Ok....Why Do People Carry Without One In the Chamber..?

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1. Does it work?
2. Is it necessary?
3. Can you do it under stress?
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1. Yes. You draw, rack and shoot. No other mechanisms, switches, toggles, or doo-dads need apply.

2. It is if you don't want to mess with switches, toggles, or doo-dads and don't trust the Glock trigger.

3. Yes, it's a matter of training like anything else.
 
I carry empty chamber and total awareness out to 50 feet. My choice, my future good or bad. When that slide racks, something clicks in my head.

ONCE in a while when I identify a high threat area via the Cooper method, I might pass it by and reschedule it for another day (Getting gas for example...) or... put one in the chamber. When the wife hears that click... SHE goes on high alert.

Hard to live like that constantly.

Remember, concealed carry means to identify trouble, avoid it before it involves you.

You wont believe how many Gun people like Instructors, RO's, Gun Smiths, Police etc relax visibly when you present ejected mag and empty chamber.
 
I live in Hellinois and it's illegal to carry period so this BS about not having the balls to carry with one in the chamber is null and void when one can't carry a gun period.

Better to carry with an empty chamber than not to carry at all.
 
I carry empty chamber and total awareness out to 50 feet. My choice, my future good or bad. When that slide racks, something clicks in my head.

ONCE in a while when I identify a high threat area via the Cooper method, I might pass it by and reschedule it for another day (Getting gas for example...) or... put one in the chamber. When the wife hears that click... SHE goes on high alert.
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Seriously?
You wont believe how many Gun people like Instructors, RO's, Gun Smiths, Police etc relax visibly when you present ejected mag and empty chamber.
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What?
 
I carry with one in the chamber, 1911, because thats how the pistol was designed... because you cant be on 100% alert all the time... and because I may not be able to use both hands when I draw my weapon.
If you have ever had to draw in an up close attack, I dont see how you could even try to justify carrying with an empty chamber.
When the well dressed man with a briefcase swings at your head as he walks by... your awareness was worth just about squat, as thats NOT the profile ANYWHERE that should be attacking you.
Weak hand is protecting your head as you draw, if you have to drop your hand to rack the slide... you maybe going unconscious.
Then they can do what they will AND take your sidearm.

Yea, condition 1 for me.


Jim
 
For those who opt to carry with an empty chamber:

I can draw my gun to the ready completely silently, which may be a valuable thing in some situations, like maybe when a bad guy is distracted for a second or two. If I had to rack the thing, that very characteristic sound may get me some unwanted attention.
 
I always carry with one in the chamber. Cold weather carry is easiest, I wear a shoulder holster under a jacket with an M&P .40 or (lately) my newly acquired USP .40. Summer time is a Glock 29 10mm in an MTAC IWB holster
 
I prefer not to carry with an empty chamber, but if for whatever reason I don't have a holster with me the gun will be unchambered.
 
Superhumans will NEVER have a reason to carry with the chamber empty. They will always do the right thing, never have an accident (they also have flawless equipment), and never shoot too quickly. I will never be superhuman. There should be some way to separate the humans from the superhumans when entering into discussion. :D
 
The one thing all of you chamber loaded zealots need to realize is that there is no one correct answer for every person given every situation and every lifestyle. In your situation, that is probably the better solution, but you don't have to impose on other people given you know nothing about them. That's just simply being ignorant.

I am always surrounded by kids, and given my workplace rules and the places I frequent and my lifestyle, I am oftenly disarming my CHL. It's not my preference, but I have little choice. Playing sports, entering a medical facility (they always have 30.06 signs), and frequently when I visit a friend's house I will disarm as well.

I don't fear myself with an accidental discharge. I worry that it will be by someone else, or to be more accurate, some kid. I've never had anyone stumbled across my weapon when I'm disarmed, but I'm realistic, it could and probably will happen one day. A child or young kid simply doesn't have the strength to rack the slide, but they can easily get past any form of physical safety on the gun itself.

