Do you know first hand of a firing pin being broken by dry firing?

The only guns I've seen with broken firing pins were already old when I was a young kid and I don't know if dry firing broke it or not.

I've seen firing pins broken or damaged by dry firing; but only in rim-fire guns.

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John

I broke a firing pin in a MK VI Webley, during dry firing. A gunsmith welded it back.

Broke the nose off of a CZ52 firing pin while dry firing. Found out the original firing pins were cast. Replaced with an aftermarket milled firing pin from Makarov.com.

Class III

I bought a Beretta folding 20ga shotgun new in 1958 -- teenage purchase, the only shotgun I could afford -- and spent a lot of evening hours practice-pointing and dry-firing at imaginary birds who usually headed for one upper corner of my bedroom. On one trigger pull I heard a "click" from that corner of the room and saw something small fall down the wall and behind a dresser. I knew immediately what it had to be, found the piece and determined that it was indeed the front 1/8" of the gun's firing pin.

I was mortified, of course, because I had been told not to dry fire any firearm. But I set aside embarrassment, took it back to the owner-operated gun store where I bought it and confessed. The owner charged me a little under four dollars to replace it, and I never dry fired the shotgun again. (But I did continue to practice shouldering the gun and tracking imaginary birds breaking cover.)

So yes, I have seen dry firing break a firing pin. I did it myself.

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David Wilson

I confess I broke a firing pin. It was a Winchester Model 1894 carbine made in 1903. I was 10 years old and practicing my John Wayne imitation in the bedroom. I pulled the trigger and the hammer made a funny sound when it dropped. A little piece of metal slithered out through the bottom when I worked the action; it was the firing pin tip. I convinced my mother to take me and the carbine to the gunsmith to get it fixed. The gunsmith was a supercilious snot who insisted on giving me a half hour's sermon about little boys with guns. To make it worse, he took six months to replace the firing pin (he wasn't that busy) and charged me $12.00 for the repair! That was in 1956. I don't dryfire anything anymore without snap caps.

Charlie

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SWCA # 2294

I broke the firing pin on my third gen Colt SAA while dry firing it. I believe the long hammer fall convinced inertia to break it.

I think you're going to find it doesn't happen on a Smith&Wesson.
Edited: However it is possible on a rimfire revolver. That aspect sorta slipped my mind.

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Dick

A few years ago I bought a pre-model 18 made in 1954 that had a broken firing pin. The previous owner said that it broke when he was dry firing it. Never seen it happen on center fires though.

i had a 32 acp star auto that "came apart in my friends hand" yes broken firing pin from continuous dry fire . took 20-30 hits he said ...what a tool!
him, not the gun. i was in the next room oblivious to the destruction until it was too late.
broke a transfer bar on a new vaquero after 4-5000 38 spl and30 000+ dryfires ,does that count?

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the rules? there are no rules

Yup, the old Tokarev (CZ 52) pistols were known for it.

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Hold my beer and watch this!

I think some (mostly old) guns are susceptible to firing pin breakage, most probably are not. If it was a sure thing to cause breakage the military would have no guns. But just to be safe I use "snap caps."

I

An SKB 600 20 GA Over and Under, and a Rottweil 72 American Skeet special, both by dry firing.

Pretty embarrassing, considering that neither one was my gun, and I did the dry-firing.

In my defense, the Rottweil had custom-machined hardened pins that were brtittle and the SKB was pretty old.

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Long Barrel
Retired Artilleryman

Mauser HSc 32auto pistol. I've seen a couple of those broken during dry fire. ,,and some broken during un-necessary disassembly too.
Very fragile in the original design. The post war gun redesigned the f/p because of that.

An elderly (1908) LC Smith 12 OO grade. It's a big no-no to dry fire these any way. But the guy still had to and broke the pin and the bushing on the right bbl.
Said he needed to relieve the mainspring pressure.

Recently a Stevens import O/U (from Turkey or one of those places it seems to be popular to have O/U shotguns made).
Dry fired by the happy new owner on station 6 of the first round of skeet to be shot w/it and it broke the top F/P.
It had misfired twice at the station,,not cocking when opening perhaps, so he decided to check it out with the gun unloaded. It 'dry' fired OK then,,but just once.

There's been others where the gun finally stopped firing reliably and it's found that the firing pin is broken inside. But the 2 pieces are still doing the job most of the time as they line up in their machined passage way.
Many of those I often think are victims from dry firing as they look too battered to have just occured and then the gun quickly taken out of service for repair.

Some are perfectly fine with being dry fired. Other designs aren't so forgiving.

I don't torture any weapon with dry fire, but I do dry fire modern rifles and handguns.

If they can't hold up to dry fire, then they're too delicate for me.

