Dry firing a MK I ?

[Big Ike]

Since my three are all MK I's my question mainly pertains to them but I suppose we could also bring in the MK II's and III's.

Is it alright to dry fire a stock MK I ?.......would the answer be any different if it had a Volquartsen trigger and sear installed ?

[SGW Gunsmith]

Originally Posted by Big Ike

Since my three are all MK I's my question mainly pertains to them but I suppose we could also bring in the MK II's and III's.

Is it alright to dry fire a stock MK I ?.......would the answer be any different if it had a Volquartsen trigger and sear installed ?

Actually, the answer wouldn't be any different for any of the Ruger Mark pistols. Yes, you can dry fire any of the Ruger Mark pistols. But, (and there's always a "but" involved ), dry firing any Ruger Mark pistol can still be a very controversial subject. On Rugers web-site, the recommendation is to "remove the firing pin and firing pin rebound & spring, if doing excessive dry firing". What does that mean? We can only assume, because there can be no number placed on the number of times the firing pin can be hit by the hammer, before one of these could happen. Just remember to replace the firing pin stop pin and the other parts before any "live" firing is done. Or, better yet, read on.



Now, we are in the Ruger Mark I forum at this point, and I have read the argument time and time again about using a cherished Ruger Mark I Target pistol for bullseye shooting and that dry firing is very safe to do. I've used my Mark I Target for that discipline also. Then you read, "Well we only shoot five rounds, and then the sixth round is a dry fire". Yup, absolutely correct, that will happen, and I don't count shots fired. But, here's what I do and it works marvellously.
The first thing I'll load is a fresh one of these into my magazine:



Then, I'll load five rounds of CCI Standard in the magazine, on top of the wall anchor. I shoot my string of five rounds (no counting involved, focus on the front sight) and then I get a firing pin hit that doesn't make any noise. Pull the bolt back and the wall anchor ejects. Safe as safe can be, and a chamber ding will NEVER happen with this protective practice, and yes, the wall anchors do feed from the magazines without impeding the live rounds above it with their trip to the chamber.

[SGW Gunsmith]

Originally Posted by Rimfiregal

Yup, my mistake. We'll just call it stop pin and call it good.

I don't see egging out the hole, either, but just passing along some claims that I've heard. I'll leave it to SGW and others to verify if it is possible. Thanks.

The firing pin does have a slot in it, obviously, to allow fore & aft movement. There were some factory firing pins a while back, not hardened properly, and the rear end of that slot was moved backward enough to allow the firing pin to travel a tad bit further forward. Some chamber dings occurred from that.

I've never seen a bolt where the firing pin stop pin has affected the shape of the hole in the bolt for said pin, though. Bolts are normally harder than Hades, but then again, I have seen the "solid" firing pin, stop pin, become bent forward slightly, and even broken into two parts, from the firing pin smacking the stop pin, cause being, the pin was not heat-treated properly. Either too hard or too soft. Then there's that crappy hollow, "spring roll pin" that is easily bent, and when found should be replaced immediately. The spring roll-pin was used more in the Mark II pistols rather than the Mark I and Standards though. Either of those conditions will cause a chamber ding, so it's best to adhere to Rugers advice and check your bolt, firing pin stop pin, rebound and spring whenever you have the bolt out of the receiver.

[SGW Gunsmith]

Originally Posted by CardPuncher

No objection here, but I must be missing something. With the drywall anchor loaded as the 6th round, after 5 shots you pull the trigger and nothing happens so you eject the drywall anchor. That leaves the gun cocked. If the DWA (Hey!! A new acronym!!!) had not been there the bolt would have locked back after the last round and the gun would be cocked when you closed it. So either way, if you want to leave the gun uncocked, you still have to dry-fire it once.

If the suggestion is that on your last string of shots you finish with the DWA and don't eject it until you're ready to shoot again - that's an excellent idea for those who are worried about EDF (Excessive Dry Firing).

Well, the assumption is, and maybe wrongly so, in a few cases, that now, the shooter just might think, OH GEE!, I'm out of bullets. Hopefully, they remember what they did when they used the wall anchor. Now, I need to lock the bolt back and inspect my chamber, like all SRO's require. Then, insert another wall anchor, close the bolt and pull the trigger in a safe direction. All the above info doesn't need to go any further than where it is currently!

[CardPuncher]

Let's not mess up a potential sticky with exraneous discussion. If somebody wants to delete my comments and resulting other comments - that's OK with me.