quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

quote:

Originally posted by sooma:

quote:

Originally posted by IndianaBoy:

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Again, as I said many posts ago, you treat all firearms as if they were loaded. You don’t have two sets of rules, one for when you think guns are unloaded, and one set for when you do.

However I treat a gun when it is loaded is is exactly how I treat it when it is unloaded.

Keeping a gun hammer down, whether for storage or prior to usage, does not preclude proper firearms handling.

Misguided faith in a 'safety' provides no additional measure of real safety.


For a deer hunter with a 6.5 or 6.8 SPC AR who needs to cross a fence on the way to his deer stand, in the dark, on opening morning. Is a rifle cocked and on safe measurably safer than a rifle which he confirmed cleared and dry fired the evening before? Of course not, especially when he can confirm hammer down condition via non-rotation of his safety lever. This can be done silently, and in the dark.

Dogmatic faith in a 'safety' is misguided and should not preclude common sense.

It really is a pleasure reading all of your what ifs. Truly.

And exactly why I left this thread. When you have people that see nothing wrong with defeating a manufacturers safety mechanism, and use "common sense" in the same post, the excuses, hypotheticals, rolls eyes, and what ifs flow like wine. You don't have to make excuses and what ifs if you just use the rifle like the manufacturer designed it. Instead of the idea that you're going defeat the mechanical safety, and then you're going to do all of the other safety rules super dooper to make up for not using the safety.

Especially when it comes to hokey unsafe rituals that are not proven to do a THING to improve the rifles sustainability.

I even get the folks like Fritz who pretty much just say "Eh, this is what I do, others do other stuff". I can respect that. He isn't desperately trying to convince everyone else that he is right. No rolls eyes. No hypothetical. My opinion doesn't change a bit of the technique, but I get it.

Yup, I'm with ya and always have appreciated your no nonsense wisdom on here...cutting through all the man drama.

quote:

Originally posted by IndianaBoy:
For a deer hunter with a 6.5 or 6.8 SPC AR who needs to cross a fence on the way to his deer stand, in the dark, on opening morning. Is a rifle cocked and on safe measurably safer than a rifle which he confirmed cleared and dry fired the evening before? Of course not, especially when he can confirm hammer down condition via non-rotation of his safety lever. This can be done silently, and in the dark.

Yes, it is so much harder to check weapon clear before taking on the arduous night movement to contact with a fence which could make an unloaded weapon load, come off safe, and fire.

Do people always cross obstacles with unloaded weapons? Probably a thread drift, sorry.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
Do people always cross obstacles with unloaded weapons?

One of the many (there are far more than four) traditional gun safety rules is that one never crosses an obstacle with a loaded gun. That was something hunters were admonished not to do even when I was a child some 60+ years ago. But perhaps as the number of gun owners who are also hunters has declined, it’s been largely forgotten. Another is to never completely rely on a mechanical “safety” to prevent an unintentional discharge.

Rhinowso, this thread has been about storage. No more, no less. This specific example is not and really not relevant. It's clear jljones (and others) and I (and others) disagree. I'm 100% ok with my choices and obviously so is he. But its pretty clear to me that the world I live in doesn't see his view. I'm often an RSO at our local competitions. In that situation I have seen thousands of people pack up and leave after matches with their guns. Their guns come off the range hammer down and in the case of guns like an AR the safety off since you can't have both hammer down and safety on. I have NEVER seen a single individual cycle the weapon to put it on safe before packing it to leave the range. Not a one.

I understand the logic you are using, I just don't agree with it.

But yeah, in competition if rules dictate hammer down, I highly doubt anyone is going to risk the wrath of a RSO by going to the clearing area to cycle and put it on Safe. Better just to leave and do it at home because I can count on one hand the number of RSO's I actually like having around (meaning they are normal, well, adjusted, reasonable people). When required that is what I do - the sooner I can leave the area the better.

If I had to do that at a range for regular training under the lording of an RSO, I'd find another place to train. Because places like that typically don't allow open or concealed carry on the range, because a loaded, holstered sidearm would make it HOT in a simpletons mind.

Under non-competition ops, my local range has 1 RSO for all the bays and members conduct themselves professionally without need to be sally'ed. Call hot / cold, clear and pack / unpack weapons, draw from concealment, you name it. If things are slow during the week and you have a range to yourself you can move and shoot as you see fit. It's adult-like.

I'm pretty normal as an RSO. Carry 7x24, fired about .5M rounds in completion or training since joining Sigforum. But in any case at our range when matches are done we revert to our normal range rules. The range is then hot. (unfortunately the governing bodies make us run cold ranges for matches). Nobody is under any pressure to do anything they are just packing up. Many put their carry ammo back in the gun, holster up and leave. But those that put their gun in some sort of storage container never cycle and put it on safe. And I seriously doubt they do at home either.
Not at all related to the above and not actually looking for comments on it, my brand new rescue puppy swallowed a rock. It was big. Can't go up or down. So he had surgery and I have to babysit him for long periods post surgery. So I thought it was a good time to get some overdue projects done. What seemed like good projects was trigger stuff I meant to do. So I initially did a SCAR (wow on the difference of the Geissle). Next I unpacked a brand new MPX. Guess what! Sig shipped it with the safety off. Yup a chamber flag, but safety off. *shame on them. Then I went looking for a Colt lower to put in a geissle single stage trigger to test, decided to pick a brand new 6920 I had. Unpacked it. Yup it had a VCI straw in it. But wow the safety was off. *they must be losing their quality control and safety.
YMMV.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

quote:

Originally posted by sooma:

quote:

Originally posted by IndianaBoy:

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Again, as I said many posts ago, you treat all firearms as if they were loaded. You don’t have two sets of rules, one for when you think guns are unloaded, and one set for when you do.

