Do you do dry fire practice at home in your spare time? If not, why not? It’s one of the best, easiest ways to improve your shooting. One of the problems some shooters have with dry fire, though, is they either 1) don’t want to pull the trigger on an empty chamber, or 2) don’t like chasing ejected snap caps around the room.
Lyman has a solution for both objections. Their new A-Zoom StrikerCaps don’t have rims, so won’t be launched by your semi-auto pistol’s extractor. They also have a rubber O-ring to keep them in the chamber as you move the pistol around (just pop the StrikerCap out with a cleaning rod when you’re finished).
Here’s Lyman’s press release . . .
Lyman® Products A-Zoom StrikerCaps Makes Dry Fire Training a Snap
Dry fire training is the best way to become familiar with a firearm and A-Zoom is the best choice.
Middletown, Conn. (April 2019) – Lyman® Products is pleased to announce the addition of A-Zoom StrikerCaps to their popular line of safety training, function testing and dry firing practice. For traditional snap cap dry fire practice in striker fire type pistols, the slide must be drawn back to cock the pistol, which then extracts and ejects the snap cap from the pistol. Lyman’s new A-Zoom StrikerCaps are made without a rim and are equipped with a centering O-ring which grips the chamber walls and keeps the snap cap in place in the chamber.
Trevor Mullen, VP of Global Marketing and Business Development for Lyman Products, explained, “You simply chamber the A-Zoom StrikerCap, then rack the slide to cock the pistol and the StrikerCap absorbs the firing pin hit just like our other standard A-Zoom Snap Caps. But the StrikerCap stays in place, so you can keep on practicing your trigger control and sight picture without having to stop your practice and find your snap cap and rechamber it.”
Using A-Zoom StrikerCaps while practicing dry firing or function testing a pistol after repair or cleaning will prevent damage to the firing pin and/or the barrel breech block with repeated trigger work. The A-Zoom StrikerCaps are precision machined from aluminum with a cushioned primer for repeated cycling and shaped exactly like an actual loaded round for accurate loading and feeding, yet finished in a bright training orange color to clearly discriminate it from a live round.
The new Lyman A-Zoom StrikerCaps are available for .380 Auto, 9mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP in two per packs starting at $8.98 retail.
Stay up to date with Lyman Product news on their Facebook, YouTube and Instagram pages.
About Lyman® Products:
Lyman Products, founded by avid outdoorsman, William Lyman, has been innovating firearms and reloading accessories and gear for over 140 years. Today, using advanced technologies, Lyman is in the forefront of meeting the needs of shooters and reloaders across the world. Whether pioneering the use of digital technology in reloading tools or reintroducing “antique” calibers and bullet molds, Lyman continues to improve and innovate the tools and accessories used by serious shooters and reloaders.
Lyman products and brands, are available nationally through firearms and sporting goods dealers and mail order companies. Pachmayr, TacStar, Trius Traps, A-Zoom Precision Snap Caps, Butch’s Gun Care and Targdots are also Lyman brands.
I thought it was a criticism when I first read the headline.
I use A-Zoom snapcaps. Not so much for practicing trigger pull but to lighten up the pull. And it’s worked on my cheap Tauruses…
‘Lighten up the pull’ how? If this is a joke it’s too subtle for me.
Lots of dry fire will smooth up the trigger in a lot of firearms. Another thing to do is work the slide (without the recoil spring if you can)
Yep it’s just polishing everything. Did it with a Taurus 85 without snapcaps by not letting the hammer down after pulling the trigger. Sorry it’s above your paygrade Eric😄😊😏
Back in “the day” it was common for people to “dry fire” their S&W revolvers by pushing forward on the hammer as they squeezed. The resulting action smoothed out an already nearly perfect trigger break even more. Those old 5 screw Smiths I own have better out-of-the-box triggers and smoother actions than the current Performance Center revolvers. Time and pride back then, I assume.
The good ol 10000 round trigger job
That’s a neat idea. I think I’ll take an existing snap cap and remove the rim. Thanks for the idea a-zoom!
I mix snap caps with live ammo at the range. And work a clearing a malfunction. When ever I read someone saying they never clean their gun, I wonder what they will do when they hear a “click” instead of a “bang”???
And of course use only snap caps at home for dry fire practice.
People who don’t clean their guns are lazy. Period. They are the same ones that if you opened their hood, their engine oil is black, their battery terminals are corroded, the washer bottle is empty, one headlight is out and the wiper blades, those aren’t wiper blades, it’s garbage that smears the water around.
There is NO good excuse except pure laziness to not clean your weapon.
Don’t want to clean their weapons, fine by me. Take another bong hit and spare me the lame excuses.
You sound triggered.
Surprised it’s taken this long to come up with such a thing. Hunting down and loading snap caps was always the biggest pain. Just started practicing on empty chambers.