Yes, I have replaced broken pins. More older rimfire than others.

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GOA
USA Shooting Supporter

I broke a pin while dry firing a Winchester model 1894. Of course that was when I was young and dumb. Now that I am older, hopefully I'm not as dumb.

Yep, broke one in an AMT Backup years ago.

Brand new Model 66 25 years ago. Tested the action, took it to the range. Fired two rounds. Then nothing. Firing pin had broken off. Dealer next day replaced firing pin from stock he had on hand.

Probably just the rare defective pin from the day it was installed.

Well, maybe not often. I broke the hammer nose on a S&W Model 64-3, SN 1D513XX, from the legendary Bangor Punta era. I assume my excessive dry firing was responsible.

It was a cheap and easy fix at the local gunsmth.

Metallurgy has seen HUGE improvements in the last 50-100 years. If you read the posts above, many of the broken pin issues were on pre-1960 firearms. I'm betting the margin would change significantly if the poll were to ask about modern, post 1975, non-rimfire firearms only.

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Dave

Have you ever owned a Rossi revolver? They are so well designed, that you only have to dry fire it a couple times to break the hammer nose off. It's a reeeeeall bonus!

I haven't owned a Rossi since.

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But then, what do I know?

But what if it'd happened in the middle of a gunfight?

I think both Beretta and CZ warn against dry firing of their 9mm autos. I have twice broken firing pin stops on Colt (not copies) of the 1911 pistol. One was a WW II Lend-Lease gun and the other was a postwar commercial Govt. Model.

I practice operating the action of my Rem. M-870, but don't pull the trigger until the session is finished and the gun is put away.

I don't often dry-fire any guns meant for serious protection or for use in remote areas where a gunsmith would be a long way off.

I broke one dry firing a model 10-5 police trade-in. Was it cracked before.....who knows.

This is a old friends story, not mine. He was a retired combat veteran of both world war two and korea and was a guard with me. He said was going through a village in korea when a solider rose up in front of him to shoot him. The gun misfired, he and /or his guys shot him and they took the rifle apart to see what happened. I dont remember if it was a SKS or a Ak 47 type. It had a broken fireing pin.

I've had it happen to a M19 snub. Twice. With snap caps. Nice as it was otherwise, I had no regrets selling it at that point.

I suspect it might have been a fitment issue.

I had a Cylinder and Slide Extra Length pin break while using snap caps. Never had a factory S&W pin break... many thousands of pulls with and without snap caps.

I had a male teacher in High School that was in the Battle of the Bulge. He told us ROTC students about the Carbines with broken firing pins then. And the soldiers peeing on their M-1's keep them going in the bitter cold. Later on I broke the firing pin in a Carbine I owned. I dry fired it & is the only firing pin I ever broke in over 60 years

It appears that there are enough broken firing pins to say that this is not just an old shooter's tale.

The last time I saw a broken firing pin was on a gun that was very old when I was a kid (I'm 57 now) and I'm not sure what the cause was.

I probably should have specified modern center-fire handguns, but this is good enough to convince me.

Oh, and thanks for the stories. They put things in perspective and are a fun read, too. (Peeing on M-1s?)

That's the only gun I've ever broken a firing pin on.

I don't know about yours, but my CZ 52's hammer release lever performs the same action as the trigger.

You just tell the other guy that you'll have to get back to him when you get the gun fixed. Kinda like a rain check.

In 1985 I was standing next to a guy on the firing line at a training course, when his brand new model 64 lost the nose of its (hammer mounted) firing pin while in use.This was in the first ten or so rounds fired. It was the only pin failure I have ever seen in a S&W revolver (at the time we worked in a 1200 member PD where everyone was armed w/ revolvers).

My own firing pin that broke (while dry firing) was in a Bauer .25 (Stainless) it still fired with the tip broken off.

Probably not going to make much difference if you're dry firing in a gunfight.

Stevens 311 12 gauge SxS. Broke both of them, dry-firing. Broke one, and when the gunsmith had it apart to replace it, he called me and told me the other one was cracked.

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I always take precautions

I'ved broken two. The first was on a CZ 52 pistol. One day it wouldn't fire. I looked at it and determined the tip of the firing pin was missing. I replaced the pin, but did something wrong, for now if you operate the hammer drop the pistol fires.

The oher was a Savage 1907 pistol. Broke the tip of the firing pin dry firing it. It's a bear to replace. The firing pin (sriker, actually) and about a 2 inch long muscular spring have to go into a 1 inch long hole. No fun. I don't dry fire this one any more.

