is dry firing a gbb alright?

[DAZA1116]

just got myself a TM mp7a1 gbb which is awesome, however i got a brother that likes to play with it, like with the stock, clocking the gun and firing without bbs in. i wonder is it alright for him to mess around with it? 

he only plays with it once in a while 

[Gepard]

You might wear out the gun faster. Just don't do it for extended periods of time and for the most part it will be fine. Everything in moderation. 

[Wo1f]

You’ll get the usual cycling wear that would occur with or without the B.B.

 

TM mp7’s are amazing, but they have weak nozzles that snap. It’s no more likely to break dry firing, but bare in mind if he’s doing loads of dry firing he’s potentially weakening the nozzle for you. 

[proffrink]

Actually nozzles breaking is usually down to them having to drive the BB out of the mag, so dry firing might not contribute towards this too much.

 

My problem would be letting someone go about dry firing it for 'fun' (which I assume means not shooting targets?) because it's dangerous. You can shoot out an eye with an airsoft gun and I'd probably treat it like it's always loaded (i.e. never pointing it at someone/something I didn't want to hit). That's asking for trouble (especially indoors without eye protection).

[Wo1f]

If you’re running green gas/propane in it, there’s a good chance it will break anyway. I broke mine yesterday sadly. The inner metal frame where the body pins go through sheered off. 

[Defender90]

Yes it seems to be, judging by the amount I've done! They aren't actual firearms of course so rules like that don't necessarily apply. (Indeed I've heard some people nowadays say that it's an old wives tale for real guns too.)

[MILITATED]

I had a WE PDW that broke from dry firing during a video demonstration. It was not used much and only a minimal amount of BBs had been put through it. Anyway, I was dry firing it to show the RoF and boom, the nozzle snapped in half. I have the video somewhere, may I will dig it out later.

I would advise not dry firing unless you need to test it (after maintainance or something).

[Druid799]

22 hours ago, Defender90 said:

They aren't actual firearms of course so rules like that don't necessarily apply. (Indeed I've heard some people nowadays say that it's an old wives tale for real guns too.)

Are you talking about dry firing it ?(if not I do humbly apologise for any offence) but If you are all I can say is WoW ! I’m genuinely impressed this is quite possibly the most boneheaded statement I’ve ever read on the internet ! 

[Gepard]

Gun safety is important regardless of whether it's loaded, unloaded, real or fake. 

Showing that you can maintain a strict discipline when handling weapons should be common practice.

[MisterG]

There's a vid on Youtube of someone messing about with a gun he thought was empty and shot out his PC screen.  Could have easily been someone's eye.

 

So not a good idea to encourage someone to muck about with an Airsoft gun.

 

Cheers

G

 

[Duff]

I mean, I don't see how it puts any more stress on it than if a bb were being put through it... but I digress, snap the little bastards fingers off for touching your shit!

[MisterG]

.  Younger brothers do tend to break stuff as well.  So more likely to get dropped broken, aside from the safety aspect.

 

G

[proffrink]

23 hours ago, Defender90 said:

Yes it seems to be, judging by the amount I've done! They aren't actual firearms of course so rules like that don't necessarily apply. (Indeed I've heard some people nowadays say that it's an old wives tale for real guns too.)

Get yourself shot in the eye with an airsoft gun at 10m* and tell me that you shouldn't exercise caution because it's not a real gun - as I'm sure you well know, many sniper rifles are powerful enough to blind you even through your eyelid. Indeed last year some kid managed to get himself shot in a safe zone and lost vision in one of his eyes. You're not going to kill anybody with an airsoft gun, but you will break teeth, damage eyesight, destroy nails and can certainly piece skin at point blank ranges. Even ricochets can be dangerous.

 

Also I'm not sure what you mean by an 'old wives tale' for real guns? Go find any gun course in the US - for example (even UK gun clubs will teach the same) - where the first rule of gun ownership isn't 'every gun is loaded'. In a country like the US where ~1200 kids die every year to self inflicted gunshot wounds, you'd better believe that those responsible gun owners aren't letting their child or sibling run about dry firing indoors.

 

Again, we don't operate on that high of a stake but for goodness sake don't give an airsoft gun to a kid to dry fire with unless they have eye protection and are somewhere where there's little chance of a ricochet coming back or them hitting something they wouldn't want to (i.e. outside). Could even set them up with some targets - I'm sure they'd find that quite fun anyway. For just toy guns that don't shoot a BB which could blind you (or - at the very least - leave a nasty welt that would ruin that kid's day, just buy any of the plethora of toy guns that suit this purpose.

 

Throughout all of this: I don't want to be playing with/against someone who sits in the safezone and thinks it's ok to let their guard down just because it's not a gun that's going to kill me. Being told 'they aren't actual firearms of course so rules like that don't necessarily apply' is little respite when I lose half my vision because some tit swears by the fact that they removed their mag and dry fired into the ground before they walked in (spoiler: everyone forgets at one time).

[Duff]

You must have bloody long arms to be able to shoot yourself in the eye at 10 metres @proffrink.

[proffrink]

Not sure what I was thinking there. Perhaps something to do with a bit of string?

[EDcase]

Apart from the safety aspect... (Even a ricochet could permanently damage an eye)

 

Personally I do not dry-fire any of my airsoft weapons (AEG, AEP, GBB) just to be on the safe side.

