I've owned AK's, AR15's, FAL's, Valmet's, HK's, 1911's, Sig's and just about every successful military design of the 20th century. I've dry fired every one of them thousands of times over the last 25 years. I've never had a single problem as a result of it. The only guns I don't dry fire are my expensive shotguns, rimfire guns (because the firing pin hits the edge of the barrel/chamber), and my open-bolt guns.

Quoted: Quoted: So why would a blacksmith advise someone against dry firing?  He said it had something to do with the gas chamber? Patty I think that what he is thinking about is related to .22LR guns (in fact, any rimfire guns). With these, the rim not only locates (headspaces) the cartridge in the chamber, but also contains the primer. The hammer hits the rim, trapping it between the hammer and the face of the chamber in the barrel - firing off the primer and thus the cartridge. Now, if you fire without a cartridge in place, the hammer will not be stopperd by a nice soft piece of brass stuffed with primer, but will whack against the face of the chamber wall - this will eventually do one of two things -- break the firing pin, or deform the edge of the chamber -- putting a dimple in it -- and that will stop cartridges sliding smoothy into the chamber in future. Centerfire rifles (such as the AR15) are different, with the primer in the middle of the cartridge. In this case, when you dry fire all that happens is that the firing pin will shoot out into thin air - in the middle of the chamber. Of course, something has to stop it from flying on down the barrel, and with some guns the firing pin is small/weak enough that these stresses of hitting where its not usually intended to hit might be enough to break the firing pin. Not on the AR15 though - it has a big, tough firing pin which will take the abuse, as will the thing that stops the pin flying off down the barrel -- the bolt carrier, which is an equally big tough chunk of metal. In general, if you don't know, its safest to assume don't dry fire any gun, but this reallt doesn't apply to the AR15 -- or any military rifle come to that, they are designed to take abuse.

God damn it.  My first gun was a P22 and the guy I bought it from said it was ok to dry fire.  I used to do it all the time and now the pos is totally reliable to feed or fire after a few mags (or clips, whatever the hell they are supposed to be called).  I thought the gun was just a crappy gun, but now I see it could be from dry firing........

Anyways, continue.  My AR will hopefully be here soon and since it is my first rifle EVER, I think I may put some of your dry fire exercises to the test.