Gil,
Some fact and fantasy, stirred together. Dry firing, WITH THE BARRELS OFF, can and will bend the front plate, on a gun like the OP's. But, there is some knowledge and history that go along with that notion, that complicate things. Somewhere in the earlier part of the last century, that plate went from having a beveled edge that was driven out from the side, and retained by a single screw in the face, to having a straight edge all the way around, and being retained by two screws from the bottom. If you have the earlier style, I doubt it can be bent, period, by dry firing with the barrels on or off, but, I still wouldn't do it unless the barrels were on the gun. Thats just me. Prevention. Good Darne mechanics are a scarce commodity stateside.
When Darne barrels are in place, one can feel free to dry fire the guns, sans snap caps of any sort. That is because the spring loaded plate that acts as an extractor to raise unfired rounds just a bit, is heavily spring loaded at the end of its forward travel, and that plate does a good job of supporting the breech face plate, either the flat one on lower grade guns, or the obturator disc style on higher grade guns.
At the factory, guns are dry fired and put away that way. My guns get put away having been dry fired without snap caps. When I was at the factory, if you opened the action, checked it was unloaded, closed it, pointed the barrels up, dry fired the gun, and handed it back to the builder, you got a nod of the head and a thin smile-you knew the secret handshake, so to speak.
When you see the protruding face plate, the gun has been dry fired, maybe a lot, with the barrels removed, a bad thing, as I have already stated. The fix is a pain in the butt.
Carry on.
Best,
Ted