 

I imagine having a BB in the hop causes a bit of back pressure to the piston slamming the buffer  so even though its slight I wouldn't want the piston to hit the buffer with no resistance at all.

 

Of course its fine a few times but the more it happens the more stress the parts will accumulate.

 

If its just cocking and firing without gas then it should be fine.

[Marc.RG1]

Dry firing a GBB pistol is fine.. 

 

Do dry fire a springer, or a 22 rimfire, or some centre fire, but dry firing a GBB pistol is not going to cause any additional wear or stress in my opinion.

 

ATB Marc 

[Defender90]

Just come back to this site after a while away. I am, to put it mildly, a trifle... nonplussed shall we say. I am choosing my words carefully here.

Dry firing means firing gun unloaded, i.e. without a cartridge loaded. It does not mean pointing at people, or acting unsafely in any way. So NO, pointing guns (or airsofts) at others is not all right*,  that is not what I said, nor did I imply any such thing.

I mention this as I gained the impression there might possibly be some confusion here over the difference between the subject of basic gun safety, i.e. "Never, never let your gun..." and the perennial question whether or not dry firing onto an empty chamber damages the firing pin. (Airsofts do not, of course, have firing pins per se. Hence I reckon that it does not.)

 

*Except outside of airsoft arenas of course. 

[proffrink]

You literally said the same rules of real guns don't necessarily apply to airsoft ones, but I'm struggling to find anywhere that's the case for the ones pertinent to this topic. That's why I said what I said, but if that wasn't your meaning then I understand. Perhaps I was reading it wrong.

[Giraffe]

He was clearly replying to the original topic of dry firing, NOT suggesting we disregard all firearm rules.

 

The "wive's tale" is referring to whether you keep hammers cocked vs dry firing when storing a gun and which is doing more damage in the long term and whether snap caps are useful blah blah blah.

[Guest]

I never dry fire any of my airsoft guns, But I have a long garden so it’s easy for me.

 

[proffrink]

2 hours ago, Giraffe said:

He was clearly replying to the original topic of dry firing, NOT suggesting we disregard all firearm rules.

 

The "wive's tale" is referring to whether you keep hammers cocked vs dry firing when storing a gun and which is doing more damage in the long term and whether snap caps are useful blah blah blah.

Well fair enough that you've spotted it correctly, but if you scroll up you can see I wasn't the only one who interpreted it that way so I'm not sure it was 100% clear. This is why the quote button exists - otherwise it's assumed you're replying to the post just before/couple of posts just before your own. I believe the replies were coming in fast though and that tends to make it a mess when multiple people are typing at the same time.

 

Reading it back now with the context provided it seems obvious to me too, but given the nature of the OP I hope you can sympathise with me (and at least one other) thinking it's probably not the best idea to be giving your little brother an airsoft gun to run about with - irrespective of whether dry-firing is going to cause an issue. Believe me - this isn't the fist time we've seen this kind of idiocy and every time the excuse is something along the lines of 'it's not a real gun'. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[MisterG]

I was replying to the OP, but you're right should have made use of the quote function.

 

Cheers

G

[Giraffe]

10 minutes ago, proffrink said:

Well fair enough that you've spotted it correctly, but if you scroll up you can see I wasn't the only one who interpreted it that way so I'm not sure it was 100% clear. This is why the quote button exists - otherwise it's assumed you're replying to the post just before/couple of posts just before your own. I believe the replies were coming in fast though and that tends to make it a mess when multiple people are typing at the same time.

 

Reading it back now with the context provided it seems obvious to me too, but given the nature of the OP I hope you can sympathise with me (and at least one other) thinking it's probably not the best idea to be giving your little brother an airsoft gun to run about with - irrespective of whether dry-firing is going to cause an issue. Believe me - this isn't the fist time we've seen this kind of idiocy and every time the excuse is something along the lines of 'it's not a real gun'. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

Yeah I only posted because I saw a couple of people weren't sure. I agree with your second point too - running about dry firing isn't a super good habit. 🦒🦒🦒

 

[Defender90]

14 hours ago, Giraffe said:

He was clearly replying to the original topic of dry firing, NOT suggesting we disregard all firearm rules.

 

The "wive's tale" is referring to whether you keep hammers cocked vs dry firing when storing a gun and which is doing more damage in the long term and whether snap caps are useful blah blah blah.

All's well that ends well I guess.

As to the other issues discussed I too would tend to discourage the little brother from fiddling with the airsoft, depends on how much younger he is and how mature but i only allow kids to shoot my airsofts under my supervision (while trying to install some elementary rules of gun safety into them). It could so easily be misconstrued, and nowadays there are many people willing and eager to "misconstrue" anything gun shaped.

 

As to the "old wives tale" I do try to keep all my springs released and not under tension on my GBBRs as I do on the real shotguns in the cabinet, I figure it's even more important with airsofts as the quality of build and materials is so much lower. I use snap caps, on the airsoft it's unnecessary.

I was brought up that pulling the trigger on an empty chamber while practicing ones aim etc indoors is bad practice as the firing pin has nothing to absorb the impact and absorb against although I  seem to remember seeing or reading something modern that suggests it has no basis in fact. Nevertheless snap caps are popular for that activity as it never does any harm to take care, and they're useful for their main purpose storage too of course. As airsofts don't have firing pins it's a purely academic point here.

 

Generally though the habit of treating all guns as if they're loaded is sound, even practicing aim and mounting the gun to the shoulder is done in a safe direction and never pointed at a person.