Unloading your gun.

Here is one way to prevent a round "getting away" from you when loading or unloading a semiautomatic gun, rifle or handgun indoors in the city.

Just get enough of the local phone books, the thickness of, that will stop what ever bullet, in what ever caliber, you will be loading/unloading in the house.

Some testing may be in order.
Then add an extra book or two and tape them together.

Then for WHAT EVER REASON, you load or unload any semiauto "gun" in the house, you do it with the barrel pointed into the phone books...

That way IF the round fires, your fault, broken part on the gun fault, WHATEVER, there will be no Human hurt, and NO property damage.

It is an easy, free, common sense solution.
 
Look at the empty chamber - Look at the magazine follower. I've taught this to any who will listen for many years.
My brother in law came home one day and shucked 3 shells out of a model 12 Winchester that he had been shooting all his life, knowing the magazine was plugged to a 3 shot capacity. He sat down at the kitchen table to clean it, and proceeded to blow a neat 16 ga. hole through the dining room ceiling, with my sister and their two very young daughters right next to him.

Subsequent investigation showed the old wooden plug in the magazine had broken, allowed him to load a fourth shell in the gun at some point in his mornings hunting. That would have been no consolation had he not been obeying Col. Cooper's rule #2
 
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Leslie Sapp said:
Look at the empty chamber - Look at the magazine follower. I've taught this to any who will listen for many years.
My brother in law came home one day and shucked 3 shells out of a model 12 Winchester that he had been shooting all his life, knowing the magazine was plugged to a 3 shot capacity. He sat down at the kitchen table to clean it, and proceeded to blow a neat 16 ga. hole through the dining room ceiling, with my sister and their two very young daughters right next to him.

Subsequent investigation showed the old wooden plug in the magazine had broken, allowed him to load a fourth shell in the gun at some point in his mornings hunting. That would have been no consolation had he not been obeying Col. Cooper's rule #2
Click to expand...

In addition to the rule above, if a second person is in the room show them the empty chamber and (in the case of a semi-automatic pistol) the big hole in the magazine well.
 
Friend of mine did basically the same... just in a military camp back in the day. They came back in the camp and had to unload their G36 rifles. He just took the magazine out and fired in the sandbox. After he fired the round in the sandbox the alarm went off... nobody was hurt but he was in big trouble. He even had to pay a fine.

Again,... routine. Too much routine gives the opportunity for mistakes.
 
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APS said:
It frightens the heck out of me the number of people who don't list in their unloading procedure a visual inspection of the chamber.
Click to expand...

They don't understand "broke extractor". I wonder if they would understand "malfunctioning thingy majig that pulls the cartridge out of the chamber". Larry
 
Reading these posts it is sickening to see the amount of bad information and habits. Every negligent discharge is another reason to outlaw guns. don't assume you know get competent instruction from a trained instructor, friends make terrible instructors!
 
Glad he is OK and the only bright spot is he had the gun pointed in a safe directon. If it is any consolation a lot of folks who should know better have NDs. There are some on You Tube including one a Police Pistol trainer.
 
Taking it for granted

As you carry for years-you risk becoming complacent. I deliderately do a safety check occasionally-I know quite a few fellow instructors who have fired a weapon while cleaning, performing function checks, showing a gun.
On a positive note-now that concealed carry has been in effect for years-people have pretty much stopped "showing" you their firearm in a public place-particularly gun shops-always made me nervous when guy would say "let me show you what I carry" then pull a loaded pistol!!!
 
I have "dry fire" targets all over the place. One of the rules of gun safety it knowing what is behind your target. So I set my dry fire targets up where if I was to screw up, and my gun with off, except for a little hole where I may not want it, no damage can be done.

I carry a revolver but also shoot a semi quite a bit. Every time I unload one of my revolver, semis or rifles, I dry fire it, either at my back yard target or one of my dry fire targets.

If I screw up, I may get startled and supprised but no damage would be done.
 