It takes me a sub second to rack the slide, so I'm not worried about being unprepared at all. If I'm staring down the barrel of a guy with a gun, I'm not going to draw regardless whether I am chamber empty or not. I play the odds. Thugs generally just want money and that's it. I can give away whatever's in my wallet, it's never that much anyway. Everything goes on the credit card these days. I'll probably have kids around, and if I draw against a pointed gun it's going to force the other guy to shoot. Not the odds I want.

So it comes down to one major thing for me. Will I encounter a situation where I need to draw and fire within a second (to me, the difference between chambered and unchambered - and don't make up crap about only having one hand) or will I encounter a situation where someone discovered my firearm because I had to disarm. IN MY SITUATION, I think it's the latter. In your situation, you judge for yourself. I generally frequent very low crime areas and am not often out at night. This is simply my situation and my lifestyle.

Edit: I do want to add one thing. There are times when I do carry chambered. These are the times when I anticipate something could go bad. For example, if I'm selling something on Craigslist and I have to meet someone face to face, you can bet I'm loaded. So I do pick and choose depending on the situation, but for the most part, unchambered works better for me for day to day carry.
 
I also believe that if you do carry unchambered and practice chambering under pressure (a time limit or something) you are not sacrificing much in time. But, you much keep in my that you are giving up a stealthy readying of your weapon.

I also stay unchambered if I am going to have to repeatedly disarm and re-arm myself.
 
The one thing all of you chamber loaded zealots need to realize is that there is no one correct answer for every person given every situation and every lifestyle. In your situation, that is probably the better solution, but you don't have to impose on other people given you know nothing about them. That's just simply being ignorant.

I am always surrounded by kids, and given my workplace rules and the places I frequent and my lifestyle, I am oftenly disarming my CHL. It's not my preference, but I have little choice. Playing sports, entering a medical facility (they always have 30.06 signs), and frequently when I visit a friend's house I will disarm as well.

I don't fear myself with an accidental discharge. I worry that it will be by someone else, or to be more accurate, some kid. I've never had anyone stumbled across my weapon when I'm disarmed, but I'm realistic, it could and probably will happen one day. A child or young kid simply doesn't have the strength to rack the slide, but they can easily get past any form of physical safety on the gun itself.

It takes me a sub second to rack the slide, so I'm not worried about being unprepared at all. If I'm staring down the barrel of a guy with a gun, I'm not going to draw regardless whether I am chamber empty or not. I play the odds. Thugs generally just want money and that's it. I can give away whatever's in my wallet, it's never that much anyway. Everything goes on the credit card these days. I'll probably have kids around, and if I draw against a pointed gun it's going to force the other guy to shoot. Not the odds I want.

So it comes down to one major thing for me. Will I encounter a situation where I need to draw and fire within a second (to me, the difference between chambered and unchambered - and don't make up crap about only having one hand) or will I encounter a situation where someone discovered my firearm because I had to disarm. IN MY SITUATION, I think it's the latter. In your situation, you judge for yourself. I generally frequent very low crime areas and am not often out at night. This is simply my situation and my lifestyle.

Edit: I do want to add one thing. There are times when I do carry chambered. These are the times when I anticipate something could go bad. For example, if I'm selling something on Craigslist and I have to meet someone face to face, you can bet I'm loaded. So I do pick and choose depending on the situation, but for the most part, unchambered works better for me for day to day carry.
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I would pick and choose to condense this, but this is pretty 100% my view of carrying. Statistically speaking, I will probably be more absentminded in leaving my gun out where my kid can find it (or an incompetent adult) for the nano-second it takes to pull the trigger (changing clothes, showering, on my desk at work, etc) than I will be forced to use it in a lightening fast aggressive encounter...all the time. The risk of not being able to shoot in 1/16 of a second is far more preferable to me than living with a family member having a very fatal run in with Mr. Murphy. Would that require negligence on my part? Of course! I'm flawed, just like the rest of you. I have days where I do stupid things. We all do. "I'm just going around the corner" and not putting on my seat belt. "The light just turned 'orange'". "I'll just be a second" taking off my loaded gun to change clothes instead of dropping the mag and emptying the chamber. For many of us, it's an extra measure of safety that is very passive. Please don't treat us as if we are terrified of our firearms. It's an extra level of respect that makes us feel more comfortable having something in our house that is by design manufactured to wound/kill.

