Is it okay to dry fire with or without a snap cap?

Per S&W customer service, yes.

But, it doesn't hurt to use snap caps.

i personally wouldn't, i always use snap caps

Dry fired both of mine hundreds of times.

Not only is it good practice for learning the basics, it really "smooths" out the trigger pull.

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NULLI SECUNDUS

This is almost, but not quite, as much a debate as caliber!

As mentioned, the manual says it's OK to dry fire the SDVE guns. There are some for which it's definitely not recommended, like rim fire guns...and there are some center fire guns that can be damaged if you dry fire them without the magazine in the gun, like a Ruger P345 for example. The SDVE series guns don't suffer from the magazine disconnect "feature" and it doesn't hurt to dry fire them without snap caps. I like to use snap caps to practice malfunction drills, but otherwise I don't use them routinely when dry firing.

No benefit to using snap caps in anything other than double barreled shotguns and rifles.

I find them fussy and a tremendous hassle without a benefit in most applications.

Thank you for your responses, gentlemen. I thought it would be okay, but I wanted to find out other owner's thoughts on this. I read a review on academy that a new buyer had a problem and had to have the striker replaced, dry firing w/out snap caps, according to S&W cust serv. Either way, glad to have the lifetime warranty.