Do you hunt with loaded or empty chamber?

Ungrateful said:
In combination with other basic safety rules, yes.

Never point your gun at anything you don’t want to destroy and keep your booger hooker off the bang switch
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You said “drop safe”

That has nothing to do with someone touching trigger or pointing it at someone, unless I misunderstood what you mean by “drop safe”

I am referring to the jarring of the trigger from a firearm being dropped onto something hard and unforgiving. Much like the example given earlier regarding the shotgun in the blind that fell over and discharged.
 
What if... you're carrying with an empty chamber, and when the most important hunting shot of your life presents itself, and then at that moment your trusty field-proven rifle fails to feed?
 
Silverado said:
What if... you're carrying with an empty chamber, and when the most important hunting shot of your life presents itself, and then at that moment your trusty field-proven rifle fails to feed?
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Should have been carrying a better gun. Lol

If it was “trusty field proven” and it failed to feed, then YOU screwed up, not the rifle.
 
canadian hunter312 said:
It’s actually mind boggling how many people here don’t trust themselves to handle a gun safely while it’s loaded. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable hunting with someone like this. If you can’t trust yourself, I sure as heck won’t trust you with a gun for the short time it is loaded in your hands.

My gun is loaded during the entire hunt, when legal. I’ve never actually heard of people hunting without one in the chamber until I read it on CGN years back.
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Here's a true confession; after running courses and dutifully graduating every CRFSC applicant who attended both days of our course and made the score (hundreds), I can say that impressing the absolute simplicity of safe handling is difficult with more people than I'd like. (I only declined to pass a handfull, mostly on points, but at least two just had no business handling firearms period.)

The dirty confession is that I used to think volunteering to get people on board the program was useful.
 
Mr.Rigpig said:
You said “drop safe”

That has nothing to do with someone touching trigger or pointing it at someone, unless I misunderstood what you mean by “drop safe”

I am referring to the jarring of the trigger from a firearm being dropped onto something hard and unforgiving. Much like the example given earlier regarding the shotgun in the blind that fell over and discharged.
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I believe the term was coined by Glock but applies to most commercial firearms. Something like an Sks is not at all drop safe. Anything designed after the 1970’s is designed to not go off if it is dropped. Pretty much everything you can think of unless it has external hammers or a free floating firing pin is drop safe. Winchester had a massive class action lawsuit in the early 70’s involving rifles that went off when dropped while the safety was on, they had to pay and issue public safety announcement and recalls and all manufacturers followed suit. Wether your gun could fire when dropped or not, you make sure you don’t drop it and make sure it’s pointed in a safe direction in case it does get dropped
 
I only have two personal anecdotes here. I went hunting with a friend on some ranch/farm he had access on, very much in prairie country Eastern AB. He was after a mule deer buck, and 'technically' I had a legal tag for a WT buck, though I didn't expect to see one. We were walking either side of a little gully, came around a bend and spotted some mule does bedded down. Johnny was getting ready to bust his buck out of cover!

When the does finally got up and started moving away from us, 'technically' the biggest frakkin' WHITETAIL buck I've personally had a chance to shoot got up from his bed maybe 45 yards further up, looked me right in the face, and took off with his girlfriends in tow, great big whitetail ass flagging all the way. I had a round chambered and safety on, but gobsmacked incredulity cost me the buck. It can happen even in wide open country.

I was hunting grouse with my great friend and my dog, both of us had double shotguns, loaded of course.

Mine was a Red Label, tang safety of course on. I stepped over a log or something, got my feet tangled up, and went ass over ego on the ground. What I noticed in that weird slow-mo second was that I thought consciously about keeping those barrels pointed at the sky, finger alongside and thumb reinforcing the safety. IDK how I managed that and without a scratch on my friend, my dog, my gun or my personage.

I do trust modern safeties on guns that are in good condition, for some reason the half-#### on a lever gives me the creeps though.
 
Silverado said:
I only have two personal anecdotes here. I went hunting with a friend on some ranch/farm he had access on, very much in prairie country Eastern AB. He was after a mule deer buck, and 'technically' I had a legal tag for a WT buck, though I didn't expect to see one. We were walking either side of a little gully, came around a bend and spotted some mule does bedded down. Johnny was getting ready to bust his buck out of cover!

When the does finally got up and started moving away from us, 'technically' the biggest frakkin' WHITETAIL buck I've personally had a chance to shoot got up from his bed maybe 45 yards further up, looked me right in the face, and took off with his girlfriends in tow, great big whitetail ass flagging all the way. I had a round chambered and safety on, but gobsmacked incredulity cost me the buck. It can happen even in wide open country.

I was hunting grouse with my great friend and my dog, both of us had double shotguns, loaded of course.

Mine was a Red Label, tang safety of course on. I stepped over a log or something, got my feet tangled up, and went ass over ego on the ground. What I noticed in that weird slow-mo second was that I thought consciously about keeping those barrels pointed at the sky, finger alongside and thumb reinforcing the safety. IDK how I managed that and without a scratch on my friend, my dog, my gun or my personage.

