Bill DeShivs
New member
I told you someone (who didn't read the thread) would tell you drywall anchors work!
They still don't.
They still don't.
Dryfiring modern rimfires?
- Thread starter Nickel Plated
- Start date
What I do is: After firing at the range with my tightly chambered .22 revolver is to leave the empty brass in the cylinder to cool down (hot brass still expands) and maybe do this a few times when I go to another firearm to shoot off. I get a good supply of brass for dry firing in my other .22's.
The brass will always insert in my other .22's and even the revolver they were in. Makes great snap caps and I'll rotate the rims around to get several FP hits before they eventually become too beat up.
I really don't care if any of mine are ok to dry fire. I just won't do it.
And yes, the wall anchors are worthless.
The brass will always insert in my other .22's and even the revolver they were in. Makes great snap caps and I'll rotate the rims around to get several FP hits before they eventually become too beat up.
I really don't care if any of mine are ok to dry fire. I just won't do it.
And yes, the wall anchors are worthless.
Driftwood Johnson
New member
Howdy Again
What was I thinking? You are absolutely correct. S&W made their first 22 Rimfire revolvers in 1857.
In this photo, the great big revolver at the top is a K-22 Outdoorsman. It really isn't very big, it is built on the standard K frame. The K-22 was introduced in 1931. This one left the factory in 1935. Directly below the K-22 is a tiny M frame Ladysmith. These tiny little 7 shot revolvers fired the 22 Long cartridge, not the 22 Long Rifle. Ladysmiths were made from 1902 until 1921. This particular one is a 2nd Model and it left the factory in 1907. At the bottom of the photo is the oldest Smith and Wesson in my collection, a No 1 Tip Up, 1st Issue, 5th Type that left the factory in 1859. The 22 Tip Ups fired a cartridge we would call today the 22 Short. Notice the comparitive lengths of the cylinders, which is a dead giveaway to what cartridge each revolver fired.
This post gave me an opportunity to have a little fun. No, I did not fire live ammunition out of the two little 22s. They are too old to fire modern ammo out of. Instead I pulled the bullets off a couple of 22 Shorts and dumped out the powder. Then I fired a 22 'blank' in each of the old revolvers.
Here is what the firing pin impression looks like in the little Tip Up. Notice there are no counterbores for the rims, the rims sit on the flat face of the cylinder. Peering sideways at the old girl, I can see that when the hammer is all the way down, there is a smidge of clearance between the firing pin and the face of the cylinder. So the firing pin actually will not strike the cylinder. Old Daniel and Horace were pretty clever guys.
Here is what the firing pin impression looks like on the Ladysmith. Again, no counterbores for the rims, they sit on the flat face of the cylinder. And looking sideways at the cylinder I can again see a smidge of space between the firing pin and the face of the cylinder. Old Daniel was still a pretty clever guy, Horace had died in 1893.
So, to amend my earlier post, S&W began making revolvers that chambered the 22 Long Rifle cartridge in 1931. I have a couple in my collection. They each have counterbores around the rims and the firing pins will not strike the cylinder when the cylinder is properly in battery. I would have no problem dryfiring one of my K 22s (or a Model 17) a few times if I needed too. I would not make a practice of it.
I really doubt there is anybody out there who will be firing a 22 Tip Up or a Ladysmith with live ammo. I sure won't. I would not dry fire them either, they are just too old.
It's worth pointing out that there is no easy way to always tell by looking if a rimfire is safe to dryfire.
Rimfires that are safe to dryfire have some sort of a firing pin stop that prevents the firing pin from hitting the rim of the chamber. A firing pin stop isn't generally visible or detectable from outside the gun.
Looking for cylinders that are counterbored to accommodate the cartridge rims won't tell you anything other than whether or not the gun has a counterbored cylinder.
Looking at the firing pin clearance is similarly unenlightening UNLESS it shows that there is no clearance with the hammer fully forward and the trigger fully pressed. If there is no clearance, then you know that the gun won't be safe to dryfire, however the presence of clearance doesn't insure that it will be safe UNLESS the firing pin is mounted to the hammer.
In designs with firing pins that are not mounted to the hammer, the firing pin can be driven forward farther from imparted momentum than it will go when the hammer is at rest and fully forward with the trigger fully back. If there is no firing pin stop, it might drive forward far enough under imparted momentum to ding the chamber edge even if it shows clearance when pushed forward slowly by the hammer as far as the hammer can push it.
Great pics, thank you! and a great collection too!
JohnK covered it very well, I'll just add that with some guns it might be possible for a hammer mounted firing pin to go too far as the hammer falls, compared to the hammer down as far forward as it rests. So seeing a tiny bit of clearance looking sideways at it is not absolute proof, though it is a good indication. Daniel and Horace were pretty clever guys, I agree!
JohnK covered it very well, I'll just add that with some guns it might be possible for a hammer mounted firing pin to go too far as the hammer falls, compared to the hammer down as far forward as it rests. So seeing a tiny bit of clearance looking sideways at it is not absolute proof, though it is a good indication. Daniel and Horace were pretty clever guys, I agree!
Driftwood Johnson
New member
Howdy Again
The firing pin on the little No 1 is an integral part of the hammer. The upper part of the hammer, with the spur, rotates to operate the locking bolt. The front of the lower part is the actual firing pin.
The firing pin of the Ladysmith is an integral part of the hammer.
