Practicing with live rounds and no firing pin?

[technocia]

Bad idea? Snap caps are kinda pricy and I already have the ammo available(but unfortunately no reloading tools to dummy them up instead). Is there still a danger of the round going off even if the firing pin has been removed from the guns?

[USN CHIEF]

I personally would never, ever, ever do it. It sounds like a very bad idea. VERY BAD idea.

[bigmike82]

Logically, there shouldn't be a danger of a normally loaded round detonating without a firing pin (or other sharp object) striking the primer.

That said, the potential risk, I think, far outweighs the benefits. I think you'd be better off dry-firing until you get some scratch together for snap caps.

[grammaton76]

I sure as heck wouldn't do it. Particularly since handgun firing pins are a PITA to get in and out.

Either get snap caps, or spend the money on reloading gear so you can make some proper dummy rounds.

[KimberDriven]

I personally would never, ever, ever do it. It sounds like a very bad idea. VERY BAD idea.

I would agree!! Bad idea.

[ViPER395]

Snapcaps are what, the monetary equivilent to one to two trips to McD's?

Come on man.

[30Cal]

Sounds like a road to complacency to me. Bad idea.

[sloguy]

yeah, prolly a bad idea. wait for snapcaps. what exactly are you going to be practicing? i dont understand what you need em for and why.

[5968]

Buy the snap caps and save yourself some potenial grief. A ll I can think of in this scenario is Murphy's Law.

[daves100]

live ammo

Bad idea? Snap caps are kinda pricy and I already have the ammo available(but unfortunately no reloading tools to dummy them up instead). Is there still a danger of the round going off even if the firing pin has been removed from the guns?

what do you want to practice using live ammo and no firing pin?

[Crazed_SS]

Wtf.. if you're that hard up, Ill mail you a couple snap caps.. 9mm

What kinda gun? Dry-fire probably wont hurt it.

[csmintel]

snap caps are like couple of bucks each and you olny need one. small price to pay for a piece of mind that you're not re-invetning the weel.

In this business or hobby ( whatever is yours).....there is no such thing as pricy. You just get what you need and pay what it costs. period.
Good luck.

[NeoWeird]

I personally keep most of my guns loaded as well as use live ammo to function test them when problems arise.

That said it should be noted that I am an idiot. A well documented one.

Chambering live ammo causes many problems for the ammo. It can set back the bullet which can cause dangerous pressure levels (in some cases pressures that could cause irrepairable damage to the gun and possibly even death to anyone near the firearm when the round is fired). It always puts excessive wear on the brass. I used to unload my 1911 every night and load it again the morning (I have been known to sleep walk and do activities in my sleep so I was trying to be safe) and the ammount of damage you put on the case in a realtively short time frame is amazing. Keep in mind that brass casings were designed to be used once, reloaders simply found ways to use them more than once, and even then they only get a handful of loadings out them. That means if you chamber a round a dozen times or so you are already putting more wear on the case than most reloaders do outside of actually firing the cartridge. Wear can come from the extractor ripping the base off, the ejector crushing the base to where it can't be chambered properly, denting the body as it hits ejection ports, etc. And that's just covering damage to the case...

There is also the problem that many guns require the firing pin to be present in order to fully assemble the gun. The 1911, for example, uses the firing pin to lock the firing pin retaining plate in place. Without the firing pin, the plate falls out. Without the plate you are over extending your hammer and battering the softer slide face which could cause potential problems to the point where the slide would have to be re-worked or replaced.

As you can see, the benifit of using real ammo is not great and the downsides are VERY great. You should avoid excessive loading/chambering/etc of live ammo when possible. Now once or twice, or that's fine, but outside of that you should avoid it.

A good example of a time when I used it was I had a shotgun with a small burr in the chamber mouth that would lock the action when the case was fired. Snap caps were slightly undersided and would fall in and out no problem, but live ammo would stick (just not as bad as after being fired). So I pulled out the firing pin (this particular model I could) and loaded a round, deburred, assembled, repeated. I eventually got it to the point where I could cycle the action by hand even when it locked and it is slowly wearing in nicely.

This particular event was one where live ammo needed to be used and it was my only option (at least with what I had). In this particular event however I spread the punishment over an entire box of 25 so each shell was only chambered once or twice more than if I just opened the box and fired them.

It's your call, but there is more danger there than just it accidentally going off while you are playing.

[Waingro]

Are you practicing for an accident? Then go for it.

One day someone will break into your house and have a bazooka and you will pull out your hand gun and you see a round in the chamber and you will pull the trigger and nothing will happen.

One other day you will be bored, too lazy to completely take apart your gun to insure the firing pin is removed and just assume it is and fire a live round. Firing a live round and not meaning to VERY rarely ends up good. Like no one ever had an AD around Hitler.

This could possibly be the worst idea I have ever heard of, as for reloaded brass with no gunpowder in it and such, bad idea too - get bright red snap caps so you know they don't go BOOM.

[zcktomcat]

Snap caps are only like 10 bucks! Spare mags cost more!