I don't understand the point of press-checks.

You will understand the front grooves when your hands are slick with terror sweat and/or blood.

Ten thousand things can go wrong. If you have time to check it, check it.

Seek training and you will understand.

Press check unnecessary

Insert loaded magazine. Release slide. Remove magazine. Insert another round to top off in the magazine. If you can't top off, the slide did not pick up a round and put in the chamber. If you can load the additional round, insert magazine. Pistol is now loaded. No fooling around with the slide. No risk of the slide not going into battery.

Semper Fi

phonesysphonesys, I learned the same thing. In a staggered column magazine, like an AR or AK, we'd load and remove the mag, and if the top round shifted sides you knew it chambered.

On pistol magazines we'd observe that the rounds had moved up in the witness holes. Chamber checks can be accomplished by using the rear slots in all autoloaders with the exception of those that have scopes mounts covering the slide.

seem a bit to me like its a practice confirmation of what should be common scence..

to know if youre gun is loaded....

I cant say Ive ever heard of a properly seated mag, NOT chamber a round when the slide is released, without a quite obvious indicator, like the head of a bullet sticking out the ejection port...

trained professional, with training.. should A: have a reliable weapon.. B: should know at all times, the state of their weapon.....
non professionals should A: have a reliable weapon.. B: should at all times, know the state of their weapon.....

but hey, if you need to do a press check to know something like if yer gun is loaded.. more power to ya.


just my thoughts.

peace, ip.

As I heard it, the forward slide serrations came into being due to the scope and mounts that were starting to be used on open guns, blocked access to the rear of the slide, so someone came up with the the slide serrations on the front of the slide. There are also a t shaped adapter that many use that attaches to the top rear of the slide and works the same way as the cocking handle on the M16.

Press check, yes whenever the pistol is out of my immediate control or I think I may have had a senior moment, I look at it like patting your chest pocket to make sure the truck keys are in there, before I get out of the truck and lock the door.

YMMV

Well now, I've been shootin' forever and been a CCWer for just about as long. I've seen a thing or three and been involved in a few more.
I still press check my Glocks and my AMT .380. Why? 'Cause every once in awhile I'm wrong.
For the infallible members of THR, I'm glad for ya.
I guess I'm just insecure. Having admitted that, I'll double and triple check everything I can, given the time and opportunity.

Biker

I can see th logic behind saftey, and knowing if a firearm is loaded or not, and if a press check is what you feel comfortable with, amen!

mabey my carry tech is different than others, well obviously, all of ours are.
personally, I know when I holster my Kahr in the AM, it is loaded. It stays that way untill I change it, that only happens whan I go from 115gr to 147gr to leave the house.

for me, its simple.
for others a press check is probobly just as routine.

to each our own.

ip.

I carry daily and put my carry piece in a quick access safe on the nightstand every night. No one handles the weapon except me.

Every morning when it comes out of the safe and into the holster, I press check it and look at the holes in the mag to make sure it is fully loaded.

Every night when it comes out of the holster and into the safe, I press check it and look at the holes in the mag to make sure it is fully loaded.

Why? An unloaded gun is a useless gun when you need it most and I want to be sure.

(Go ahead. Call me anal. It's okay! )

"Press checks"

I absolutely refuse to criticize another gun handler's methodology. My opinion is that we are all like "peas in a pod" and the last time time I shelled peas I didn't see any two that were exactly alike. I do not use the press check method personally. As one member commented, "you'll understand when you get senile...". I will no longer have firearms when I enter that part of my life. I have enough sense now to have made plans with my wife and kids about my guns. For now, After over 30 years of carrying 24/7 I know when I load my guns. I'm old enough to still enjoy carrying revolvers and they're easy. My Glocks are almost easy. If any gun in my safe has a magazine inserted it is also possessed of a round in the chamber, for as someone once said, "a handgun without a round up the spout is an expensive paperweight". My PPK/S has a loaded chamber indicator. It's my bedside and carry in my jammies until I retire at night pistol. I have installed...personally...loaded chamber indicator extractors in the Glock twins I carry. Since I jumped on the "cocked and locked" bandwagon when I discovered 1911s in the Navy in the '60s I pay attention when I chamber a round. If the hammer is standing it is over a live round. If the hammer is down the chamber is empty. (Read that as never pull the trigger on a 1911 if the hammer is standing unless you want to shoot somebody. Some folks didn't care for his wit, but I always found Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper's intelligence pretty close to the zero all the time. He said once that the best gun control isn't between the hands...it's between the ears. ( I don't recall exactly how he phrased that so I paraphrased it.)... No excuse exists for safe gunhandling. And it's up to each of us as to how we manage that. But I won't buy a cosmetically enhanced 1911, or other pistol, with "forward cocking/ press-check grooves" anymore than I'd buy a Glock with a horn and headlights. If they needed to be there John Moses probably would have put 'em there. (And that's my intemperate statement for today) God bless all of us and help us to keep the street Ogres at bay by being READY.

