I've been dry firing my Redhawk several hundred times each evening to improve on-target trigger control and to smooth out the trigger/action (don't know if that actually works or not).  My Ruger manual says it's fine to dry fire to my heart's content.  The Ruger forum has a post that claims dry firing without snap caps will cause damage.  

Short story long - can I dry fire sans snap caps without worry?  I'd like to avoid shipping my Redhawk back to Ruger for at least a few months  :biggrin:

Alan,

Have no fear. When I was a "serious" action pistol competitor I would perform at least 500 draw strokes ending in a dry snap every week. That's no exaggeration, in fact that's a conservative estimate.
I've never had a firing pin broken on a quality handgun.

But if you're worried, snap caps aren't too expensive. Or you can use spent cartridges that have painted bases to indicate they are dummy rounds.

Alan,
To smooth w/out disassm. you can smooth some by loading up the hammer (push forward hard) while cycling the trigger.  I use a length of parchute cord over the hammer spur.  also with the hammer held all the way back one can apply some moly grease to the sear/hammer surfaces before doing this.  

You are actually burnishing the surfaces, smoothing out the meeting places.  Not a trigger job, but works very well for me.