However I treat a gun when it is loaded is is exactly how I treat it when it is unloaded.

Keeping a gun hammer down, whether for storage or prior to usage, does not preclude proper firearms handling.

Misguided faith in a 'safety' provides no additional measure of real safety.


For a deer hunter with a 6.5 or 6.8 SPC AR who needs to cross a fence on the way to his deer stand, in the dark, on opening morning. Is a rifle cocked and on safe measurably safer than a rifle which he confirmed cleared and dry fired the evening before? Of course not, especially when he can confirm hammer down condition via non-rotation of his safety lever. This can be done silently, and in the dark.

Dogmatic faith in a 'safety' is misguided and should not preclude common sense.

It really is a pleasure reading all of your what ifs. Truly.

And exactly why I left this thread. When you have people that see nothing wrong with defeating a manufacturers safety mechanism, and use "common sense" in the same post, the excuses, hypotheticals, rolls eyes, and what ifs flow like wine. You don't have to make excuses and what ifs if you just use the rifle like the manufacturer designed it. Instead of the idea that you're going defeat the mechanical safety, and then you're going to do all of the other safety rules super dooper to make up for not using the safety.

Especially when it comes to hokey unsafe rituals that are not proven to do a THING to improve the rifles sustainability.

I even get the folks like Fritz who pretty much just say "Eh, this is what I do, others do other stuff". I can respect that. He isn't desperately trying to convince everyone else that he is right. No rolls eyes. No hypothetical. My opinion doesn't change a bit of the technique, but I get it.

If you care to peruse back a few pages I clearly stated that either method is appropriate so long as an individual is consistent. There are however a few people in this thread who are desperate to be 'right'.

quote:

Originally posted by sooma:


Yup, I'm with ya and always have appreciated your no nonsense wisdom on here...cutting through all the man drama.

Oh I think we just found the 'man drama.'

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
Do people always cross obstacles with unloaded weapons?

One of the many (there are far more than four) traditional gun safety rules is that one never crosses an obstacle with a loaded gun. That was something hunters were admonished not to do even when I was a child some 60+ years ago. But perhaps as the number of gun owners who are also hunters has declined, it’s been largely forgotten. Another is to never completely rely on a mechanical “safety” to prevent an unintentional discharge.

Hush up now. I am over here defeating manufacturers safety mechanisms and there ain't a god damn thing anyone can do about it!!!




I draw my rifles into my climber stand with a cord, hammer down, empty chamber. I'm a rebel like that. Doesn't matter bolt gun or AR.

Safeties can, albeit rarely, fail.


I'm having a hard time taking any of this seriously considering the 'defeating manufacturers safeties verbiage'. Absurd.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: IndianaBoy,

quote:

Originally posted by IndianaBoy:

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
Do people always cross obstacles with unloaded weapons?

One of the many (there are far more than four) traditional gun safety rules is that one never crosses an obstacle with a loaded gun. That was something hunters were admonished not to do even when I was a child some 60+ years ago. But perhaps as the number of gun owners who are also hunters has declined, it’s been largely forgotten. Another is to never completely rely on a mechanical “safety” to prevent an unintentional discharge.

Hush up now. I am over here defeating manufacturers safety mechanisms and there ain't a god damn thing anyone can do about it!!!




I draw my rifles into my climber stand with a cord, hammer down, empty chamber. I'm a rebel like that. Doesn't matter bolt gun or AR.

Safeties can, albeit rarely, fail.


I'm having a hard time taking any of this seriously considering the 'defeating manufacturers safeties verbiage'. Absurd.

You probably missed post number one...

“The manual for my Ruger AR-556 discusses putting the rifle on "safe" after clearing it and readying it for storage. Nowhere does it mention anything about dropping the hammer to relieve the tension on the hammer spring for long-term storage, so my assumption is Ruger doesn't think there is any harm in storing with the weapon cocked.

Hence my question... how many of you store your AR with the weapon cocked and the safety "on"? Or do you dry-fire the rifle before putting it in the safe like I have been doing in the past? Just curious...”

Storage. Plain and simple. Maybe you can start a thread on how you get in the tree stand with a weapon...

Maybe I will!!!

So now we’re going to worry about the original question?

The question did indeed not refer to climbing into tree stands, but neither did it refer to the wisdom of defeating mechanical devices or even for that matter which method was safer. The answer to that last issue is that both methods are equally safe as long as the gun is unloaded, but that wasn’t the question, asked or implied.

A reminder:
“how many of you store your AR with the weapon cocked and the safety "on"? Or do you dry-fire the rifle before putting it in the safe like I have been doing in the past?”

The original post indirectly raised the question about whether leaving the hammer cocked and the safety on would harm anything, but the discussion veered far off that track as well long before it got to tree stands.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
So now we’re going to worry about the original question?

The question did indeed not refer to climbing into tree stands, but neither did it refer to the wisdom of defeating mechanical devices or even for that matter which method was safer. The answer to that last issue is that both methods are equally safe as long as the gun is unloaded, but that wasn’t the question, asked or implied.

A reminder:
“how many of you store your AR with the weapon cocked and the safety "on"? Or do you dry-fire the rifle before putting it in the safe like I have been doing in the past?”

The original post indirectly raised the question about whether leaving the hammer cocked and the safety on would harm anything, but the discussion veered far off that track as well long before it got to tree stands.

Yay! On the fifth page someone finally got back to the original subject and left “active shooter” debates and the definition of long term storage and all that other stuff behind! Thanks sigfreund!