What they really need are fake weighted mags to simulate the heft of a loaded gun while practicing. Probably cost prohibitive for manufacturing the necessary molds though
Someone makes one for Glocks
simply fill your mag with the aluminum a-zoom snap caps.
a) Aluminum snap caps don’t replicate the weight of loaded ammunition. I use brass dummies, but didn’t find them for sale when looking for a 9mm set recently. Brass is heavier than loaded ammo, but you can creep up on the weight you want and I think heavier is better for practice anyway. I have not seen the inert brass rounds with color marking (except for the rubber primer), so extra caution is needed if you possess any live ammo with brass jacket bullets.
b) For the problem identified by BlakeW5, filling a magazine with rimmed inert rounds behind a rimless snap cap just gives him/her an opportunity to practice clearing double-feed malfunctions. Then chasing the ejected dummy rounds under the sofa or around the range.
A weighted dummy magazine would be a solution. Another path would be a partial load of brass dummies with a device to block the follower down — so it would not lock the slide and the slide would not pick up a new round. Meanwhile, I use a press-check reset instead of a complete rack of the slide.
1) don’t want to pull the trigger on an empty chamber
Why exactly? Sure on rimfire stuff – but anything centerfire why?
Because on many pistols if the firing pin doesn’t hit a primer, the force of the hammer or striker spring will drive the shoulder of the firing pin against the firing pin hole in the slide. Over time this can either work harden the shoulder of the firing pin and cause it to become brittle, or peen and deform it.
Most modern firearms can be dry fired. Simply check the owners manual. My Ruger SR22 can be dry fired as can my P229
It’s ok, newtons third law is hard to understand for most. You’ll get there someday.
Spoiler alert, if your firing pin isn’t stopped by a primer, something stops it. People’s ignorance of physics or hopes and dreams don’t bring a firing pin to rest.
hmm … i guess the sarcastic comment to an honest question makes you feel good ?
Yaaaaaaaay! Another product for flat earthers, space is fake, anti-vax , and anthropomorphic global-warming types. I cant wait to not buy one.
Useful for guns like the Beretta 3032 where the firing pin *will* break if dry fired with nothing in the chamber.
Oh sorry, did I ruin your edgy snark?
moronic comment from the peanut gallery.
thanks for the entertainment.
I use inert rounds/snap caps to practice malfunction drills. I *want* the rims in order that they will chamber, extract, and eject properly.
For dry fire practice, I use a laser cartridge without rim. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B077Q8RXB9/
A bit more $$, but to me there is a difference between proper trigger manipulation and proper manipulation while maintaining sight alignment. And for building speed, I’m not sure how you would have any idea where you point during dry fire without light.
In dry fire practice, I don’t fully rack the slide to reset the trigger. With SA, I manually thumb the hammer. With M&P, a press check is enough to reset the trigger. So I practice with laser cartridge in the chute, and a mag full of solid brass dummies. All the balance of a loaded gun, feedback on sight alignment, no cartridges under the sofa, and no empty mag slide lock. Shortcomings: no recoil; no followup shot; need to maintain reflexes of fully and properly operating slide when necessary; cost of a couple boxes of duty ammo.
Cool idea, it’ll give me something to make in the lathe.
Do I load this striker cap in the magazine , rack it into the chamber and carry on with my dry fire practice???
Or, load this cap manually with my hand into the barrel, rack it and do my dry fire practice??? Thank you
Romeo
Sorry this is a follow up to my inquiry above. I normally dry fire my S&W M&P Shield compact by loading 13 snap caps into its magazine. Snap it to the magazine well and start my dry fires. I rack to eject these caps each and after shots and resume my shots. I was doing Single action shots the whole time.
Jus a while ago I , I rack the slide with the empty magazine, release the mag; loaded the striker cap into the mag; snap mag into the pistol; rack the slide to chamber the striker cap; pull the trigger; rack the slide; release the mag; rack the slide; insert the mag; pull the trigger; rack the slide;release the mag; rack the slide insert the mag; pull the trigger. WHEWW this is triple more work compared doing with the snap caps.
If I’m understanding your practice correctly, the certain solution is: don’t put a magazine in the gun — then a full cycle will not lock the slide back. Rack – trigger – rack – trigger – rack – trigger – etc. Forget about the magazine for this method. You don’t need to feed the snap cap from a mag — lock the slide back, drop the cap into the chamber, lower the slide, begin your drill. Sounds like you’re making it harder than it needs to be.
What I like may work, depending how your gun resets the trigger. I don’t know the Shield. A “regular” M&P will reset with a very short partial cycle of the slide, essentially a press check — maybe 1/4″ to 1/2″ of slide movement. I use a laser cartridge (no rim, just like the A-Zoom) in the chamber, and a magazine full of brass dummy rounds to simulate the weight and balance of a loaded pistol. The short cycle of the slide does not go far enough to pick up the next round, so you can reset – shoot – reset – shoot – etc without interruption. If I rack too far, I basically have a double-feed malfunction. Then I have to pull the mag and set things to running right again (I can’t practice clearing this jam the normal way because the extractor will not pull the snap cap without a rim from the chamber).