I purchased a brand new Grendel P-10 in 1988 (give or take a year), and about the 3rd time I took it shooting, I accidentally dry fired it when the slide failed to lock back after the last round. There was a "click", and when I opened the action, about a half inch of firing pin fell out of the gun. It had a hollow, light weight firing pin. I returned it to the factory with an explanation, they fixed it and returned it with a note chastising me for having dry fired it, explaining that because of its design, it should NEVER be dry fired.

Also, my Father came back from WWII with an Astra .25 ACP pistol (along with a P-38 and a Radom.) At some point after the war, the firing pin broke. I can't say for sure what its history had been, or what the cause of the broken firing pin might have been.

Tim

Wimp Jimmy has broken the firing pins by drying firing in:
1. German Luger
2. Enfield Tanker Model .38 Revolver
3. Taurus Model PT 92 9mm Pistol
4. Colt Agent .38spl Revolver

Now in the present I do not "Dry Fire" firearms, I now just lose gun parts.

I have seen it once on a new Ruger SR22....22's are a NO-NO

Winchester 94 and Marlin 336 will both break firing pins from dry-firing...fine shotguns..Star B pistols...CZ52 pistols...many rimfires can break pins or damage chambers.

Lots of guns can be damaged by dry-firing

It's common on Ruger P345s if the gun is dry fired without a magazine in place. On this particular pistol, when the magazine is not in the gun the firing pin is blocked but the trigger will still release the hammer. This is not like other guns with magazine disconnect safeties, even other Rugers (like the LC9), in which the trigger will not even operate when there is no magazine in the gun.

When you dry fire a P345 without a magazine in the pistol, it will damage the firing pin...sometimes with just a few dry fires. Prospective P345 buyers should definitely check this when buying used or display guns. IMO, this is a poor design on Ruger's part. The P345 has now been discontinued, but I wondered why they didn't redesign it when it was in production, after the problem was realized, instead of revising the owner's manual to advise against dry firing without a magazine in place. (I guess that was cheaper.)

I broke the firing pin on a Star 45 cal. I bought new in the 70's, never had been shot. Still have the gun, still hasn't been shot.

Broke one on a C. Sharps Hi-Wall. Cost me $35. Don't do that anymore.

Edit: it was a centerfire.

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Quando omni flunkus moritati.

Broke one on a Browning BDA .380. The tip broke at the shoulder. Took over two months to get a replacement. Reworked the old one for a temporary fix by brazing a modified dowel pin to the broken end. Never used it until the new pin was installed.

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Mike in SouthCentral Kentucky

My Dad's 1940's High Standard has broken several. Can't find them anymore, so my brother makes them (he's a gunsmith).

I broke a firing pin on an Italian SxS first time I ever dry fired it when it was new. I later was told it's not a good idea to dry fire Italian shotguns, I don't know?

I had a Model 19 in mid 70s used that had a small chip on the end of the hammer mounted firing pin. I still worked but the sharp edge pieced primers so I had it replaced.

Where are all the guys who broke firing pins in their BG380's???

Wasn't that a major issue just a few years back?

.

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Kirk / Spock 2020

The hammer mounted firing pin on an S&W double action centerfire revolver is unlikely to break from dry firing. In fact, Ed McGivern, the author of Fast And Fancy Revolver Shooting, a revolver classic, recommended hundreds of dry fire double action trigger strokes per week, and never so much as mentioned broken firing pins (unless it was to discount the concern).

Now, I must say, however, that extensive dry firing without snap caps will eventually negatively impact the firing pin port in the frame of such revolvers, i.e., it can eventually push out a steel spur that could cause hangups in the rotation of the cylinder due to friction against the back of the cartridges. So I recommend snap caps for this reason, but not due to concern over broken, hammer mounted, firing pins.

A S&W 14-2. My excessive dry firing. I was not using snap caps.

I still dry fire my revolvers, pistols, and rifles, but only with the A-Zoom caps in.

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and what his trumpet saith

Well, I'm going to sit on the fence. I have broken a firing pin on a Model 13 while dry firing, I don't necessarily think it broke because of dry firing. On the other side, I have broken a firing pin on a Rossi Overland shotgun, that may have been because of dry firing, it was a new gun. It went "tink" off my TV's screen.

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

I broke the firing pin (hammernose) of my brand new model 629-4 dry firing it. I called S&W to order a new one (at my expense) assuming that it was my fault for not using snap caps. The gentleman on the phone assured me that it was a defective hammernose and that best of companies replaced it under warranty, paying shipping both ways. In my experience, nothing beats S&W customer service!

Hammer-nose on a early 1950s 38-44 HD broke while dry firing. I have engaged in dry firing Smith cf revolvers for 45 years or so and this was the only time it has happened.

Thanks to some good folks on the Forum here I was able to get the HD fixed.