Curious if anyone has ever used snap caps from Snap Cap Emporium and what you thought?
http://stores.ebay.com/snapcapemporium? ... 7675.l2568

Mutliple calibers available and seem to be the cheapest I've found. $10-15 or more plus shipping for five 9mm snap caps seems ridiculous to me. SCE has a current deal buy 3 get 1 free and there are plenty of eligible items. The 9mm comes in a 12-pack for 13.50 and they are brass (not plastic). I could satisfy my various caliber needs here relatively cheap compared to the plastic A-zoom or Tipton kind that seem so popular. The weight seems like it would be closer to a real cartridge also.

I may give it go for four sets. The seller has a good seller rating on Ebay and has some history.

Just a thought, make your own. I've made my own snap caps for dry firing practice
for years. Easy to do, using your own fired brass a small amount of adhesive and
hard rubber eraser.

Use an arch punch to make the rubber primer, clean the primer pocket, apply adhesive
to pocket, push in the rubber and allow to dry. When the rubber primer gives
up the ghost so to speak repeat the process. low cost and you still can reload
the brass at a later date. Hope that gives you an idea or two.

I do the same thing as old timer

I dry fire my pistols all the time without snap caps. I have a couple pistols I've owned since the late 70s. None have any damage and my manuals say dryfire is OK. I do have two rimfires that say don't dry fire so I don't.

I do use snap caps at the range. I'll have my wife load a magazine or revolver with a snap cap or two and I do the same for her. Great practice.

Just a fast question. Which is harder the ogee on the firing pin shoulder or
the rear of the firing pin hole, and which would have a tend to ring and become
brittle or mushroom out to a larger opening? BTW I'm not a source for replacement
parts. Just someone who used to make a living replacing them.

Not trying to be nasty, just helpful.

Has anyone tried filling the shell with Silicon caulk? Pump it full till it oozes out the primer hole. After it sets trim it flush.
I haven't tried it but the idea has sat in the back of my mind for awhile.

I don't think chalk would hold up very well.
once it craters out it's it won't do any good.

I don't use erasers on mine I use a piece of heavy duty rubber from a computer.. stand off on the back of a motherboard.. I just cut a piece and shove it in the hole, lasts a looonnngg time.. I just had it sitting around.

Some guns handle being dry fired better then others.
was this comp. shooter that ran a Beretta 92, even the azooms which are like solid alumium will eventually creater out.

However lot's of dry firing can lead to a broken firing pin.

Anyway this guy figured up aprox how often he broke firing pins dry firing.
They also figured up about how long a azoom lasted.

The end math was that it was cheaper to dry fire with no snap cap what so ever and replace the firing pins occasionally then to pay for azooms.

different guns, snap caps, im sure the math could change very YMMV


for rim fires I just pop in a spent case.
some rim fires can handle dry firing if they have a cutout on the chamber but very few are made like that.

My dad's old Hi-standard sentinel has such cutouts, but I still don't dry fire it.

I have AZooms for all calibers and use them for dry firing, but more for familiarizing people with the form and function of firearms without live ammo before range time. The AZooms are expensive, but I have no complaints. The products in the OP look interesting and inexpensive, but I like how the AZooms stand out at a glance as snap caps. Maybe if the actual bullets were colored like the primers I would be more prone to like them.

if you just need dummy rounds you can make them your self.

You can use a bullet puller, but unless you reload you likely don't have one of those.

Take a live round, measure it's length,

Take a spent case and put it over the bullet of the live round, now you can try to wiggle the bullet out OR with the case providing protection to the bullet use pliers to pull the bullet out.

if you shove the case on to tight you'll now have the opposite problem of the bullet being stuck in the spent case backwards.

dump the powder, you can have some fun with it if you want.. if you just wanna dispose of it put it on something non combustible and toss a match on it.

take the primed brass (no powder / bullet) and fire it off in the gun at a safe direction.
usually not very loud about like a cap gun.

with the primer expended, take a center punch then enough to fit down the flash hole and pop the primer out.

now go back and take your pulled bullet and reseat it so it matches the previously measured length.

mark the bullet and case with something, marker, paint, etc to identify it.
you can fill the primer pocket rubber or something to also make a poor mans snap cap.

IF you plan to use this dummy round for clearance drills you might not wanna mark it, in which case keep it in a separate baggy and DO NOT fill the primer hole.. this will be used for identification.

This way you can even load your own mags.. normally with snap caps you need someone else to load your mags for practicing those sorts of drills.

for larger rounds where the missing weight might be noticed try some hot glue in the case.
after a while the round will start to show tarnish and wear, which can make it easily identifiable if you're loading your own mags for these drills.
you can touch it up with fine sand paper (to remove burrs and scratches) and metal polish, mothers mag works pretty well and quick.

I just assume the firing pin spring absorbs the impact preventing mushrooming.

I haven't broken a firing pin as of yet. None the firearms that I routinely dry fire have show any visable damage and function properly at the range. I have no preference either way if someone wants to use snap caps or not. I just added I don't routinly use them.

JoeSixpack mentioned about making your own dummie rounds; I've made up some that don't feed properly, also.

thanks for some of the "make your own" suggestions. I don't have the re-loading equipment as I've not gotten into that just yet. Also, I expect it will seem really easy once I do decide to start re-loading (really just a space issue for me now...living in a 2 bedroom apartment, I'm already struggling to store all my shooting equipment all over the place)...I need a snap cap solution on shorter term that I can use now.

I use the snap caps for personal practice as well as training/basic gun safety stuff whenever I take someone to the range the first time. I always like going through a few exercises with inert snap caps vs. live cartridges for first time shooters

I put in an order for the Snap Cap Emporium for both my 9mm and my 308. I'll report back with some comments once I've tried them out.

If you want I can make up some basic dummy rounds in 9mm and send them to you free of charge. Shoot me a PM.

To some extent that's true but that spring doesn't remove all the energy from the
hammer or striker spring. Also there are no springs on a lot of revolvers. Plus the
fact there are a lot of nimrods out there just starting in with firearms, and God
only knows how or why they do some of the things they do.

That's one of the main reasons I tell people not to dry fire their weapons.

"IF" the firing pin has a return spring it's just that.. returns it to the rear and helps with slam fires that can be caused by a free floating pin.

Dinstar,

That is very kind of you to offer. I was on the road for work the last week+ so just getting back to my 'routine'.

I actually put in and just received my order from Snap Cap Emporium. I haven't run them through any of my guns yet but...the first thing I like about them is the realistic weight. The other snap caps I've seen/used/borrowed were always way too light relative to a real cartridge. I'll do a full write-up on these once I get home tonight...but...they seem really high quality for the price (but...the math doesn't lie...you can't beat free:D).