When I hear press check, I think "stick your finger in the chamber, and feel the rd" I can't do that without ejecting the rd. So I say "No I don't press check" But yes I do visually inspect the chamber from time to time.

Press check

I have noticed more lately that newer pistols have an indicator cut into the chamber or attached somewhere so I guess there is a demand for the ability to do so. My personal foible was drilled into my rocky brain a long time ago. Quiet ! Quiet! Quiet !!. No ringy dingys on my gear. No jangling danglies. The time to do any gear check is before you stick your butt in the hole with the wolverines.

my sig 220 has a cut out in the top of the chamber.I just glance at the gun and can see brass. Yup , it's loaded. Just like the rule says it shoud be.

I guess the only problem with that is, loaded with what? A live round? Empty brass?. A press check shows you brass. But to know if you got a live one ready to go you really have to take the round out of the weapon. If I was a "James Bond" and a Rooshian spy conked me over the head...and I awoke to find myself alone with a handgun...pistol...lying beside me; The only way I would ever know with a small degree of certainty that I was armed would be to jack the round out of the chamber and empty the mag and see what I had. Even then I wouldn't know if there was powder in the hulls unless I shoot them. I guess I could just beat their eyeballs crooked with my paperweight. The more I think of this concept the more I realize that the whole idea of a press check is just so much cinematic and gun sales BS. We have been reading far too much spy stuff.

Aaah, nevermind. I realized I don't really care...

Being the badass that I am, I have been embarrassed several times wrongly believing that I had a round in the chamber during multi-day training sessions & night shoots. There has even been one time where I argued with my trainer that I was ready only to discover that I didn't even have a mag in my pistola.

Press-checks don't hurt, especially in low-light. As for grooves in front of slides, I don't like them.

Personally I've never done it. But Steven Seagal does it every time he picks up a 1911. (Which seems to be a favorite of his)

I press check my pistols that don't have a good loaded chamber indicator. A red stripe on the extractor is not a good indicator. My S&W 1911 has a nice peep hole, my XD's had a lever on top of the slide, my other pistols don't have decent indicators so I press check them. Not good when you expect a bang and you get a click

I prefer a revolver, or an autoloader with a loaded chamber indicator for just this reason. I'm not Captain Action Hero, I don't trust myself to perform all these checks and doublechecks at 4 AM when a Goblin is breaking into my house.

I want point-and-boom, not point-and-click, and a bright red dot on the back of, say, a P99 gives me a quick verification... and its fairly easy to see if a wheelgun is loaded too.

agreed.
both my kahr, and Taurus have loaded chamber indicators. both you can feel with a brush of the finger.

I dont personally have a reason to press check. I know if my guns are loaded, and if they have ejected the last round. I know the state of my guns..
to me, a gun is a tool that should be observed to the highest standard.

asto a press check in the dark, isnt that kinda contradictory?


but theres nothing wrong with extra steps to ensure the state of youre firearm imo.

innerpiece,

Press-checks in the dark are done by feel. There are several techniques which also depends on the pistol. I use a one-handed technique.

Verify

Everyone's situation is going to be different.

Including the type of firearm, and if governed by regulations (LEO, Military, Armored Car Co. Training Facility, IDPA, IPSC, Ranges,[public/private] family, kids...)

I do NOT like front serrations. They did not have them on the 1911s I grew up with learning to shoot for instance. Then again these same 1911s did not have FLGR either.

