Dry firing a Bond Arms Snake slayer?

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lewallen

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Hello everyone. I recently got a Bond Arms Snake slayer in a trade. This is my first Derringer and I really like it alot, build quality is excellent. I haven't been able to find a definitive answer online as to whether or not dry firing this will damage it. I've heard that dry firing Derringers can damage them. On Bond Arms website it doesn't specify whether or not you can with the centerfire, but says never do it with the 22lr or 22 magnum rounds.
 
Yes I agree. What I am wondering is if it will damage the gun with limited dry firing. What I have heard is that dry firing any Derringer will cause damage to the gun
 
It's never a good idea to dry fire a rimfire without snap caps. Doesn't matter with most centre fires. Snap caps are yet another thing designed to separate you from your money with little real value in a cf.
You don't dry fire rimfires due to possible and likely damage to the chamber from it getting whacked by the fp. That doesn't happen with a cf.
 
From the manual:

Is it okay to dry fire the pistol with the manual safety in the "ON FIRE" position?

NO. It is okay to dry fire the pistol with fired casings in place of live ammo. Dry firing on either the .22 Mag or .22 Long Rifle will damage the chamber. DO NOT DRY FIRE on these calibers. Snap Caps are not recommended.

The vagueness here is terrible. Some searching does show the firing pin breaking with snap caps.

Follow their recommendation and use spent casings.
 
This is a confusing issue. With centerfire ammo Ruger recommends dry firing their revolver to get used to the pull. I think Sccy does as well but I can't recall for sure.

Some people will say to use a spent casing, others say that the fired primer is potentially worse that dry firing but I'm not sure why.

I use snap caps for mine if I want to dry fire because most agree that even if they are a waste of money they don't hurt anything, regarding centerfire that is.
 
This is a confusing issue. With centerfire ammo Ruger recommends dry firing their revolver to get used to the pull. I think Sccy does as well but I can't recall for sure.
Click to expand...

Almost all modern centerfire firearms out on the market can be dry fired without a problem.

If you spend all day practicing, you might eventually break or wear out the firing pin. We're likely talking about thousands of trigger pulls here. A new titanium firing pin (likely of better construction than the old one) for a 1911 might cost $20 or so bucks. For practicing, that's still cheaper than a box of ammunition.

A few older centerfire designs can not and should not be dry fired (even a few times). The CZ 52 instantly comes to mind (and yes they do make snap caps for 7.62 Tokarev).

Would I make it a habit of dry firing all day without snap caps? The answer is simple - no. A set of snap caps is cheaper than a firing pin. If you can't afford the snap caps, then you can't be buying ammunition in the first place.

You should really buy a set of snap caps if you want to incorporate dry firing into your training regiment, however pulling the trigger a couple of times isn't going to damage anything (excluding firearms like the CZ 52). Glocks for example require you to dry fire the weapon before a field strip.

So, occasionally on a modern gun? Absolutely fine.

This is one reason gun stores sometimes have a policy of asking you to not dry fire the floor models. That high dollar Kimber might be handled by five or six people a day at a busy gun store and dry fired five or six times by each person. That would be over 6,500 trigger pulls a year.

If parts and/or the firing pin and hard to obtain for your particular firearm (out of production), I certainly wouldn't make it a habit. Even a firing pin for a older, less common gun such as the Star Model B is only $25.

In all honesty, that derringer is not built well. Dry firing the derringer with the safety on will damage the pin in quick order. Snap caps should be okay. I think the one individual I located on the internet who damaged his derringer was using a snap cap in which the fake primer insert was missing (the same as firing on an empty chamber). The CS for Bond Arms seems to be pretty good so if something does happen with snap caps, I'm sure they will remedy it.

I'll end with this. I've read that Glock on multiple occasions has claimed that excessive dry firing can cause the breach face to crack. Regardless of whether this is true or not (some believe that the breach face cracking problem on a few Glock models is a metallurgical issue), isn't a few bucks on snap caps a cheap way of telling CS I've always practiced/dry fired with snap caps?
 
Apparently, 8 X 18 has never examined a Bond derringer. They are extremely well made and very heavy duty.
Regardless, There are way too many things that can be damaged by dry firing without real snap caps.
Every time you strike metal with metal, something deforms-however slightly. Metal peens and mushrooms, and it work-hardens.
 
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