Dry-firing SW22 Victory safe?

I have been working on dry fire training with my Smith & Wesson 22 Victory recently, and started using the drywall anchors.  These work well, but while I was looking at something at something else I noticed that if I depress the firing pin as far as it will go (it hits a stop), it does not protrude past the breach face. I tried this half a dozen times to make sure I was actually hitting a stop and sure enough, the pin never makes is beyond the breach face.  You can see it here in this picture.



I know that you have to be really careful with dry firing a 22, since it is so easy to damage the firing pin against the barrel face, but looking at this it appears safe.

Anyone else with a SW22 can do the same and compare if their pin looks the same or extends beyond?

I don't have a SW22, but that's exactly what you do to a Buckmark firing pin so that it does not peen the breech face of the barrel... you file it down until it will (just barely) not go past the breech face of the slide, but still goes well into the cup/divot/cut-out/shallow-circular-hole-thingy in the slide face where the 22 rim goes, as shown in your photo.  You do have ensure that the firing pin is all the way forward (against the stop) when checking this measurement, though.  

And keep in mind that bashing the firing pin against the stop during dry fire can also damage the firing pin and/or stop (where those 2 pieces meet).  It can also creep over time as the firing pin and/or stop gets mashed, and eventually go forward of the breech face again to peen the barrel.  This is why it's worth putting a drywall anchor in there even if the firing pin cannot reach the barrel.  The drywall anchor stands proud of the barrel breech face, and fits into the cup/divot/cut-out/shallow-circular-hole-thingy in the slide face where the 22 rim goes, and gives the firing pin something analogous to the 22 rim to mash, instead of mashing itself and the stop.

I can not imagine it being good for the pistol. The hammer falls harder on the Victory then any pistol I have ever seen in my life. A single hammer fall will completely destroy a snap cap. That energy has to go somewhere. If not destroying a snap cap or denting a rim then I suspect it will re-direct to breaking things inside. My .02

Len

A friend of mine recently repaired a S&W Model 22A for someone. Not a victory but still... It had a broken firin pin. The pin broke into three pieces. My guess is it either had been shot A TON or someone was dry firing a gun they shouldn't have been. Best course of action I would take is to not dry fire any S&W rimfire pistol. And I can say that when I owned a 41 for example, it killed rimfire snap caps. I switched to dry wall anchors and they lasted a few hits longer but they got destroyed too. The advantage is they are cheap in bulk.

I use drywall anchors on my SW Victory and M&P 22 FS.  Both brands of snap caps I have says in small print Not to be used for dry firing,  My Rugers and Nelson I just dry fire IAW  with manufactures.   Don

Copied from the S&W website:

Q: Can I dry fire my Smith & Wesson?

A: Yes, except for the .22 caliber pistols.