Dryfiring A Centerfire Bolt Action Rifle

[pewpewfever]

Are snap caps needed to dry fire drill with a bolt action rifle? If not needed to prevent damage to the rifle, is there still a benefit to using snap caps in this situation?

 

[Lunchbox27]

I have never broken a firing pin in any bolt action rifle, and I dry fire a lot!

In a bolt action, I dont see much use for snap caps other than dummy rounds to test flinch.

 

[phlegethon]

You don’t even need them for a lot of modern rimfire guns.

 

[Charger442]

I think it's better stated that some rimfires don't need a snap cap.

Ive fixed enough broken firing pins from previous owners neglegance, to advise against it.

 

[Kimber.204]

I guess my thought is so what if it does break a firing pin??

1. Yes, people have broken firing pins - but I have never heard of any data that explicitly confirms that it was due to dry firing. I would love to meet the person who makes these claims and has also done a thorough engineering analysis on the pin in various situations - as well as confirmed the pin(s) were completely free from manufacturing defects prior to the analysis.
2. A firing pin is cheaper than a couple cases of ammo but will get you a lot more practice.
3. Depending on what action you have you could easily carry a spare firing group with you at important matches (I'm thinking bayonet style Bighorns, Howa, etc that are very easy to break down).
4. If you had multiple firing groups you could even swap them out and only use one of them for dry firing and keep one for live firing. If you have a Rem 700 you could get an entire PTG bolt and swap it out for dry fire practice. Again, cheaper than a couple cases of ammo - but way more valuable.

https://www.snipershide.com/shootin...erview-with-jacob-bynum.6929976/#post-7565566

The link above is for the discussion after the Podcast @lowlight with Jacob Bynum - Jacob has an astronomical number of live and dry firings on his AI-AW with no snap caps and has not broken the firing pin.

I have three actions (Bighorn TL3, Mausingfield, Defiance Mutant) that have between 1000 and 5000 live rounds - all of them have 3-4 times that number in dry firings. If you tear down the bolt you will not find any visible damage. I also have several factory actions (Rem 700, Kimber 84m, and FN SPR) that have thousands of dry firings on them. I have not torn the bolts apart on the Rem 700 or Kimber, but the only difference I notice with them is that the actions are much smoother now than they were when I bought them.

Bottom line: if you lie awake at night worrying about your firing pin either don't do it or get some snap caps or another firing group.

Good luck - Ross

The beating is complete:

 

[Lowlight]

You can dry fire a centerfire all day if the firing pin breaks there was a problem with it, to begin with. We have 10s of 1000s of rounds of dry fire

it's .22 that has the limitation, most .22s you cannot dry fire without a snap cap, however, nowadays there some you don't need it