What could be causing this?

I don't think dry firing will hurt any centerfire bolt action rifle. Competitive shooters, including the Russians with their Mosin's they rebuilt into 300 meter free rifles to use in the Olympics in years gone by, do it without issue. Same for the Mosin action Vostok brand target rifles exported in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s chambered in the standard 7.62x54mmR round and in 6.5x54mmR, a necked down version of the original cartridge designed for long range target shooting
 
Those rifles are no longer being made, they weren't designed for extensive dry-fire, parts & repairs are not available at WalMart, and you can make your own decisions, but if it were mine I wouldn't dry-fire it endlessly. I didn't on the one I had & wouldn't if I ever got another one.

There is a risk of cumulative damage.

A standard fired case will only work two or three times, after which the primer's dented too deep to provide any cushioning to the firing pin.

Art has described a method that people use.
If the A-Zooms fit, that's the best route.

Denis
 
Art, firing pin tips smacking erasers with 20 to 25 pounds of force are barely slowed down. A friend and I did some audiograms years ago measuring sound pressure levels on a firing pin striking erasers in cases and nothing at all when fired. Insignificant difference.

A better way is to use spent primers reseated in cases; once only. They resist denting more than erasers.
 
Iron sights off the hood of a truck with sandbags will do that. Isn't exactly a solid rest. If there's a local shooting club preferably shooting NRA matches go join it. Aside from being fun and meeting new people, you'll learn a bunch.
"...weren't designed for extensive dry-fire..." A K31 is a battle rifle. It was designed to be abused by PBI troopies. Dry firing is part of every army's training.
No snap caps aren't required for a centre fire.
 
I said EXTENSIVE dry-fire.
They were not designed for extended 30-minute sessions on a regular basis.
Certainly not 30 minutes daily.

You can push any design beyond its intended-use parameters, but if you do it long enough & hard enough it can & will eventually catch up with you.


I will emphasize again- I'm not talking about a BIT of dry-fire, OCCASIONAL dry-fire, EVERY NOW & THEN dry-fire.

I'm talking about EXCESSIVE dry-fire & 30 minutes daily is excessive.

Mo's gun, Mo's choice.
I wouldn't do it to that degree on a rifle I cared anything about, without snapcaps.
Denis
 
I have an observation to share on some of this topic.

I own and shoot a couple of high recoil rifles, 340WBY and a 300WBY. OH eight years or so back, my son and I would go out on BLM land and shoot. The recoil on these rifles were about the same to me. The 300WBY is a Vanguard, with a replacement trigger, Timney, the 340 is a MKV Deluxe. The factory target on the Vanguard is less than .7".

I was able to get groups with both rifles averaging 1". My fourteen year old son routinely shot both under 1". After 6 rounds with either I start feeling the pain. My son can shoot twenty rounds, with better accuracy than I can.

I'm a pretty husky guy, 5'10" about 200lbs. My son is 5'8" and at that time may have weighed 130lbs. I tended to absorb the recoil, he went with it and didn't bruise or ever indicate that it was painful. I have video of both of us firing both weapons and you see me after five rounds start ouching.

Now these are hunting rifles, although I only used the 300WBY, the MKV now stays in my brothers safe, in Spokane. I have handed the 300WBY down to my son, who is now 24 years old.

I decided that I will not hunt in mountains alone anymore. I always wanted a varmint type rifle, so 2 years ago my wife bought me a Cooper,MDL 22, VLM, the Montana Varminter version, in 6.5x284, 26", 1/8 twist. Shooting this rifle is a honeymoon compared to the Weatherbys. The accuracy of it astounded me!

I had to start from scratch. I reload, so I bought the best components I could find. Redding dies, Lapua brass, Berger VLDs, Sierra MK's, and Lapua Scenars. It took 4 rounds to zero and the first group, was under.3".

With this set-up shooting is fun again.

My point here is youth, good eyes and flexibility count for a lot in shooting accuracy. I always tried to teach my son proper technique. I learned it from my father and in the Army back in the very early seventies. My son is just a natural and picked it up very quick. Back then I was an expert rifleman, but time and some severe medical setbacks, like being a quadriplegic, if only temporary, left me with neurological deficits.

Training is vital, but so is native ability. Youth can use the tools given them, often to better effect, than experience. I wonder if the reflexes he developed playing Call of Duty and such had any thing to do with it?
 
I just had an idea,I do not know if it will work.It might work.

I wonder if,purely for dry fire practice,the striker could be removed from the bolt and an o-ring could be dropped in?Usually there is a shoulder on the firing pin that impacts the inside of the bolt body.The oring would make that cushy!

Of course,you have to pick it out when done.(I have not tried this)
 
I wonder if the reflexes he developed playing Call of Duty and such had any thing to do with it?
Click to expand...
About this, studies show that kids who play fast paced video game (call of duty) have better reflexes than kids who do not. Studies also show that video games do not cause violence, the same way firearms dont. Just thought I should add that bit in, would do some of the guys on this forum some good to know that.
 
Good marksmanship requires no reflexes whatsoever when firing a firearm. Every muscle in the body must remain still from when the firing pin starts to move until the body stops moving from the arm's recoil. That includes keeping the aiming eye open so where the sight's at on the target when the round fired can be remembered.

That's called follow through and calling the shot in the shooting sports.

If the bullet didn't strike where the sights were when it was fired, adjust the sights so the next bullet will strike where the sights are when its fired; even if it isn't dead center on a bullseye target.
 
Just stick to the 6 o'clock hold we've discussed, Mo.
Standardize your method, as discussed repeatedly, and keep it consistent from gun to gun with iron sights.

You can modify it slightly with an aperture/post as opposed to a notch/post, but keep that black bull on top of the front post while you're still learning on all this.

Same general basic shooting principles apply to this rifle as your Mosin.
Denis
 
I guess reflex wasn't the word I was looking for. The ability to dampen tetanus, the natural cycle rate of muscle contraction and release, describes better what I was getting at. Relaxation is the ability to dampen these cyclic vibrations. I know that younger central nervous systems can better suppress tetanus, than a senior citizen can. Totally suppressing them is impossible.

Sensing when to pull the trigger, amounts to anticipating the cycle and timing the pull, allowing for the mechanical action of the release of the firing pin, compensating for the time between it's release and its impact, and remaining as steady as possible as the actions following impact on the primer occur.

All of these require conditioning of muscle memory. I can see heartbeats through the scope, as well as tetanus. Feeling when to begin the pull, is a technique developed easier by some, than by others. It came naturally to me as boy and young man, as it did with my son.

Conditioning better describes what I was trying to express. I suspect that playing these games, my son used to play, the action shooting portion of it, like the action training we all did in military training does condition reflexive reaction in these actions.
 
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