# One In The Chamber?



## rockpile1 (Aug 24, 2016)

On you carry weapon do you have one in the chamber?

My wife just got her CCW. On her Pistol in order to be safe she didn't have a round in the chamber.

Me I always have a round in the chamber figuring if Bad Guy is aiming a piece at me I'll just be lucky to get a round off much less chamber one.

I explained this to my wife and she agreed. I also told her if it came to her discharging her weapon to aim empty it into whom ever.

rockpile


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## dademoss (May 2, 2015)

All of my EDC or home defense weapons are loaded and with a round in the chamber.


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## oceantoad (May 21, 2009)

I always keep a round chambered in all handguns, shotguns, and rifles that are out.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

Perhaps spend some time going over the mechanics of whatever model she is carrying with her. With all but a few exceptions, the model pistol she is carrying won't be able to go off without her pulling the trigger first, even in the event of a failure. 

If, after learning how her weapon functions, she's still not comfortable with carrying it with a round chambered, spend plenty of time at the range drilling on how to draw and chamber a round, so that it becomes second-nature to her. 

I can't see carrying a weapon of any quality and modern design, without a round chambered, but trying to force someone to carry in a way that makes them uncomfortable is counter-productive.


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## Cabin Fever (May 10, 2002)

Carry my 1911 in Condition One all of the time. Round in the chamber, the hammer fully cocked back, and the safety on.


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## tamarackreg (Mar 13, 2006)

I went through similar aprehention while transitioning to no manual safety semi autoloaders.

The advise I have been following is to treat the holster as the safety - If the gun is out, it's hot.

The same thought process may help your wife with keeping a round in the chamber. However everyone needs to operate at their own comfort level.


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## goodatit (May 1, 2013)

my weapons are always in battery.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

> I also told her if it came to her discharging her weapon to aim empty it into whom ever.


Shooting after the threat is stopped can be considered murder.
You shoot until there is no longer a threat, not until the gun is empty.


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

most modern handguns guns are safe to be carried loaded with a chambered round , provided they are in a proper holster 

as far as pistols go the 2 most potentially dangerous times is when you chamber a round and when you holster 

actually neither of these have any thing to do with the mechanical deficiencies of the side arm but deficiencies of the users mechanics 

unfortunate to many people still have bad handling skills and lay their finger on the trigger while doing things and they still go bang some times 

good handling skills don't happen by accident it is learned muscle memory , perhaps a class in handling where they teach pistol skills beyond basic. like moving and shooting , holstering , draw , firing from retention 
the more comfortable she is with her side arm and good handling procedure the more confident she may be.

some time the hardest thing is teaching some one we are close to like our spouse or children. some times we just have to send them to a trusted trainer so that they absorb the lesson better.

repeated loading and unloading with the use of dummy cartridges to build the uscle memory them move up to draw with dummy cartridges , then with real cartridges smooth is fast you don't need to rush , grip is really important to shooting well 

there are lots of drills and tests to make a better shooter 

think about the day you got your new phone on that first day when it rang you were slow to answer it even though you were grabbing the phone on the first ring , after time you retrieve your phone from your pocket with out looking , and answer the call in no time even if your hands were busy and you had to set something down first it is just second nature , that is the way you want you gun handling to be second nature , but good second nature and not bad habits that were missed early.


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## Cornhusker (Mar 20, 2003)

If it's under my control, on my person, then yes, I carry one in the chamber.


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## flewism (Apr 2, 2007)

All ways one in the chamber.


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## watcher (Sep 4, 2006)

Carrying a semi-auto with an empty chamber isn't much better than carrying a very small club. I use the seat belt example. Would you drive w/o your seat belt fastened and say well I'll strap in just before I hit something? Of course not because 1) you won't have time to do it before the accident or 2) if you knew you were going to be in an accident long enough to strap in you have enough time to avoid it.