I do trust modern safeties on guns that are in good condition, for some reason the half-#### on a lever gives me the creeps though.
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I have a Henry 22 that fires from half c0ck. You can lower the hammer to half, pull the trigger and it will drop and still have plenty of energy to strike the firing pin. I don’t trust safety’s at all, it might as well not have one. Handling your gun safely is the most important thing and if you are it doesn’t matter if there’s a round in the chamber or not you treat it the same either way
 
Agreed, so let's say I trust good safeties to prevent the gun discharging if all else fails and I drop it on the ground.
 
Now are we talking scary black rifles or papa Joe's hunting rifle??

Always not loaded sometimes

Unless there's deer 🦌

Or moose

Or duck

Or bear

Or squirrel

I had a friend where the squirrel bit his fu#@ing nose off well she looked like a squirrel.

Were talking condoms right??
 
For me it's generally loaded chamber, loaded mag and safety on. I do have a preference for safeties that lock the striker, but its not an absolute thing.

For really rough going for a rifle that will be used for everything from a walking stick to canoe paddle empty chamber.
 
2-3 in the mag.
Round in chamber but.....I pull trigger and lower bolt handle down.

So basically bolt decocked. At this point with gun pointed in safe direction safety off I pull trigger again , and put safety on.

If I see anything I want to shoot at , bolt handle goes up then down , no racking in a shell. Very quiet.
 
Ungrateful said:
So everyone saying they wouldn’t hunt with a loaded chamber has never hunted with a double barrel, break action, crossbow or muzzle loader I take it?
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My muzzle loader is a hammer-fired gun so I load it and go. Just don't #### it until I need to. The firing pin won't protrude unless the trigger is pulled, and if the hammer isn't cocked there would be no spring energy to drive the pin forward anyways.

My other break action is also hammer fired (CVA Scout, same action as the ML which is a CVA Wolf) so same deal there.

I'm way too much of a dickhead to hunt with a nice double gun, that would get wrecked the moment I took it out of the case in the field I can practically guarantee that.
 
Silverado said:
Here's a true confession; after running courses and dutifully graduating every CRFSC applicant who attended both days of our course and made the score (hundreds), I can say that impressing the absolute simplicity of safe handling is difficult with more people than I'd like. (I only declined to pass a handfull, mostly on points, but at least two just had no business handling firearms period.)

The dirty confession is that I used to think volunteering to get people on board the program was useful.
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Sometimes safety rules make no sense.

At work we had to be tied off if working at a height greater than 6 feet.
Our safety lanyards were 8 feet long.
Safety officer saw nothing wrong with this setup or rule despite a practical demonstration.
 
Mr.Rigpig said:
Who said they don’t trust themselves with a loaded firearm?

If there’s no reason to have firearm loaded, why have it loaded?

If I’m anticipating a shot it is loaded, if not, well…

My firearms are handled the same way regardless of loaded or unloaded — muzzle control being the most important. An unloaded firearm does not mean one can get careless.

Accidents are called “accidents” for a reason, otherwise they would be called “on purpose”.
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The idea of not carrying a loaded gun because something bad might happen implies that the user does not trust themselves to carry a loaded gun. If they fully trusted themselves, there’d be no issue.

Accidents are mainly caused by human error and it doesn’t matter if you’re talking workplace, vehicle, or firearm. Humans making mistakes causes issues. When we’re talking guns it’s 100% on the user as even mechanical failure is irrelevant as the gun is always pointed in a safe direction.


I am 100% confident in carrying a loaded gun because I do not allow the opportunity for accidents (negligence) to happen. I trust myself.





People who do not fully trust themselves believe they may create a situation where the gun might be unsafe. These people do not trust themselves.
 
canadian hunter312 said:
The idea of not carrying a loaded gun because something bad might happen implies that the user does not trust themselves to carry a loaded gun. If they fully trusted themselves, there’d be no issue.

Accidents are mainly caused by human error and it doesn’t matter if you’re talking workplace, vehicle, or firearm. Humans making mistakes causes issues. When we’re talking guns it’s 100% on the user as even mechanical failure is irrelevant as the gun is always pointed in a safe direction.


I am 100% confident in carrying a loaded gun because I do not allow the opportunity for accidents (negligence) to happen. I trust myself.





People who do not fully trust themselves believe they may create a situation where the gun might be unsafe. These people do not trust themselves.
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but that's not the point, you're making an assumption here.

many of us are not bothering to load one in the chamber because we feal that it is unnecessary, and then requires extra effort to unload again when we get back to the truck, quad, or side by side,

there is almost always plenty of time to chamber a round when an animal is spotted, often enough time to look with binoculars, then laze for range then get set up for the shot.....

quick shots are not normally required so constantly loading and unloading becomes a pain... oh I know its us lazy slob truck hunters, but whatever floats your boat.
 
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