Proper Dry Fire caps

Hi All, 
I recently ran a training clinic that broke out each individual shooting concept. 

That class included dry fire. I was surprised by the number of unsuitable products purchased as 22 RF dry fire rounds. Some were only dummy rounds for loading practice and not misrepresented but still, solid metal dummies will damage your breech. Here's a photo of some good stuff 

Bruce, what about the plastic drywall inserts?

They work too, the #6 yellow version. Sorry I missed that

https://realisticsnapcaps.com/

Drywall anchors are very inexpensive and work perfectly for .22 rimfire dryfire.

I use a credit card piece in My High standard, a chamber plug in My Hämmerli. Dry wall anchors don't work with High standard, the firing pin is long and Will damage.

Hey Bruce, I attended you class this weekend. I'm looking for the Dry Fire Flags you have in this picture on this post. Do you know where to get them? Not the plastic snap caps. Thanks for the class, it was great and today i tried to put some of the info you gave us to use, seen a difference already. Bill T with the Volquartsen.  

https://www.redfeatheroutfitters.com/dry-fire-plugs-22.html

Thank you for the reply.

bruce martindale wrote:They work too, the #6 yellow version. Sorry I missed that

 Unfortunately the yellow Hillman #6 anchors that used to work great are now mostly made in China.  They've changed the design so they work with #4 screws as well.  This makes them too small to work as .22 rimfire dry fire devices.

Supposedly Hillman also has (had?) them made in Taiwan, and those are supposed to be OK.  I haven't been able to find those anywhere.  I've been investigating other brands of wall anchors, but haven't found anything useful yet.  Someone said that Lowes has some that will work.

bruce martindale wrote:Hi All, 
I recently ran a training clinic that broke out each individual shooting concept. 

That class included dry fire. I was surprised by the number of unsuitable products purchased as 22 RF dry fire rounds. Some were only dummy rounds for loading practice and not misrepresented but still, solid metal dummies will damage your breech. Here's a photo of some good stuff 

Hello Bruce
i have used the hard plastic plug pictured on the top and they work well for about 10 dryfires. then they break apart and plug gets stuck in the breech. i have had much better luck with the softer plastic plugs pictured on the bottom. just my 2-cents. thanks for the picture, i like pictures. lol

gwhite wrote:

bruce martindale wrote:They work too, the #6 yellow version. Sorry I missed that

 Unfortunately the yellow Hillman #6 anchors that used to work great are now mostly made in China.  They've changed the design so they work with #4 screws as well.  This makes them too small to work as .22 rimfire dry fire devices.

Supposedly Hillman also has (had?) them made in Taiwan, and those are supposed to be OK.  I haven't been able to find those anywhere.  I've been investigating other brands of wall anchors, but haven't found anything useful yet.  Someone said that Lowes has some that will work.

I have found this to be true with my Ruger. They will not work.

This is the only thing I will use

I usually save a handful of empties from each range trip to use as snap caps.  I get quite a few snaps on each one before it’s too deformed to eject easily.

Bruce, love that ancient Hammerli chamber plug. Did you get that from Larry?

Another winner is a flag of refrigerator magnet cut to fit your breechface and trimmed to avoid your extractor and ejector.

Rob Kovach wrote:Another winner is a flag of refrigerator magnet cut to fit your breechface and trimmed to avoid your extractor and ejector.

How thick the dry fire device can be depends on the pistol.  Most US pistols (High Standards, Model 41's etc.) have disconnectors that prevent the hammer from falling if the slide is more than about 1/16" open.  Most European target pistols will fire with the slide open quite a ways.  On those, you can put in a longer dry fire plug (like Pardinis come with) that holds the slide open so far that it also limits the travel of the hammer.  That reduces wear & tear from dry firing even further. 

The soft orange plastic plugs that Larry Carter designed (currently sold by Red Feather Outfitters) will work with almost any pistol as long as you can maneuver the notch around the extractor.  The downside is that they get chewed up fairly quickly, and depending on how tight and/or dirty your chamber is, they can get difficult to remove without ripping the flag off.

I'm researching wall anchors to replace the now useless Hillman yellow ones.  I've picked up a couple options, but haven't had a chance to test them yet.

I found some plastic anchors that work well, but they may be old stock.  I hit several home stores (Home Depot, Lowes) and a bunch of hardware stores.  If they had anchors for #6 & #8 screws, the majority of them are now also rated for #4 screws, which is the problem with the Hillman anchors that used to work so well.

I did find some yellow #6/#8 anchors at a hardware store in a 12 piece blister pack from Midwest Fastener:



They have the same multi-country manufacturing info that the Hillman's do, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are just repackaged Hillman's.  This was from an Ace Hardware, and the next time I  go by that one, I'm going to stock up.

So far, all I can say is to avoid any anchors that claim they work down to #4 screws.  I checked to see if Midwest had other options (like a box of 100), and I found mention that the same part number may now be rated for #4 screws, so watch out.

Outthere wrote:Bruce, love that ancient Hammerli chamber plug. Did you get that from Larry?

Actually, it came with the gun…quite a while ago.

I was thinking of experimenting with making some out of more established impact-resistant urethanes, ABS, etc., instead of polyester or whatever cheap polymer is uses to make wall anchors. Just turn a small solid piece that fits in the chamber with a rim, and if the material was good enough for say, 500 hits, an extractor cutout.

tovaert wrote:I was thinking of experimenting with making some out of more established impact-resistant urethanes, ABS, etc., instead of polyester or whatever cheap polymer is uses to make wall anchors. Just turn a small solid piece that fits in the chamber with a rim, and if the material was good enough for say, 500 hits, an extractor cutout.

If you can find out what Pardini uses for their older green .22 frame buffers, the stuff is incredibly tough.  I think it's probably polyurethane.  The catch is that it would have to be molded.  

I think the orange ones Larry Carter developed (now sold by Red Feather Outfitters) are polyethylene.  They are OK, but they could stand to be slightly smaller in diameter so they don't get stuck in a dirty chamber as easily, and the tab/handle attachment needs to be stronger.  The college team I  help coach uses them as empty chamber indicators in Benellis, and they get stuck pretty easily, and then the handles tear off.

The material Shock Buffs is made of would be nice, whatever that might be

gwhite wrote:

I think the orange ones Larry Carter developed (now sold by Red Feather Outfitters) are polyethylene.  They are OK, but they could stand to be slightly smaller in diameter so they don't get stuck in a dirty chamber as easily, and the tab/handle attachment needs to be stronger.  The college team I  help coach uses them as empty chamber indicators in Benellis, and they get stuck pretty easily, and then the handles tear off.

I carry a short length of wooden dowel in my shooting box.  I insert this carefully into the muzzle and push the plug out of the chamber to avoid damaging the flag.

Dennis, aka Dylcmrman