Weighted dummy ammo?

[NashvilleStage]

Have any of you reloaders played around with making some dummy rounds with regular FMJ bullets, no powder (obviously), and brass with either no primer or a fired primer?

 

Looking through some of the training & practice routines for use at home, having dummy rounds would be great, but all of the commercially-made dummy rounds have a common problem: they lack any real weight.

 

For example, I could load up a mag full of plastic or aluminum dummy rounds to practice my draw, presentation, trigger press, and jam clearing. The pistol weight & balance would be way off, though. I could use real ammo, but then I could only do that at the range.

 

Actually, I first had the idea of making some weighted dummy ammo when I was looking at some different pistols at a store. I realized that feeling the weight & balance of a prospective pistol was hampered, since a loaded magazine (especially the larger capacity models) would significantly change that. If the store had a handful of weighted dummy rounds to load up, that would have been a great help in deciding.

 

Thoughts / ideas?

[itchytriggerfinger]

I don't like the idea of any "real looking" rounds around my dry fire practice area. Peraonnaly I ONLY use empty mags for dry fire. In the grand scheme of things, there really isn't that much difference.

[Static_USMC]

For my pistol dummies I use a lead semi wad cutter instead of RN or ball.  My rifle dummies are drilled and marked with black sharpie.  I only use rifle dummies on the range.  We load each others mags before drills, I had 1 live and 28 dummies followed by 1 live one...during one drill.  Wasn't as funny as it seems.

[Patton]

I have loaded a few no primer/no charge cases to set up dies and to test feeding. I would not want them for drills though, have you thought about inserting weight inside the magazine springs? I do have the nickel plated cases with orange bullets, so close to actual weight it is hard to tell the difference.

[DaveTN]

Thoughts / ideas?

I don’t repeatedly dry fire my weapons, so I use A-Zoom aluminum snap caps. The magazine is lighter but it doesn’t throw the balance “way off”. Works fine for me.

[NashvilleStage]

Looks like someone else had the same idea:
http://www.dummybullet.com/inert_bullets.html

 

So far, I've found 4 different styles of training rounds, all with different advantages/disadvantages:

- Snap Caps (solid aluminum or plastic with a metal rim: Cushions the firing pin when dry-fired, but material is lightweight.

- ST Action Pro: Orange plastic bullet in a real brass case. Easy to identify at a distance, but light weight.

- Reloaded dummy bullets: Weighs & functions the same as real ammo, but hard to sort out from live rounds at a glance.

- All plastic rounds: Cheap, but  super light, and extractors tend to chew up the plastic rims quickly.

[Static_USMC]

I don't use dummies during dry firing. A little hot glue or silicon in the primer pocket if you are concerned about firing pins or strikers. I think any quality semiauto pistol or rifle is fine to dry fire without snapcaps, with the exception of rimfires. I am sure some will quote something from web that disagrees. Each to their own.....Dry fire, dry fire, dry fire!

My rifle dummies look like the ones in the link above.

If you wanted you could powder coat some for positive ID Edited March 23, 2014 by Static_USMC

[NashvilleStage]

If you wanted you could powder coat some for positive ID

 

Now that's an interesting idea...