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## Vahomesteaders (Jun 4, 2014)

I carry a 357 hammer less revolver. So one is always in the chamber. Just got my wife a kahr ct9. When it's on her person it will have one in the chamber.


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## rockpile1 (Aug 24, 2016)

Bearfootfarm said:


> Shooting after the threat is stopped can be considered murder.
> You shoot until there is no longer a threat, not until the gun is empty.


I started doing this when I put a guy down,thinking no longer a threat I managed to get stabbed.

rockpile


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## Fishindude (May 19, 2015)

*Carrying a semi-auto with an empty chamber isn't much better than carrying a very small club. I use the seat belt example. Would you drive w/o your seat belt fastened and say well I'll strap in just before I hit something? Of course not because 1) you won't have time to do it before the accident or 2) if you knew you were going to be in an accident long enough to strap in you have enough time to avoid it.*


This is a horrible example. Anyone with a little bit of situational awareness should be able to sense when the need to grab the handgun is coming, and will have a few seconds to either avoid the threat or prep the weapon (chamber a round). Not anywhere near the same as getting broadsided in your car while driving down the road.

I guess I'm the odd case here, because I don't believe in carrying with a round in the chamber. Have had concealed carry permit for a long time. I carry a semi auto pistol with the safety off and nothing in the chamber. I can have a round chambered and the weapon hot pretty darned quickly as I'm unholstering it.

From what I've seen, folks carrying guns are a whole lot more likely to hurt themselves or someone innocent due to unsafe handling. And with a little situational awareness, the chance of encounter with a bad guy is pretty darned slim. I might think different if I lived in the ghetto, or had been robbed a few times?


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## Texaspredatorhu (Sep 15, 2015)

Working around the house I leave the hammer back safety off in a holster with an empty chamber, its only there should I encounter some hogs or other critter that needs to go. Out and about one in the pipe with hammer back and safety on. I halfway agree with fishindude, you should recognize the threat and be prepared for it comparing to a car wreck is a very poor example. My wife was hesitant of carrying with one in the chamber too but now always does. Another thing worth doing is having 3 mags and circulating them to not allow the spring to be compressed all the time and clean the rounds occasionally, might save your life someday by actually taking the time to make sure your self defense weapon is ready to go at all times.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

rockpile1 said:


> I started doing this when I put a guy down,thinking no longer a threat I managed to get stabbed.
> 
> rockpile


If he was "down" but still stabbed you, then you got too close.
He wouldn't have been a threat had you stayed away.

If he came at you, the threat wasn't "over".

Either way, shooting until the gun is empty is still bad advice.


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## Vahomesteaders (Jun 4, 2014)

Fishindude said:


> *Carrying a semi-auto with an empty chamber isn't much better than carrying a very small club. I use the seat belt example. Would you drive w/o your seat belt fastened and say well I'll strap in just before I hit something? Of course not because 1) you won't have time to do it before the accident or 2) if you knew you were going to be in an accident long enough to strap in you have enough time to avoid it.*
> 
> 
> This is a horrible example. Anyone with a little bit of situational awareness should be able to sense when the need to grab the handgun is coming, and will have a few seconds to either avoid the threat or prep the weapon (chamber a round). Not anywhere near the same as getting broadsided in your car while driving down the road.
> ...


Good post. I carry a revolver. But when I did carry my semi it was not chambered unless I was going to one of the bigger towns. My wife however will have one chambered safety on. I have more experience with situational awareness than she does so she must be ready at moments notice.


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## beowoulf90 (Jan 13, 2004)

Here is a way to get her comfortable with carrying her pistol with a round in the chamber.

Have her carry her pistol in the "locked" (as in locked and loaded), but without any ammo in it for the day. At the end of the day, check to see if the firearm "fired or went off" (remember your firearm is unloaded). If it did then you have one of three problems, problem 1 is a defective firearm, problem 2 is someone was handling the firearm, problem 3 is the pistol is being bumped or carried improperly.
Have her "disarm" it every night, then rearm it. IF the firearm doesn't go off during this time, then it likely won't when loaded.

