TargetTalk

I just bought my first pistols for BE competion and I plan on doing a lot of dry firing. Here are a couple of questions I have about it.

1. Can anyone recommend a quality 22LR snap cap for use in my SW41?

2. Do .22cal snapcaps wear out due to the firing pin strike on the rim or is it possible to use them almost indefinitely like a centerfire snapcap?

Thanks,
-TH

Plastic hollow wall anchors such as these "Ribbed Plastic Anchor, 4-6-8 X 7/8-Inch, Yellow, 100-Pack " are good .22 LR dry fire plugs: https://www.amazon.com/Hillman-370326-R ... B000H5WVCS



A 100 pack is ~$5.00 and will last a very long time.

When I had a model 41 I got sick of messing with snap caps & drywall anchors. Looking online I found ideas for several other solutions, the best was a block that fits in the recess in the bottom of the slide. I don’t have one anymore, but I made several when I figured it out & handed them out like tic-tacs to anyone I saw shooting a model 41.

If you look at the bottom of the slide where the hammer strikes the back of the firing pin- the idea is to fill this volume with a plug that prevents the hammer from hitting the pin. Easy. The plug was notched on the front so it wouldn’t touch the pin & had a ledge on the bottom that stopped the hammer & could push the hammer back to re-cock. Basically I would pull the slide off & drop the plug in, then could dry fire & re-cock by moving the slide back 1/4” or so. I kept this in all the time that I wasn’t shooting on the range & found that it was so easy to dry fire I ended up doing it much more.

I first saw the idea somewhere online, machined out of Delrin or something. I had some scraps of oak in my shop, ripped it to the width & depth of the slide recess on my tablesaw & cut the rest on a bandsaw. It took 15 minutes to make like 10 of them. If I were doing it today & would make it on a 3D printer- it would use like 5 cents worth of filament. If I can lay hands on one of the oak ones I made I’m happy to measure it & make a 3D model of it that anyone could use to print them up. Find your neighborhood nerd kid to print it for you, or many libraries have printers. There are also online services that you can email a file to & they’ll mail one back.

I’m sorry I don’t have a photo of one at hand- if I get a chance I’ll try to make a sketch & post it here soon.

Here’s a sketch looking at the bottom of the slide & a section through the slide & plug. Plug is orange. The back of the recess in the slide is milled differently on old vs. new model 41’s, just make it match yours. The step in the bottom of the plug is what cocks the hammer, I don’t recall the dimensions to locate it but it is about 1/8” tall.

I haven’t had a Model 41 in years, the drawing is from memory. It should be pretty close. Hope this helps.

Here's an inexpensive fix for a dry fire plug.
https://flat5.net/writing/bullseye-2/tr ... -snap-cap/
I also remember seeing a piece like the one described in wood but made out of a hard plastic material. I think it was cut out from a piece of Delrin or similar material. Both blocks worked and stopped the hammer from striking the firing pin.
-s

The best chamber plugs I found are sold by Larry’s guns. They come in a package of 10 and sell for $9.99. They last for hundreds and hundreds of dry fires. The plug is notched to clear the extractor and will not get pulled out when racking the slide.The tab protruding from the side of the breach also acts as an empty chamber indicator and prevents the slide from hitting the breach face as well.
http://www.larrysguns.com/Garys%20Corne ... Plug-1.JPG
Get them, and you’ll love them.
The yellow plastic Home Depot anchors are cheap, come in a large quantity and work relatively well, but get pulled out by the extractor when the slide is racked and need cutting to clear the extractor if you want it to stay in the chamber. Otherwise you’ll be doing a lot of bending to pick them up off the floor. Also, the thin plastic rim gets knocked off after a few dry fires, sometimes forcing the plug itself into the bore, requiring a tool to remove it from the bore.
Get Larry’s.

Bullseye997 wrote:The best chamber plugs I found are sold by Larry’s guns.

Yeah, a big +1 for those. They do last forever, you can index them around if they get too dinged up and they just keep on working. Usually, the first thing to wear out is actually the tab breaking off when removing it, if the plug sticks in the chamber. Which is a good indicator you need to clean that chamber again, btw. :-)

Here's that photo, inline:

See this thread for some better pictures.

http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?t=20366

I use those yellow wall anchors. The extractor on my Benelli pistol holds the wall anchor in place while cocking the slide, and since the Benelli pistol's ejector is on the magazine, I dry fire less the mag, and the wall anchor doesn't eject. Another nice point on those wall anchors, they can be loaded in the magazine and they feed just fine. Great for function tests, or to find that dreaded flinch during a string of sustained fire. Buy them by the 100 box, and you've got a years worth of dry fire.