So with both of these little revolvers, when the hammer is all the way forward, the firing pin is not going to go any farther. When the hammers reach their physical stop against the frame, that's it, that is as far as the firing pins are going to go. So when I say with the hammers all the way forward I can see clearance between the firing pins and the rear of the cylinder, that's it. The firing pins are absolutely not going to strike the cylinders. Period.
As I said earlier, Mr Smith and Mr Wesson were pretty clever guys. They knew how to measure and add up manufacturing tolerances, so they could design a revolver with a firing pin that would not strike the cylinder.
The little Tip Up is 160 years old. The Ladysmith is much newer, it is only 112 years old. They are not museum pieces, they were shooters in their day. If the firing pins on these guns were able to strike the cylinders, don't you think I would see evidence of it on the cylinders?
Again, I am not going to be firing these little guns, but I am confident that if I dryfired them a few times, nothing bad would happen.
As far as the Ruger Single Six and the more modern S&W revolvers are concerned, I did a little experiment. I painted the areas where the firing pin would hit the cylinder, if it was going to, with a black Sharpie. Then I dryfired each revolver ten times, making sure the painted chambers were under the hammer when it fell. If the firing pins had managed to strike the cylinders, after ten strikes there should have been a mark made in the Sharpie ink.
No marks. Not in the Ruger, not in the Model 617 and not in the Model 17-3. The firing pins did not strike the cylinders.
Designing quality firearms is a wonderful exercise in modern engineering. The designers understand designing parts that need to interact with each other. They also know how to conduct a tolerance study. A tolerance study on the parts involved in firing pins, hammers, and cylinders will tell a good mechanical engineer how to design parts that will not strike each other, but still set off a rimfire cartridge.
Again, I don't recommend dryfiring modern rimfire revolvers all day long, stresses may build up to effect the parts. But dropping the hammer a few times without a cartridge or snap cap is not going to hurt a quality revolver such as a Ruger or a Smith and Wesson.
I guess now I will have to dig out a couple of rimfire Colts and see how they fare.
The firing pin on the little No 1 is an integral part of the hammer. The upper part of the hammer, with the spur, rotates to operate the locking bolt. The front of the lower part is the actual firing pin.
The firing pin of the Ladysmith is an integral part of the hammer.
So with both of these little revolvers, when the hammer is all the way forward, the firing pin is not going to go any farther. When the hammers reach their physical stop against the frame, that's it, that is as far as the firing pins are going to go. So when I say with the hammers all the way forward I can see clearance between the firing pins and the rear of the cylinder, that's it. The firing pins are absolutely not going to strike the cylinders. Period.
As I said earlier, Mr Smith and Mr Wesson were pretty clever guys. They knew how to measure and add up manufacturing tolerances, so they could design a revolver with a firing pin that would not strike the cylinder.
The little Tip Up is 160 years old. The Ladysmith is much newer, it is only 112 years old. They are not museum pieces, they were shooters in their day. If the firing pins on these guns were able to strike the cylinders, don't you think I would see evidence of it on the cylinders?
Again, I am not going to be firing these little guns, but I am confident that if I dryfired them a few times, nothing bad would happen.
As far as the Ruger Single Six and the more modern S&W revolvers are concerned, I did a little experiment. I painted the areas where the firing pin would hit the cylinder, if it was going to, with a black Sharpie. Then I dryfired each revolver ten times, making sure the painted chambers were under the hammer when it fell. If the firing pins had managed to strike the cylinders, after ten strikes there should have been a mark made in the Sharpie ink.
No marks. Not in the Ruger, not in the Model 617 and not in the Model 17-3. The firing pins did not strike the cylinders.
Designing quality firearms is a wonderful exercise in modern engineering. The designers understand designing parts that need to interact with each other. They also know how to conduct a tolerance study. A tolerance study on the parts involved in firing pins, hammers, and cylinders will tell a good mechanical engineer how to design parts that will not strike each other, but still set off a rimfire cartridge.
Again, I don't recommend dryfiring modern rimfire revolvers all day long, stresses may build up to effect the parts. But dropping the hammer a few times without a cartridge or snap cap is not going to hurt a quality revolver such as a Ruger or a Smith and Wesson.
I guess now I will have to dig out a couple of rimfire Colts and see how they fare.
Correct. That's why I was careful to include the caveat that with firing pins mounted on hammers you can get a good idea of true firing pin clearance and dryfire safety.
The reason I made my post was that that someone could read the test procedure, not understand that its validity hinges on the fact that the firing pin is hammer mounted and then test another gun with a frame mounted firing pin and get the wrong impression about the gun entirely.
It's also worth noting, that dryfiring can cause damage even if no chamber peening takes place. The deformation of the primer, or rim of the cartridge provides a significant cushioning effect and some designs take full advantage of that fact. The CZ52 pistol, for example, will break its firing pin after just a few dryfires but has no durability issues if fired only with ammunition in the chamber. It's a centerfire, so obviously chamber peening isn't even a possibility, but the general principle applies.
In other words, even if the firing pin clearance test is performed properly on a rimfire and the results of the test are fully understood, that doesn't guarantee that dryfiring the gun won't harm it. It will insure that the chamber won't get peened, but other components could fail due to the lack of cushioning effect from the rim crushing operation.
Pretty informative and revealing photo submitted by lunger in post no.19. I wonder how many pulls of the trigger on that Smith (Model 617) .22 revolver it took to cause those pronounced indentations on the cylinder? I also wonder how much "damage", if any, was caused in terms of future usability? Certainly doesn't look pretty or reassuring.