Dry fire a 1911

Help Support Ruger Forum:

vortecMax

Blackhawk
Joined
Nov 19, 2011
Messages
607
Location
Flint, MI
I hear people talk about practicing trigger pull with empty handguns. I have heard it is not good to dry fire 1911's. Your opinions please.
 

Skoopski

Single-Sixer
Joined
Apr 27, 2015
Messages
389
Location
Missouri, USA
Dry fired mine hundreds of times. No ill effects yet. About the only thing I have that I don't dry fire is rimfires.
 

Sugar River

Buckeye
Joined
Aug 25, 2008
Messages
1,084
Location
S Florida
Jeff Cooper and Ray Chapman used to tell us to dry fire our 1911s as much as possible when range time wasn't practical.
The only "damage" I noted was the improvement in the trigger.
 

bayou5252

Single-Sixer
Joined
Jun 28, 2016
Messages
210
Location
SE Louisiana
The owner's manual for the SR1911 provides:

"DRY FIRING
Going through the actions of cocking, aiming and pulling the trigger on an
unloaded gun is known as "dry firing." It can be useful to learn the "feel" of your
pistol. Be certain that the pistol is fully unloaded (both the chamber and
magazine are empty) and that the pistol is pointing in a safe direction even when
you are practicing dry firing. The RUGER® SR1911® pistols can be dry-fired
without damage to the firing pin or other components."
 

Pat-inCO

Hawkeye
Joined
Oct 17, 2009
Messages
5,922
Location
In the AZ oven (Phoenix basin)
vortecMax said:
I hear people talk about practicing trigger pull with empty handguns.
I have heard it is not good to dry fire 1911's.
You must have been somewhere near an "internet expert". :roll:

I had several people tell me that dry firing a 1911 would not hurt anything.
At that time my only 1911 was one I had paid $1,700 for, so I was hesitant
to try it. Soooo, I bought a very inexpensive one, specifically for dry fire.
This was a VERY inexpensive one and the trigger reflected that. Long
story short, after over 8,000 cycles, the very inexpensive one has an
excellent trigger. ZERO other changes/problems.

I now have it combined with a mechtech upper to have a .45 carbine.

Summary: Dryfire in a 1911 is NOT a problem.
 

Snake45

Hawkeye
Joined
Mar 14, 2009
Messages
9,119
Location
+4020
Some firearms will give problems if dry-fired (Walther P.38 comes to mind), but the 1911, whose firing pin is sometimes mistaken for a truck axle, is not one of them.

I've broken the firing pins of a Smith 19 and a Colt Python from dry firing (and a P.38 twice), but I've never even heard of a damaged 1911 firing pin from dry firing. Snap away! :wink:
 
Top