. If I feel the need to dry fire, I have a spare trigger assembly that has a hammer with a chipped nose and I also install a stripped bolt. That way I can dry fire all I want without putting wear on those critical and expensive parts.

[John Kepler]

And all THAT contraption will do is break the firing pin/hammer FASTER since you will be slamming the extension into the safety bridge, and/or stressing the hell out of the hammer as it impacts on the bottom edge of the bolt! And since when was a firing pin particularly "expensive" ($15 from Numrich and why, if you own and shoot a 70 year-old rifle, don't you have multiple spares on hand?) ???

[Griff Murphey]

Champions Choice sells a similar in theory, but round and fits the chamber version. I think the gizmo is turned from Delrin or similar, sticks in the chamber. They aver it reduces fatigue on the firing pin.