It is MY responsibility to know condition of firearm. Now I have some folks I do trust and they trust me. Neither of us get offended if our firearms are in the care of each other, and we check the condition [Press Check] the firearm.

Examples:

One has to leave firearm in lock box. A number of situations come to mind, I am going to check my firearm after retrieving it.
I will do so even on a Revolver, I will make sure there are ctg, not cases, ctg in the charge holes and I will check to make sure the firing pin on the hammer has not been filed down - or cut with side-cutters.

For whatever reason I leave my firearm in the care of another, it might be leaving with them as I enter a NO Firearm area, such as my state regulates like a Federal, State, County or City building.
Folks I trust ...I may or may not check. Folks I do not, even if I know them, and even if I place my gun in a lock box, ( or just stick in the trunk while I take care of business) I will check.

I do not like loaded chamber indicators. Just me, just I do not want to get dependent on anything, any feature, or get complacent with a "crutch".

Learn on a crutch , and lose that crutch, one will fall down.

Neat thing about a 1911 for instance, with no front serrations, no FLGR, even with wet, sweaty, bloody, nasty, cold wet hands...

I can check the chamber numerous ways. Even one handed, even weak handed if need.
Push muzzle against a door jamb, or retract slide catching rear sight on heel of shoe and I can not only see a round in chamber - if dark/low light I can feel a round in chamber.

Training is the key, repetitions of practicing these lessons for each individual's needs is suggested with dummy ctg and Rules of Safety.

Another reason I am a proponent of knowing and carrying the same gun(s) and have multiples of same [redundancy].

Flip-Flopping and changing CCWs everyday will get one into trouble, not a matter of if - instead when.

If one CCWs a 1911 and J frame - train with these guns a lot!

Applicable to whatever Platform one CCWs for primary and secondary.

Front serrations : not the fact they are ugly, for me they mess up drawing , re-holstering, and chew up holsters.

Rear Serrations: I do not like the ill designed ones. They may look nice,(some are ugly!) I prefer the function of the USGI/ Colt finer serrations. For ME these work better with wet, sweaty, cold, wet, bloody and even gloved hands better.

Gun fit to shooter, Function, Training.

Makes no difference to me what the latest marketing fads is in the magazines , or what TEEM SEEL is using or Internet Acceptance Club requires.

I care about me. One needs to be selfish at times. For if one does not take care of themselves - what the heck good are they going to be for assisting anyone else?


Yes, I have seen one revolver with the firing pin on the hammer snipped off with a pair of diagonals.
I did this - on purpose.
No - the person did not check his revolver -which I was counting on.

I have also removed on purpose the firing pin from a 1911, and the person did not check their 1911 for ammunition in the mag, round in chamber or if the gun had a firing pin.
I removed MY firing pin from my personal 1911 a few times too.

All I will say on these matters.

I can hear you folks scampering to go check hammer mounted firing pins on Revolvers and them 1911s for firing pins...

All this relates to one issue.

If you REALLY think your ass is on the line,you will
find a fail safe and consistent method of insuring
your weapon is ready and make it an obsessive and
natural habit.

Plus it looks very professional in the movies.



Also,its very important to keep SM away from your weapon.

Press check

I agree with sm....I have folk I trust and who trust me. When I pass off to them...or they to me...the weapon is opened and cleared. PERIOD. DOT. Thassall folks. As I said, if I am taken by bad guys and I awaken to find a weapon beside me I will go all the the way down to bare bones to see if I have a loaded weapon. If that doesn't happen I don't ass u me I am packing. I LIKE loaded weapons. Regards

Every time you touch a semi-automatic pistol, you should rack the slide. I learned this from hollywood.

I think the serrations at the front of the slide are unnecessary at best, and make the guns look less than "clean".

I've press checked autos using the rear serrations for years when I felt the need to do so.

I also think the "games" were responsible for the front serrations after many were using optics/dots on their guns and found it hard to press check the gun from the rear of the slide with those accessories attached.

I don't use optics/dots on my carry guns, no need for the front serrations in the least on them therefore. Others like em, to each his own tastes.

Very few, if any, get to handle my carry guns besides myself. I know when they are loaded and unloaded. If I hand them my gun, it will be unloaded before I do so, and loaded when I take it back.

Brownie