Whats the consensus on dry firing.  ive seen a object to block the firing pin to try to stop damage but is it really that big of a problem? Ill go ahead and cover myself and say i would rather just shoot rounds but its just something i was curious about. A search didnt turn up anything either.  Major    

In your AR, I see no problems what so ever.
Military has been doing it as part of a function check for over 20 years.

Dry fire that puppy.
It is not a problem.

We had a big debate about this topic a few weeks ago.

I was always told, since a kid, that dry firing was a BIG nono. However, many here chimed in and said it's really not that bad with newer guns.

Personally, i choose not to. However, with as many people i've heard say it's ok nowadays, i wouldn't hesitate to.

I beleive the consensus is that it is okay to dry fire with centerfire weapons, but not good to dry fire with rimfire weapons.

Roger that.

I have dry fired my AR more than I have shot it.

While in the Military we performed weapons system checks on the M16 after we broke them down for cleaning. You dry fire them during this check.Also while in Germany and coming in off of Guard duty, to turn in the rifles we cleared our rifle before intering a building.They had a 55  gallon drum placed in the ground at a 45 degree angle and you charged your weapon and fired into the barrel to make sure your rifle was cleared before intering .I never broke a pin.And Ive dry fired them thousands of times.WD

Not only CAN you dry fire, but dry firing (coupled with live fire) is required in order to become highly effective with the weapon system.  Dry firing also includes multiple targert acqusitions and sight pictures, mag changes, clearance drills, postion shooting, weapon presentation, transition drills, etc.  

In boot camp (USMC 1984), we "snapped in" (a/k/a dry fired) with the rifle for a solid week (hours and hours each day) before we did any significant live fire.  No problems.

Also ask any competative shooter and he'll tell you that he he dry fires every week - or even daily.  

Dry firing is required for good sight alignment and trigger control.  I have dry fired fireamrs (including ARs) thousands of times without problems.  Even if it was hard on firing pins, go ahead and buy you a cheap spare firing pin to put in for dry fire sessions.

At one time some firearms had multi-part firing pins that could be damaged by dry firing.  It has absolutely no ill effect on a modern firearm with a single-piece firing pin (.22 rimfires excepted.)

Go dry fire your AR-15.  Just check that its unloaded first.  [:)]

Yep, while in ARMY basic/infantry school doing the dreaded "Dime/washer drills" was a common thing. The challenge was take 2 highly modivated soilders, 1 M16A2, a cleaning rod and and a dime or washer. Put soilder in the "prone" insert cleaning rod into barrel with about 2 inches sticking out and have 2nd soilder balance a dime on the cleaning rod, the soilder in the prone must pull trigger without dime falling off rod, repeat until proficent. (side note don't try this by yourself or you will realize that you are stupid, it's just not possible)

Is it OK to dry fire a firearm? Yes/No, read the owners manual some say yes, some say no. I don't claim to know everything about the AR family of weapons but I have never read ANYWHERE that it is bad.

Glockdog

Airborne!!

I bought a dry fire device from Brownell's. It inserts into the carrier and covers the firing pin. It is double ended and made from nylon or delrin. It has a built in cocking ramp this both cocks the hammer and catches it. With the device installed the charging handle only needs to be pulled about 1/3 of the way back. The hammer itself only moves a fraction of its normal arc. It makes a dull thwack when fired. The trigger pull is unaffected. The device when installed will not allow the gun to be fired though a slam fire might be possible.
I like it. I can dry fire all I want without worrying about any ill effects. The only downside is that the hammer is always partially cocked even when the sear is not engaged so it might be an idea to remove it between sessions to save the hammer spring. This is easy to do.
Cost I think is less than $20.