They are the safe way
If you're checking the function of a gun or just wanting to let the hammer down to take the pressure off the spring, this is what you need. You can even check firing pin strikes on rim-fires without hurting the pin or the breach face. this allows you to do everything with your gun without fear of the dreaded BANG in your house. Cheap insurance for handling.
Gunsmith review
I am a gunsmith and have tried several different dummies. These are by far the best i have use. I also use them for training exercises conducted with .22LR, they simulate a malfunction wonderfully. would advise any one hunting a good dummy to try these first and forget the rest.
Useful, but not perfect
These work pretty well in a box magazine, but will not work in a tubular magazine, like the Henry Golden Boy. If you load more than one in the magazine, the point gets caught in the hole in the back end of the cartridge dummy and will not feed. They can be used one at a time to check feeding.
careful of the action you use
they work very well for a proving round IF you're feeding from a detachable magazine rifle/pistol. the bottom of these dummy rounds are hollow and have a hole in them. it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know why this is a problem in a leveraction. the nose of the round you attempt to feed gets stuck in that hole of the following round and won't allow the round to feed up and into the chamber. it straight nose-dives and requires a tool to push the round back into place and then cycled close. a friend of mine has reported similar problems in his 10/22. it baffles me as to why they put a hole in the bottom of the round when just making it solid would solve these problems. they do function fine in my ruger mark 3 pistol and in my dad's bolt gun with a detatchable magazine. they also work well for teaching youngsters or new shooters firearm safety. if you make sure you keep these problems in mind and use these in a system that the hole in the bottom isn't an issue, they work well. just be sure not to dry fire them as they are NOT snap caps.
NOT A SNAP-CAP!
Repeat - these are NOT snap-caps! Assuming you firing pin is working properly, every time you dry-fire one of these, it will leave a significant dent in the rim. After just a few cycles, they will be unusable unless you remove the burrs/dents and that will inevitably remove extra material at the same time. The dummies will become smaller and smaller over time until they no longer cycle as they should. They will eventually get worn/scratched even w/o dry-firing them, but that is only after a few hundred cycles. However, you can dress them up a couple times before they become undersized. For most folks, they will last a lifetime if not dry-fired. However, they work well for action checks and to protect the rear of the barrel in case you accidentally "fire" the gun. I do like the blue color as this makes them immediately identifiable from across the room and blue is the somewhat standard color for inert ammo, firearms, etc. I would give them 5 stars except for the blatantly incorrect description.
NOT snap caps, NOT for dry firing
According to the packaging these are NOT for dry firing which is what I wanted most. That important detail should be in the product description. If you read the reviews for the 50-count pack it sounds like completely different products, including them being inert rounds for dry firing.