When I come to my office, I'm armed but not racked. When I go to the movies, I'm armed but not racked. When I go over to my parent's houses, I'm armed but not racked. In most places where I feel their is a statistical chance of NOT being mugged by 20 gang members hopped up on PCP making 21' lunges with broken bottles, I'm armed but not racked.

If I go downtown, locked and loaded. If I'm driving through a rough neighborhood, locked and loaded. If I'm hiking through the woods where nasty critters might be, locked and loaded. If I go or do anything where my Spidy sense could possibly go off, locked and loaded or I'm carrying a fully loaded revolver.

Death will come for me, and it MAY be due to the fact that I go somewhere sometime without one in the pipe. It also might be cancer or a car crash or I might get mauled by a bear or there could be a case of mistaken identity where a jealous husband thinks I am having relations with his wife and decides to run me over with a car driven by a bear stricken with cancer. I'm OK with that. I'm OK carrying with one in the pipe, and I'm OK carrying +0.

Any number of smarmy sound bites of "if this then that" isn't going to get me to change how I comfortably carry.
 
Maybe those who "are afraid", for lack of a better term, should carry a revolver with an empty chamber. Have the hammer over a live round and the next chamber empty.
The pistol would have to be cycled twice to fire.
You could work it 1 handed... and since you are comfortable with an empty chamber in an auto loader... then only having 4-6 rounds in the gun shouldnt make you nervous either.

Just a thought.


Jim
 
I can flip that around on you pretty easily. Those who advocate carrying with one in the chamber of a 1911 should carry a wheelgun cocked. Same thing, and after all we're taught not to rely on safeties aren't we?
 
I would have no problem with that.
My revolvers are in good shape and dont push off.
I would have no issue carrying my 1911 with the grip pinned and the thumb safety off.
I practice keeping my bugger picker off the bang switch.
No different than carrying a striker fired autoloader with no external safety.


Jim
 
It's their gun, their life, that them do whatever they think it's best for themselves. Stop worrying others' methods of "self defense".
 
I can flip that around on you pretty easily. Those who advocate carrying with one in the chamber of a 1911 should carry a wheelgun cocked.
Same thing, and after all we're taught not to rely on safeties aren't we?
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I'd say there's an obvious difference in carrying a firearm that has more than one inbuilt safety mechanism (in the case of a 1911, a manual safety, drop safety, and grip safety) in the manner in which it is designed to operate safely, and carrying a revolver with the hammer cocked, thereby negating the primary safety mechanism of such a gun, the long and heavyish trigger pull.


Thing is, if you're uncomfortable with a gun to the point of not wishing to carry with a round in the chamber, it's worthwhile to explore why that is. If you don't want to deal with disengaging a manual safety, that's fine. There are dozens and dozens of guns that have no manual safety, both semi auto and revolver. If you're uncomfortable with carrying a gun cocked and locked, there are plenty of striker-fired designs that have no external hammer to worry about, or DA guns that have a trigger pull heavier or longer than that of a tuned 1911.

Ultimately, it's an issue of training and picking the right firearm for yourself. If you're not comfortable with carrying a round in the chamber, then you should either train until you are comfortable with it, or find a pistol design that meets your sensibilities of safety such that you are comfortable with a round in the chamber.
 
And there's an obvious difference between keeping the chamber clear on a semi and leaving an empty chamber for the first shot of a revolver.

For me, even if the revolver had multiple external safeties I wouldn't want to carry it cocked.
 
if someone ran at me with a knife from close up, i'd pistol whip them back. Shooting someone isnt always the safest bet.
 
And while you are pistol whip'n they'd be stabbing. I don't see that going well.
 
Funny how "being uncomfortable or afraid of the gun" keeps coming up in here although it's been explained several times over, right inside this thread, why some carry unchambered.

I could have sworn that the OP asked why do people carry without one in the chamber and not what do people who carry chambered think is wrong with carrying unchambered.

Now the argument has shifted to carrying chambered is less noisy. You know for when you rappel down the side of the castle wall, of course after crossing the alligator filled moat, and need to sneak up on your target like a ninja.
 
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