Once she carries this way she will learn to trust her firearm's safety features and actually use them when checking it daily, before rearming.

Hope that helps


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## Cornhusker (Mar 20, 2003)

Bearfootfarm said:


> If he was "down" but still stabbed you, then you got too close.
> He wouldn't have been a threat had you stayed away.
> 
> If he came at you, the threat wasn't "over".
> ...


2 to the chest and 1 to the head


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

Cornhusker said:


> 2 to the chest and 1 to the head


That's fine if that's what it takes to stop the threat.

If they are "down" after the first two COM hits, and armed with a knife, then one to the head could be "premeditated murder".


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

what Bearfoot is saying is you can fire what ever it takes , COM is generally the most accepted 

but you have till the threat stops then you need to stop shooting 

my dad was on such a jury , the guy claimed self defense , that seamed reasonable right up till he put a finishing shot in the guy , but the problem was the guy was already dead the guy literally had no hear left and was on the ground 

shots were point blank with a 12 ga and buck shot 

no one even argued that the guy he shot was a very bad dude who was know to carry the very 12ga he was shot with and use it to threaten people , he was a pimp and a dealer 

you could have even made a solid argument that a finishing shot was a good idea cause if he wasn't dead you would be when he got out of the hospital

but the medical examiner examiner testified that the shot was definitely after the bad guy was dead 

and unfortunately the jury had no choice but to convinct the shooter of murder which is sort of funny cause the guy was already dead but a finishing shot even of a corpse tells them first that even though the guy was dead and the treat had ended that your intention was to make sure he was dead and you can't do that

so you can practice your doubles and triples and fire in controlled bursts but an assessment needs to be made after each burst has the threat stopped 

it is very possible to fire fast enough that you have 2-3 pieces of brass in the air at the same time and still hold a 2-3 inch COM group but it takes practice 

being that the area city police here seem to shoot around 2 people a year and I can't think of one that has survived in several years even when they have an ambulance on the way in seconds I think a controlled pair to COM is fairly effective to stopping the threat.

firing 2-3 rounds as a controlled pair or triple then assessing is fairly common training


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## Dutch 106 (Feb 12, 2008)

Hey guys,
Mostly good stuff, but another reason for non experts to carry a double action revolver. 
I will not define expert because that will cause endless heartburn, with some! 
But (you knew I had a one) I put a hundred rounds thru my handguns weekly (unless its well below zero, then its dryfire and draw in the basement) and I don't consider my self one, but aspire to improve!
After training young cops to shoot, I spent lots of time cringing from the behavior of enthused amateurs. And in those days it was all S&W K frames. It was a rare class that someone didn't cause my backside to bite a donut hole out of my trousers.
So please do not set your loved ones to fail! 

Dutch


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## joejeep92 (Oct 11, 2010)

Always condition one. Adrenaline charged situations are the time for simplicity, motor skills are at their worst. No matter if you train with a round in the chamber or not, condition one will always be faster. I agree COMPLETELY that with proper situational awareness you will have a couple seconds, if I have a couple seconds I'm getting out of the situation. A properly trained individual should be just fine with a round in the chamber with or without safety with proper trigger finger control. Aren't trained well enough? Then you probably aren't trained well enough to carry the gun in the first place.


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## JawjaBoy (Jan 21, 2013)

I carry with a round chambered regardless of the type of handgun. The ONLY handgun I carry with an empty chamber is a single action with original/old model lockwork. All others are carried in condition one. 

As for carrying loaded but no round chambered; I've never seen anyone whose life might depend on a gun (LEO, military, etc.) carry this way. Spend some time practicing not just firing your gun but also loading/unloading, drawing/holstering and stoppage drills. No modern auto (and very few older ones) is unsafe to carry with one in the chamber when proper gun handling is employed.


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