Totality Posted February 9, 2008 Report Share Posted February 9, 2008 Just a quick question. At the end of the day when the gun has been cleaned and is ready for storage do you "fire" the gun or not before storing it away or do you leave the firing pins primed as it were? Do you simply put the gun back together and store as this is best - or are you meant to fire it off first? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garyb Posted February 9, 2008 Report Share Posted February 9, 2008 It's been covered a few times on here chap.. Do a search for SnapCaps.. but as you will see it's a big can'o'worms Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Totality Posted February 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 9, 2008 Ahh cool that was the name! Snapcaps. Couldnt remember the names for them. Will do a search now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mossy835 Posted February 10, 2008 Report Share Posted February 10, 2008 dont waist money on snap caps.i just come home and put the the gun in the cab, and thats it, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Geordie Posted February 11, 2008 Report Share Posted February 11, 2008 If you insist on having the firing pins released just remember AFTER you take the last shots and BOFORE you open the barrel to eject the cart just take off the forend and take the barrels from the stock. This STOPS the strikers being cocked and you simply let the spent carts drop into the bin. Put the gun back together to put into the slip (again do NOT open the gun) When home remove the forend again and then take the barrels from the stock again and clean. Re assemble when done and just keep remembering DON'T open the gun when the forend is in place as THAT will cock the strikers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clayman Posted February 13, 2008 Report Share Posted February 13, 2008 Snaps caps are great for testing and action and for dry firing practice, but have no practical application in preserving spring tension in modern guns with coil springs. They were designed when old layered and hammered steel springs lost tension quite easily, and prolonged the life of those. So they are relevant to a collector of older guns, but modern spring steel will outlast the rest of the gun in most cases. The springs in most modern guns are made of the same steel as the valve springs in your car. I assume all those who use snaps in their shotguns also lift the head on the car every night to relieve the valve spring pressure to preserve them. Think about this, the valve springs in a car do about 50 million reciprocations in their life and rarely fail. If a shotgun has been fired 100,000 times its been worked hard, and the springs are still good for 49,900,000 more firings even though the rest of the guns knackered. There's no harm to the gun in using snaps as long as the tensions in them are OK ( you can break / damage a firing pin on a seized snap), but if you do, take them out of the gun at home, not at the shoot. Bad etiquette to open a gun from the sleeve and have anything in it. Also, there are recorded accidents with death or injury resulting from confusion between snaps and live, or wrong calibre snaps stuck down forcing cones and then fired over the top of. Is the risk of this happening worth the cost of a spring? I've had just one spring fail in 20 yrs, and that was on an old 1980s Perazzi with V-leaf springs Jerry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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