Loaded Pistol

[marv]

Six of my handguns are loaded and ready. Stashed in various places; home, vehicles, office. Four revos, two autos. None have safeties. All require a long deliberate pull of the trigger to fire. None are in sight. No one ever sees them but I know where they are.

 

[DZL HOG]

Do you normally keep a gun loaded in the house?? fully loaded??

If you keep the mags full, but maybe/maybe not one in the chamber, rack the slide regardless if ya need it in a hurry.
If it was fully loaded, ya just threw a round on the floor, but you still got more in the mag(most autos hold 10+, so you should still be good on ammo). If it wasnt fully loaded, now your ready.

If you are just picking up the gun to clean it or go out and shoot, drop the mag, and rack the slide then ya know for sure.

Matt

 

[fwm]

What Vanilla_Gorilla said.

An unloaded guns is as useful as a car with no gasoline. Keep'em all loaded. Let everybody in the house know their all loaded.

 

[miko]

Keep them all loaded in general storage - you will never, ever need an unloaded gun in a hurry.
If you do need to do something unusual with them - move, display, service - the process of real unloading will just reinforce the routine one has to do anyway.

miko

 

[Lonestar49]

Interesting read.. here's my method

...

Being fairly new to the "hand-gun" world, but have had great teachers as mentors, and the great "many" reads from within these forum walls, and add to that, in my 11 months, some 10k plus rounds total from all my pistols, this is my method:

1911's, if loaded, are in an Uncle Mikes IWB holster, cocked and locked, safety-on

Other 1911, in UM IWB holster but, with one snap-cap chambered, one in the magazine.. and uncocked.

All DA/SA guns are in DA mode, none have safety's.

Either way, my safety check when pulling any out of the safe is to first, drop the magazine, see if mag is "really loaded" which means it's heavy.. loaded, and chambered, rdy for HD/SD as opposed to: dropping a magazine with only one snap cap in it.. much lighter, visually confirmed, snap-cap.

Even then, with the unloaded ones, even when I reinsert the mag, I cycle the slide, pop out the chambered snap-cap, pop out the mag again, insert the the other snap cap, and then aim at ground, and test.. NEVER have I made a mistake, live rounds in gun, vs unloaded, snap-caps, only, in unloaded gun.

Also, The house rule is, IF my wife sees any of my guns OUT, and IN a holster, it IS loaded.. same for adult guest, as we have no children.

But she knows, as do I, always assume they are loaded, and verify if handling for whatever reason, other than, the ones that are out, in known locations, rdy for HD/SD, need no check, as they're on-duty, rdy, at a seconds notice.

The road to being comfy with loaded guns, chambered, rdy, and guns that are not, is longer for some than others, as the only person you can't fool, is the person looking back at-ya in the mirror.. yourself.

Take your time, the comfy zone comes and gets en grained in (your) ~ Book of Knowledge ~ nothing short of time put-in, doing it the right way, and seeing and feeling, not thru complacency, but "assured" thru doing it by the 4 basics of gun safety..

It works..

Enjoy the journey thru safety..


Ls


Ps.. just to clarify, snap caps do not look, color wise, like any real bullets I use, that are copper.. And the snap-caps are all-Burgundy in color and much lighter in weight.

 

[John C]

Cut some 12 inch long pieces of bright colored weed-whacker line and run it through the barrel and out of the breech. You can close the slide, it won't hurt the line or vice versa. That way you'll know immediate that the pistol is unloaded. Plus, weed-whacker line is cheap; you probably have some or know someone who does.

-John