Easing the spring

Do you 'ease the spring' as a matter of routine?

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    71
I mostly « ease the spring » on all my fire arms except 22’s, some of them I use snap caps, some I pull the trigger as I close the bolt, other I hold the hammer as I pull the trigger to bring to the fired position!

As for handing firearms to others, always on an open action no matter what type of action! That’s how I learn that’s all!
 
Wendell said:
That is not true.

When you are about to hand a rifle to another, do you close the bolt while simultaneously decocking the rifle before handing over the rifle with the now-closed action and lowered striker? (I hope not, but many people do that, mindlessly, and that is the practice which provoked me to start this thread.) The individuals doing that are so accustomed to 'easing the spring' as a matter of routine they forget where they are or the possible reason(s) why they've done it. It isn't the decocking of the rifle that is unsafe, it is the habit that they're created; the habit causes them to completely ignore the safety rules, and they decock the rifle regardless of the muzzle direction and regardless of the fact that they're about to hand off the (now-closed and decocked) firearm to someone else, who is now obliged to open the action again.

Decocking can be done carefully, and safely (should one choose to do that), but I would also argue that - generally - we should wish to encourage a strict and mindful adherence to the four rules, and that - generally - we should wish to discourage the creation of any habit that disregards the four rules.
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So then you don't dry fire practice?

In your example, are you talking about loaded gun being decocked and handed over, or an unloaded one?
 
Me, I have no problem with 'easing the spring'. My concern is with the creation of any habit that disregards the four rules. Generally, when one dry fire practices, one has the firearm at eye level, pointed in a safe direction, and a visual focus on the front sight, in accordance with safe-handling rules (including #3). Certainly, it is possible to condition oneself to store only decocked firearms, and to decock them only in accordance with safe-handling rules (including #3), but that is not what you see in the real world. Regularly, in the real world, I see individuals decocking striker-fired rifles with the rifle in a lowered position (and not shouldered); the sights are not on any particular target; the individual has no awareness of what he is doing (or failing to do), beyond the fact that he knows he is 'easing the spring'.
 
Wendell said:
Me, I have no problem with 'easing the spring'. My concern is with the creation of any habit that disregards the four rules. Generally, when one dry fire practices, one has the firearm at eye level, pointed in a safe direction, and a visual focus on the front sight, in accordance with safe-handling rules (including #3). Certainly, it is possible to condition oneself to store only decocked firearms, and to decock them only in accordance with safe-handling rules (including #3), but that is not what you see in the real world. Regularly, in the real world, I see individuals decocking striker-fired rifles with the rifle in a lowered position (and not shouldered); the sights are not on any particular target; the individual has no awareness of what he is doing (or failing to do), beyond the fact that he knows he is 'easing the spring'.
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Seems to me you absolutely have an issue with easing the spring, because it can cause bad habits. You literally said exactly that earlier this thread didn't you?


By definition dry fire practice breaks one of your rules though, the trigger one doesn't it? And in a lot of situations it will break more rules particularly where people are dryfiring in the home, as they also won't know what is beyond their walls and thus cannot guarantee they are pointed in a safe direction and certainly can't know what is beyond their target. That is like 3/4 right there. 4/4 if you assume the person is not interested in destroying their walls, windows, TV, or whatever they're pointed at...

Most of the time when I'm "easing the spring" at the range my rifle is laid on the bench, pointing down range. But its not in my shoulder, and I'm not looking down the sights. I would have JUST checked to make sure the rifle was clear before easing the spring though.


You didn't answer if you're talking about guys easing the spring on LOADED rifles or not. THAT I would have a big issue with...
 
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I didn't know I was decocking my rifle to hand it over to another person. I thought I was decocking my rifle to put it away. Who would decock their rifle to hand it to someone else? This thread is stupid
 
porpoise said:
Who would decock their rifle to hand it to someone else? This thread is stupid
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Between this thread and that other goofy one that just showed up over in general I would strongly suspect cabin fever, day-drunkeness, senility or a recent concussion contributed to their creation.
 
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porpoise said:
I didn't know I was decocking my rifle to hand it over to another person. I thought I was decocking my rifle to put it away. Who would decock their rifle to hand it to someone else? This thread is stupid
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The only reason I'm aware of the practice is the fact that people are doing it. They're well-intentioned, they believe they're doing the right thing, they're completely unaware of the four rules, and therein lies my concern - as a community, what are we teaching new people?

It seems pretty clear that many of the posters in this thread explicitly reject the four rules (for example), instead just doing whatever they want whenever they want.
 
Wendell said:
The only reason I'm aware of the practice is the fact that people are doing it. They're well-intentioned, they believe they're doing the right thing, they're completely unaware of the four rules, and therein lies my concern - as a community, what are we teaching new people?

It seems pretty clear that many of the posters in this thread explicitly reject the four rules (for example), instead just doing whatever they want whenever they want.
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Who is doing this? Your friends? Your wife? Your kids? Who?

Your “rules” are your opinions. Not rules.
 
Wendell said:
The only reason I'm aware of the practice is the fact that people are doing it. They're well-intentioned, they believe they're doing the right thing, they're completely unaware of the four rules, and therein lies my concern - as a community, what are we teaching new people?

It seems pretty clear that many of the posters in this thread explicitly reject the four rules (for example), instead just doing whatever they want whenever they want.
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Considering you learn ACTS and PROVE in the course, I'd say we're basically teaching the 4 rules to new people (3/4 at minimum).

Then again, I bet a lot of the people you're referring to aren't new to guns at all and haven't taken the course in a decade or more - if they ever took it.
 
Wendell said:
The only reason I'm aware of the practice is the fact that people are doing it. They're well-intentioned, they believe they're doing the right thing, they're completely unaware of the four rules, and therein lies my concern - as a community, what are we teaching new people?

It seems pretty clear that many of the posters in this thread explicitly reject the four rules (for example), instead just doing whatever they want whenever they want.
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You could have made your accusation in your original post so spring easers wouldn't out themselves for 4 pages not knowing they had this innuendo to address
 
To be more clear, I am not in any way opposed to anyone choosing to store their firearm in whatever state they wish. For many years I 'eased the spring' myself. Nowadays, having come to the understanding that it really doesn't matter (one way or the other), I don't, mostly. Nowadays, I don't even think about it, except when someone does it in front of me before handing the closed rifle back (to me); for them, clearly, it has become a habit. My interest is in best practices. My motivation in starting this thread was to assess how widespread - or popular - 'easing the spring' continued to be (in the CGN community, at least) so that information could better inform my teaching.
 
Wendell said:
My motivation in starting this thread was to assess how widespread - or popular - 'easing the spring' continued to be (in the CGN community, at least) so that information could better inform my teaching.
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Could have stated that in your original post and saved yourself the vitriol and saved us ten pages of detective work.
 
Last week, one of these guys was handling a new X-bolt when suddenly he said "The safety doesn't work!"

(No, the safety worked just fine, but the safety cannot be applied with a decocked striker, decocked when the user has mindlessly 'eased the spring'.)

After that was cleared up, he 'eased the spring' yet again - before handing the (closed action) rifle back to me.
 
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