Originally Posted by Snoguy

Dry firing with snap caps did not prevent my firing pin (S/N EAHxxxx) from breaking after about 300 dry fires. It's been fine since S&W replaced the firing pin, with about 300 live fires since on the new firing pin. I dry fire very little now.

Judging from the broad span of broken firing pins across a wide range od S/Ns, it's my opinion that the 380 firing pin has a design problem, which results in a stress point where all these things seem to be breaking.

The metal injection molding process is a widely used and accepted manufacturing process when done correctly, so I'm not so sure it is the source of these problems. However, problems with the MIM process could make a design problem worse. From what I've heard S&W tells everyone with a broken firing pin that their problem is an isolated case. I would recommend against much dry firing, even with snap caps.

Dave