JJEH said:
Right, that's a good thing. I also put my left hand over the extractor and turn the gun 180 degree while I rack the slide. In case there is a round in it will fall into my hand, not in the dirt...
Click to expand...

If you do this vigorously, there's the possibility of the ejected round hitting your hand and bouncing back, being pinched between the extractor and the breech and going off (primer hit by the extractor). It's just one round, let it fall.
 
APS said:
...It's just one round, let it fall.
Click to expand...

And you know, one dirty round can mess up your firearm...

I learned this in the Military. If you rack the slide with your left hand - for all of us right handers - you can apply the slide stop (if the gun has one) with your middle finger. It might needs a little practice, but it works pretty good. Therefore, the one round which might be in the chamber falls into your hand, the slide is locked and you can visually inspect the chamber.

With this practice your strong hand is always(!) on the grip and in control.
 
This can happen to anyone and b/c of this I've offloaded all my semiautos w/the exception of my duty Glock M23 from my LEO days. My EDC is some sort of small .38, either a J frame or my Colt Cobra. The Glock is locked away, unloaded, unless I practice w/it or qualify for LEOSA annually (I also qualify w/my small .38).

Semi autos have their place but they're just not for me. Anyone who carries one needs to be extra cautious but again, this can happen to anyone and often does (do a Google search).
 
Happen to me today ,went to unload my MP 45 . Drop the magazine pulled slide back ,for some unknown problem the extractor did not pull live round out the chamber . Just have a habit at looking in chamber to verified [ EMPTY CHAMBER ],it wasn't .Lock slide back pulled round out my finger nail. I done this a hundred times . Never happen before . Sure made me think,WOW. As far pulling trigger there is no point in it, to me .
 
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JJEH said:
I learned this in the Military. If you rack the slide with your left hand - for all of us right handers - you can apply the slide stop (if the gun has one) with your middle finger. It might needs a little practice, but it works pretty good. Therefore, the one round which might be in the chamber falls into your hand, the slide is locked and you can visually inspect the chamber.

With this practice your strong hand is always(!) on the grip and in control.
Click to expand...

Oh ok I was thinking you were overhanding with the weak hand with the gun tilted towards the extractor.
 
JJEH said:
I learned this in the Military. .....................works pretty good. Therefore, the one round which might be in the chamber falls into your hand....
Click to expand...

Having both met victims and seen photos of the results when folks had the ejector fire the round being extracted, this is real poor practice and no longer taught. It's especially relevent with certain brands of pistols that have the ejector extremely close to where the primer normally is.

Current best practice is to let the ejected round drop free. It's also now commonly taught to feel the chamber to verify (pinky finger works well) by touch that there's no round present. This works regardless of light level. As an old instructor said: "If you can't do it in the dark, you can't do it."

BTW, the pulling the trigger part of unloading is an artifact from military practice where the troop steps to the clearing barrel, pulls the mag, verifies the empty chamber (cause there wasn't supposed to be one there) and then drops the slide, points the weapon into the clearing barrel and pulls the trigger to demonstrate that the weapons unloaded to the person stationed at the barrel. Not a real good idea if you don't have clearing barrel.
 
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WR Moore said:
Having both met victims and seen photos of the results when folks had the ejector fire the round being extracted, this is real poor practice and no longer taught. It's especially relevent with certain brands of pistols that have the ejector extremely close to where the primer normally is.

Current best practice is to let the ejected round drop free. [...]
BTW, the pulling the trigger part of unloading is an artifact from military practice where the troop steps to the clearing barrel...
Click to expand...

Thank you for your statement. It might be an old and poor practice, but so far it did work for me. Maybe they didn't know better back then.

It did work for uns and generations before. Funny thing is, if you have to use your skills, you will always fall back to the level of your training. Maybe I should sign up and get an update on "how to do it" in 2012.

This is not sarcasm, I'm serious. I think every gun user should attend training classes at least once a year. More is better of course...

BTW: We didn't even had clearing barrels at the firing range. We pulled the trigger with "muzzle up" downrange. The only clearing barrel was located at the front gate where the guards are...
 
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