Archive for the 'Guns' Category

Shooting Illustrated.

Dry firing is one of those controversial subjects upon which everyone seems to have an opinion. I am a big proponent of dry firing handguns and rifles, particularly when using my Wall Drill to improve. It also helps sustain trigger control and sight alignment as a collective rather than a separate effort. Dry firing against a wall keeps the eye on the front sight through the pull of the trigger, which maintains follow-through, allowing detection and correction of deficiencies in the foundational skills of shot delivery.

With the exception of rimfire revolvers and revolvers with the firing pin mounted on the hammer, I see no hard and fast reason that snap caps are needed to dry-fire your revolvers. That said, there is certainly nothing wrong with using them in either of your revolvers just to be on the safe side. If you want a second opinion, I recommend contacting the manufacturer of your firearms and see what it has to say. I suspect the manufacturer will agree with my suggestion, but there is always the chance it will have a different perspective. I would support the manufacturer’s opinion in that manufacturers usually know more about their products than individuals not in their employ.

Although snap caps and dummy rounds are often lumped into the same category, they are slightly different in nature.

Dummy rounds are available in different colors and can be made of metal or plastic in the external dimensions of a specific cartridge. Typically, they have a solid base or occasionally a hollow opening where the primer pocket would be located.

A subset of a dummy round is the action-proving cartridge, which is loaded to the external dimensions and weight of live ammunition, but is without propellant and is visually identifiable from live ammunition. Its purpose is to validate proper feeding, chambering, extracting and ejecting of ammunition through a semi-automatic firearm.

Dummy rounds are also used as a diagnostic tool when interspersed with live ammo in a shooter’s magazine to detect deficiencies in shot release. When the shooter pulls the trigger on a dummy round, the gun should not move any more than it did prior to pulling the trigger. If additional movement of the gun is experienced, there is work to be done to improve shooting performance.

Snap caps differ from dummy rounds in that they have a rubber or spring-loaded mechanism located in the base of the cartridge to cushion the impact of the
firing pin when the trigger is pulled.

A snap cap provides something for the firing pin to contact, like the primer in a live cartridge. In fact, the snap cap is intended to replicate what the firing pin experiences when firing live ammunition.

This is important in older firearms, especially shotguns, because without something like a primer to impact when the trigger is pulled, something must absorb the energy generated by the released spring tension powering the firing pin. This could be internal metal parts or springs, all of which will fatigue over multiple impacts. This fatigue often leads to broken parts and failure of the gun to function properly.

Older firearms, especially shotguns, should be stored with snap caps in place, enabling the springs driving the firing pins to be relaxed by pulling the trigger(s) prior to being put away. Think of it in this manner: The firing pin is designed to impact a primer, which stops its forward movement when firing a gun. The snap cap provides the same feature in stopping the firing pin with the addition of a little “give,” similar to indenting a primer.

In addition, snap caps are generally brightly colored to distinguish them from live ammo, which helps to maintain the separation of live ammunition and the gun especially during storage and dry-fire exercises.

It is always good to have a few snap caps of the appropriate caliber or gauge in your range bag for dry-firing or storage purposes. Such a simple piece of gear can really help take your training to the next level.

I have to say, I won’t drop the hammer on a rimfire revolver or semi-auto handgun without ammunition being chambered.  But as long as the firing pin isn’t banging on anything, I have never worried about that with either a rifle or shotgun.

I also won’t drop the hammer on an AR-15 while the upper is off of the lower (for obvious reasons).  Grab it and gently let it fall.

Comments or observations?

This is a fair assessment, and it all comes down to the user and what he wants.  I’m willing to clean the gun so it works in order to get the awesome trigger pull and that tactile feel.  Others may not be so willing.

But the best comment of the video is this: “If you’re an American and you don’t like 1911s, we can’t be friends.”

This looks like fun.

Reddit/Firearms.

Here is an another video.

I see that some folks recommend the LM choke for quail.  I’ve used the IC choke with some success.  Any experience out there with choked for quail?

Eddie Hall had the world dead lift record when in 2016 he became the first man to lift more than 1100 pounds (1102 pounds).  He was bested in 2020 by Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson who lifted 501 kg (1,104.5 lb). This is entertaining to watch.

You can make up your own mind on that.  Here is the scoop.

And here is a reddit/Firearms discussion thread.  For me it all boils down to this one thing.  Sure, the if the FedGov wants into your safe, it’s going to get into your safe.  They’ll turn it over and take a crowbar to it if they have to, or simply cut through the sides.  There is this interesting tidbit from the thread.

… as I did some research on this yesterday. SecuRam electronic locks have a recovery code. The default is “999999”. This doesn’t open the lock, but it gives you a random string to give to Liberty. They then use that to give you a recovery code that resets the safe code to the factory default.

Now, there are several important notes here:

1. The code from your safe is generated upon request and only valid for 20 minutes. So having it in a database somewhere isn’t realistically a threat.
2. You can change the recovery code. You have to go through a process that involves calling Liberty to do it, and they’ll try to talk you out of it, but you can change it.
3. When I called up they explained their security process to me: they’ll only give the recovery code to a Liberty-certified locksmith. Even you, the owner, have to have a locksmith that Liberty has certified present to do it.

But for gun safe companies, there shouldn’t be any back door code for entry into the safe, and that seems to me like a selling point for gun safes.  Something like this.  “We know that you are buying our safe to make it as difficult as possible for people to get into your safe and touch the possessions you value.  So we don’t provide a back door code for entry by anyone.  Thus, warrant or no warrant, we have nothing to say to law enforcement because that feature isn’t a part of our products.  Therefore, if you get locked out and forget your code, you should use the key we’ll send, or if you’ve lost that too, you may as well bring out the grinder or cutting torch, because we’re not getting into it for you.  We can’t.  If you’re considering out products, we know that’s what you want.”

I agree with the video from Backfire more than I do anything I’ve read or heard on this.