Dry Firing pump training

J

J.P.

CGN Regular
Rating - 100%
41   0   0
I'm new to shotguns. I've sort of settled on a pair of 870's. I like to 'train' (ie play with Laugh2 ) one of these every day. I want muscle memory for loading, cycling, firing, operating the safety etc. I want to be able to grab an 870 and have my hands know what to do with it when I'm under stress.

Anyways, I bought a bunch of plastic snap caps. They suck. Will dry firing an 870 or another pump damage anything? I remember being told as a kid never to dry fire my Brother's double, but this is a floating firing pin so I thought it would be much like a bolt rifle in that regard

what say the masses?
 
J.P. said:
I'm new to shotguns. I've sort of settled on a pair of 870's. I like to 'train' (ie play with Laugh2 ) one of these every day. I want muscle memory for loading, cycling, firing, operating the safety etc. I want to be able to grab an 870 and have my hands know what to do with it when I'm under stress.

Anyways, I bought a bunch of plastic snap caps. They suck. Will dry firing an 870 or another pump damage anything? I remember being told as a kid never to dry fire my Brother's double, but this is a floating firing pin so I thought it would be much like a bolt rifle in that regard

what say the masses?
Click to expand...

Buy a cheap box of #2 shells, and have at it at the range... the best practice and alot more fun :)
 
For what you want to do, use snap caps.

They're a quick and safe way to find out if you're short stoking the action and will help getting used to the low capacity of a shotgun, later you can use them to work on "shot one, load one" drills.

Try these;

http://www .tetragon.ca/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=STA-1009
 
Dry fire all you want, it won't hurt anything.

But you can always load up empty hulls with dead primers, just weight the hulls to the same weight as a shotgun round and identify them somehow (marker, etc).

This way you can practice loading and dry firing.
 
thanks Guys. I'll just make up some dummys. Carboard wadding and some shot mixed with epoxy or something like that. I was wondering if there was a reason to buy those fancy pants spring loaded snap caps but I think not if firing pin damage is not an issue.
 
Problem with firing snap caps and dummy shells is the rims get chewed up quickly and you end up with a new set of problems. Practice with live ammo out in the field, I say. However you need to be very regimented with your practice time and ammo, make every round count as practice instead of just shooting downrange.
 
I don't get a lot of range time anymore. I gotta do the best I can with what I have to work with. I have health problems that make lots of live fire tough on me too. I'm just trying to be prepared as I can be for the zombie hordes of 2012. Too bad the zombie ammo ain't ready till january. It's going to be a tight schedule to get it patterned before they jump out of the graves.
 
12.6envy said:
I dry fire my junk all the time. If your worried get some snap caps or make some "dummy" rounds from some spent shells.
Click to expand...

You should get that looked at :p Come on, nobody else caught that? :D Anyways, I dry fire all my guns without worry. Some are fine with it, others not so much. My Howa manual states that the rifle should not be dry fired excessively while my Benelli manual (yes, I read them) states to dry fire as part of routine function check after reassembly. I'd be more concerned with ninja maneuvers, thats what saves your life on the battlefield. A good ninja naturally becomes one with his weapon, manipulation is instinct. Now running up the wall, backflipping over and behind a zombie and driving your bayonet (your 870 has a bayonet, right?cou:) through the back of his neck before you touch off a 3" Zombie Buckshot round should be your biggest concern. Make sure the wife is out before you practice that one though...its a tough one to explain...
 
buy some bags of frozen peas or corn.

take some pics after a few days when yer black green and purple. Save those pics for leverage at a later date. She's gonna forget how bad it was for ya after a while and you need to be able to remind her.

Also, tell the damned nurses to leave first. Mine stayed just long enough to see everything they wanted then waited in another room while Dr snip did his thing. It was pretty obvious they were only hanging around to see me hanging around
 
those nurses were probably laughing too. It was cold in there, and I was freshly shaved. Now keep in mind, I'm of eastern european descent (I have more fur than our dobermann) so this little shriveled up piece of clear cut forest was probably very amusing.

The most painful part of the whole thing was at the end when he sprays on this aerosol wound dressing stuff. Whatever is in it burns like the fires of hades on razor burnt sack let me tell you.
 
Also, what I've learned cycling dummy rounds is that short stroking is much easier to do than I thought. I've been cycling an 870 alot that just had a fresh park job to break in the action. I thought I was cycling it just fine but when dummy rounds are added I realized I needed to snap that slide back with more authority for reliable ejection. I think its bad practice to play with a pump without dummy rounds. I had started teaching myself muscle memory for short shucking. Gotta slap that hussy around a bit to get her workin right
 
J.P. said:
buy some bags of frozen peas or corn.

take some pics after a few days when yer black green and purple. Save those pics for leverage at a later date. She's gonna forget how bad it was for ya after a while and you need to be able to remind her.

Also, tell the damned nurses to leave first. Mine stayed just long enough to see everything they wanted then waited in another room while Dr snip did his thing. It was pretty obvious they were only hanging around to see me hanging around
Click to expand...

T-minus 6 hours. I seem to also have just started a cold, just to make it extra fun. I've heard this guy has hot nurses, the guys who tell me this, makes it sound like an important thing, I guess I shall see. The best advice I've gotten so far, is not to ever look down. Second best advice, don't ask for a comedy show on the TV, apparently Doc was cracking up to Seinfeld, while one buddy got clipped.

BTW, you can masturbate the slide on your shotgun with no ammo all you want, but don't call it practice unless you are actually loading something. If you're not stuffing some kind of dummy shell into it, it's just gun fondling.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom