I gifted myself a nice P30L for new years. Yes, P30L aka the best 9mm hammer fired HK pistol.

First, let's discuss the dry fire issue.

The manual doesn't mention the dry fire issue. My friend found an online manual that says to avoid dry fire to prevent premature wear.
So yes, for someone who is tryina dry fire all night long, it aint gonna be good for the gun.

I pretty much looked for a solution all day today, during work and after work. I'm exhausted because I can't seem to find a solid snap cap or anything that could fix the potential breakage from dry firing.

The famous AZOOM is anodized aluminum. The thing can't hurt my high grade carbon steel but there is a reason why aluminum case cartridges are cheap. The aluminum metal itself isn't hard enough to scratch steel but
the oxide layer on the surface is.. maybe. I don't think AZOOM is an option from a durability standpoint.

I found Tipton spring loaded plastic snap caps. The brass primer eventually wears to the point where it's just a spent primer. This could have been an amazing invention but the engineers decided to go home on the
material selection of the primer. Not a good idea.

Then I found B's dry fire snapcap. By the way, all these are on Amazon. This snapcap is literally twice as much as the common ones. It's 24 dollars for 10 rounds. I'm gonna call this a total bs.
It's not that I can't afford it; I just don't want to support this company. $2.4 per round? A live round can't even be that expensive man.

So I thought about making my own with a live round; since I have a reloading system I could easily punch out the bullet and the primer. What would the primer material be then?
I heard silicone aint even hard enough to be at all effective.. This is a pretty serious first world problem if you would say..


Now, the two hand grip.

Team HK grips it like you would a normal handgun: two thumbs pointed toward front with the shooting hand thumb resting on top of the knuckle of the weak hand thumb.
The manual suggests otherwise. It's suggesting to grip the gun like you would on a revolver. The weak hand thumb folds around the shooting hand thumb.
Why?

Thanks,

The only reason for the grip that I can see is because of the size of the slide release, your grip could engage it and lock the slide open.
just watch your grip.

I've been using A-Zoom for years no problems.

Dry fire has never hurt my guns but you must be aware that every trigger pull is one more cycle for the TRS  (trigger return spring) that is the most common part other than the recoil spring assembly that is a normal maintenance part that I have seen fail or wear out.

Not sure why the thumbs would be curled as that is a revolver grip. I do know people who shoot both revolver and semi autos with curled thumbs and do it well. They just shoot so well why change the grip but I recommend thumbs forward. I feel it supports the pistol better and allows a more natural point. It also sets you up to operate a weapon mounted light with your support thumb as well as the slide release in most cases.

I also know of people with smaller hands that support the grip better with curled thumbs and it feels better to them and gives them confidence. One size does not fit all and what works for me doesn't always work for you but a much larger percentage of the people I deal with shoot thumbs forward.

There is no dry fire issue.  You're not going to hurt the gun.  Dry fire all you want.

If you want to use a dummy round of some type because it will make you feel better, the azoom certainly isn't going to hurt the gun either.

Thanks for the explanation! I'm planning on doing thousands of dry fires.. so getting spare TRS and firing pin wouldn't hurt!
I guess forward thumb makes more sense and that's how almost every pro comp shooters grip. Manuals seem to be out of touch with reality sometimes..

For dry fire practice, I put a small piece of non abrasive polymer eraser in the primer pocket. I hope this does the job.

HK pistols do have premature or even inappropriate wear from dry fire and empty chamber slide release.

What's your source for that?

While the actual manual that came with the firearm did not cover any of what I wanted to know, the online manual suggested that "the dry fire should be avoided to prevent premature wear."