The home of Shooting Times and Sporting Gun


Will snap caps lengthen the life of my springs?

Shooting technical advice
MIKE GEORGE
Conventional wisdom says it will. However, the use of snap caps may also mean that, depending on its design, the gun could be stored with the ejector mechanism under strain.

If it is of any comfort, in more than 50 years of shooting I have never stored either a shotgun or a rifle with the springs relaxed by firing against snap caps.

Maybe I am lucky, but I have never had a spring break, and only a very few have had to be replaced because they have become tired enough to deliver light strikes or cause dodgy trigger pulls.