Some advice ... or ... "How I Broke My Redhawk"
Don't dry fire one without snap caps in it.
I took the advice of various handgun magazines (and I think even my Ruger manual) and dry-fired my Redhawk and Blackhawk prodigiously with nothing in them.
Both broke.
In fact, they broke in the same place - the little bar that you see sliding up as the hammer falls (so as to transfer the hammer's inertia to the floating firing pin) broke on both guns. Once I saw how flimsy this part looked - it looks like a 30 cent casting - I stopped dry-firing my guns altogether.
BTW, just bought a .45 Redhawk with rings, so obviously I still like a Redhawk - in fact it's my favorite gun right now.
As far as firing durability, I put maybe 500 to 1000 rounds through my .44 Redhawk and the timing was still as good as when I bought it.