I took a concealed carry course ages ago, and it helped to instill a healthy level of paranoia about unintentional discharge.
My takeaways were:
fuck semi-auto pistols. Many working parts means many points of failure; carrying with a round in the chamber is dangerous as fuck, especially combined with a hair trigger; even if you don’t think there’s one in the chamber, there’s no good way to verify visually without opening the chamber, and even then people tend to give themselves a false negative and carry hot thinking they’re carrying safely; if you don’t carry hot, you have an extra step to perform under panic-levels of anxiety, aka you fumble with a gun-shaped brick for a couple seconds while your assistant proceeds to murder you; and blocky shape = blocky imprint = you’ve made yourself a target before a potential altercation even begins.
Revolvers are the way cuz ^that. And the imprint is more varied, making it conform better to your pudge and not stand out through your clothing. But even among revolvers, fuck any that have an external hammer, which can get snagged on clothing or something, pulled back partially, released, and strike a round causing it to fire without even touching the trigger.
Internal hammer, double-action-only is the way, cuz ^that.
Load one round fewer than the cylinder’s capacity, then close the cylinder with the empty chamber on top / in line with the barrel. Your gun is now only physically capable of firing by fully engaging the trigger. You can drop that fucker out of an airplane, and when it hits the ground it goes thud, not bang. Also, since the back of the casing seats further back than the back of the cylinder, there’s a gap that you can look into to visually assess whether or not there are any rounds loaded; and where or not the individual chamber in line with the barrel is loaded (hot).
Absolute safest way to carry. Only downside is you only have 4 shots to work with, but if you need more than that, you’re probably dead anyway.
I largely agree, but less so with the empty chamber/hammerless points. Anything modern is going to have a transfer bar blocking the firing pin from reaching the primer without a full trigger depress. For the hammerless, I don’t know if you could drop that thing in any way from any height where the internal hammer would get enough inertia to overpower that trigger spring. Anything to do that would advance it to the next chamber anyway and come back on a loaded one.
Even so, having people be extra cautious is better the extra careless. You should always do not just what is safe, but also whatever you are comfortable doing after understanding your own personality.
The majority are, but ones made really small (think sterotypical tv/movie detective with ankle holster or shoulder holster) typically hold 5 to minimize overall size.
Even larger guns can either have 7, 8, or 10 shot if they’re made for really small cartridges for relaxed target shooting, or 5 if they are one of the modern uber magnum bear defense types.
I took a concealed carry course ages ago, and it helped to instill a healthy level of paranoia about unintentional discharge.
My takeaways were:
Absolute safest way to carry. Only downside is you only have 4 shots to work with, but if you need more than that, you’re probably dead anyway.
I largely agree, but less so with the empty chamber/hammerless points. Anything modern is going to have a transfer bar blocking the firing pin from reaching the primer without a full trigger depress. For the hammerless, I don’t know if you could drop that thing in any way from any height where the internal hammer would get enough inertia to overpower that trigger spring. Anything to do that would advance it to the next chamber anyway and come back on a loaded one.
Even so, having people be extra cautious is better the extra careless. You should always do not just what is safe, but also whatever you are comfortable doing after understanding your own personality.
Aren’t most revolvers six-chambered, not five?
The majority are, but ones made really small (think sterotypical tv/movie detective with ankle holster or shoulder holster) typically hold 5 to minimize overall size.
Even larger guns can either have 7, 8, or 10 shot if they’re made for really small cartridges for relaxed target shooting, or 5 if they are one of the modern uber magnum bear defense types.
Take a look at double action semiautos like the Ruger LCP. I think it’s the best of both worlds.