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When you practice dry fire, do you remember to use snap caps?

September 28, 2021 4 min read

Welcome to visit this blog of Vector Optics Online Store. In this blog, we will talk about snap caps.

(The snap caps in pictures above are our Gunpany products.)

1、Dummy round or snap caps?

Dummy round and snap caps often appear at the same time and they can use interchangeably. Both of them belong to training ammunition. They have colorful cartridge, similar shape with real bullets, but they don’t have gun powder(propellant), projectile (bullet) or other powerful and dangerous components. So when the shooters train by using these, this will be safe.

(Dummy Round Picture from Google)

In fact, they are different in many cases. Originally, dummy round was invented earlier than snap caps. It was made of metal or plastic. As the time goes, one firearm accessory from USA invented “snap caps”. The big difference between them at that time is that “snap caps” have inert primer, it can protect the firing pins of the gun. Also, the rubber or plastic or springs in snap caps can reduce lots of impact. Now, as the products update persistently, there are no big difference between them. Shooters choose the type according to their preference. Our online store are selling snap caps.

(The snap caps in pictures above are our products.)

2、How do they work?

On the whole snap caps has 2 functions.

2.1 Examination or check.

Without live rounds, you can use the snap caps to confirm if your gun can be loaded smoothly. You can check the magazine of your gun can feed ammunition up the feed ramp and into the chamber.

(Picture from Google)

2.2 Training

(1) Dry fire drill.

Shooter often exercise this to protect themselves from the home invasion in case. But many people think if you don’t use the snap caps in dry fire training, your gun especially the firing pins will be damaged. So the snap caps are necessary to them.

(Picture from Google)

(2) Breakdown or clearing drill

Sometimes the gun cannot work normally because of the bad ammunition. Then shooters need to respond and clear quickly. So, shooter can practice this skill by using snap caps.

Because snap caps cannot be ejected out, in other words, it can make the gun so called “fire failed”.

(Picture from Google)

(3) Controlling drill

This is related to the use of gun. Although you cannot fire by snap caps, it can bring the same feel of the shooting to your muscle or body physically, including your fingers on the trigger. By this, shooters will get stable muscle memory or feeling about their shooting and can use the gun and fire skillfully.

(Picture from Google)

2.3 Protection

As usual, shooters will load the snap caps into the cartridge at first, it can prevent potential danger from the first shooting or error shooting.

Or shooters will load the snap caps into the cartridge at last, it can prevent potential gun’s damage (especially the firing pins) from the dry fire, because some guns fire persistently even the bullet have run out.