Recently picked one of these up (needed a cheap, fun plinker), after giving it a cleaning, took it out today to give it a try. Wasn't long before I made an observation, once the last round is depleted, the rifle still gets cocked as if it were loaded (the bolt doesn't get locked open or something). Naturally, there's no way to tell which round is the last one unless I were to keep count through all 15 rounds, so what ends up happening when the bullets run out, I end up dry-firing.
My question is, is this gun designed that way, and so it's perfectly safe to dry-fire? And all of the stern warnings about how one should never dry-fire, especially with a rimfire firearm simply don't apply to the 151K? Or is there something wrong with this particular specimen, and the bolt should lock or something once the last round is spent and simply doesn't because of malfunction?
My question is, is this gun designed that way, and so it's perfectly safe to dry-fire? And all of the stern warnings about how one should never dry-fire, especially with a rimfire firearm simply don't apply to the 151K? Or is there something wrong with this particular specimen, and the bolt should lock or something once the last round is spent and simply doesn't because of malfunction?