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Dummy rounds/Snap caps for shotguns PSA.

Bassbob

Emissary
Sure, you can buy the Fiocchi inert rounds for $14/10 or some snap caps for like $12/pair, but you can also make your own. You will need empty ( fired) hulls, some media, a digital scale and a hot glue gun. I use small washers and pieces of old rags, but you can also use a wooden dowel ( 3/4" sanded down to fit 12 gauge hulls).

Take a spent shell, cut it flush at the bottom of the crimp and stuff a piece of a rag in it to fill up space. Tamp the rag down with a dowel or a pen or something, then fill it close to the top with washers the size of the opening or smaller. Use a digital scale and keep it somewhere between 1.4 and 1.9 ounces depending on the load you are trying to simulate. This is for a 2 3/4" 12 gauge round. Fill the rest of the shell with hot glue. Then sand the edges of the shell to deburr. I leave the spent primers in mine. I have some I made more than a decade ago and they still work perfectly.

You can also sand a 3/4" wooden dowel down a little until it fit's in the hull and then just cut the shell to size with a hacksaw. Depending I guess on what type of dowel you use though, the weight will not be the same as a live round.

I'm sure i am not alone here doing this, but maybe someone is thinking about buying some inert rounds and might like to know you have options.

For the record, it doesn't hurt to dry fire most modern shotguns.
 
IMHO, effective defensive shotgun manipulations require a higher level of end-user proficiency. Dry practice aided by dummies/snap-caps are a must.
Absolutely. Not only that but if you are like me and have several shotguns, practicing and drilling with them all is paramount. A pump like the Mossberg 500 and an autoloader like a Benelli are similar in shape and feel and even in some functions, but they are different and mistaking one set of protocols for the other could end really bad for you. And it takes a lot of time and effort to maintain proficiency with all of them. This means a lot of "Dry Practice" as you call it. And you absolutely should not be doing that stuff in your living room or basement with live ammo.
 
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