What's the verdict on dry firing? Snap-caps?

[Dwight Gruber]

Originally Posted by Wernher von Browning

A gunsmith in Switzerland tells me that he can't prove it, but he thinks Snap-Caps break Luger extractors. He's had to replace a few in guns that were used that way.

Single-shot loading any cartridge into a Luger's chamber--snap cap or live round--and then closing the breech, can be damaging to the extractor.

The extractor is not designed to slip over the cartridge rim. Under normal operation, the round stripped from the magazine slides up the breech face and the rim hooks under the extractor. Slamming the extractor hook face into the rear of the cartridge can, indeed, break it.

Best practice is to chamber your snap cap from a magazine. This can be a problem if you are using a spent case with a "snubber" primer replacement and no bullet; you could probably manually place the case into the breech face and close the action before it falls out.

Of course, retracting the action far enough to **** the striker does not fully extract the case, so it is not necessary to insert it over and over.

--Dwight