Should you not "Store" your revolver

[JRH6856]

FWIW, I have seen revolvers that have been stored loaded (30-40 years) where the ammo swelled and corroded and had to be extracted with a hammer and a dowel rod after soaking in Hoppes. Other than the ammo, and a few spots of surface rust, the gun was fine. The ammo was .38 Special black powder.

 

[sixgunner455]

Note to self: stop putting black powder cartridges in my revolvers.

Wait. I never do that. lol

 

[Lost Sheep]

I am going to try and ignore the above post, as it makes no sense at all...unless you live in CA, as the poster does.

If you have small children in the home, take appropriate precautions. Otherwise, having an unloaded gun is worse than worthless. Wrse yet, continually loading and unloading a gun creates more problems than it solves. Most NDs occur during administative handling.

Another un-informed post.
If you "store" your gun underwater, you will have a problem. I have both semi autos and revolvers that have remained loaded for years at a time.
There are plenty of examples of people who have a 1911 or a Model 10 in their nightstand or drawer for 25-50 years at a time. Pull it out and it still works.

Don't over-think it. As long as you can prevent un-authorized access, you will not have a problem. Period.

Shoobee's post #24 is reasonable. Especially in California and other situations where keeping the gun and ammunition separate is a good idea (edit: good idea for legal, not practical reasons). There may or may not be better ways to do it, but you do what is practical for you and I am not in a position to judge his situation or yours.

I do think, though, that armed civilians owe it to themselves to practice MORE often than our military or police. But that, also, is just my opinion.

Lost Sheep

 

[Shoobee]

Only NYC DC and ILL are worse than California regarding 2A.

 

[Ranger30-06]

Only NYC DC and ILL are worse than California regarding 2A.

NJ is only better by a hair... At least we can have loaded guns in the house though...

 

[MedWheeler]

As said, nothing more than a "lawyer-label"...

 

[Steve_NEPhila]

It also helps to buy some snapping caps (dummie cartridges) at your local dealer.

You can use these to practice your draw, stance, trigger pull, etc at home.

In the military this is called "snapping-in."

It saves a lot of ammo and is good practice.

Range qualifications in the military are annual, and in the police agencies are quarterly.

Somewhere in between that frequency is probably good for a civilian regarding actual range practice with live rounds.

On the loaded and unloaded debate, to me it depends on where you keep your main defense firearm. If in a safe, then fine, keep it loaded all the time.

If in a drawer, then keep the weapon in your home and the ammo in your car. Otherwise any kind of lock you use besides a safe can be broken into.

Just bring 6 rounds with you in your pocket from the car each evening in a speedloader, as a regular safety practice. Then you can load it when youre home.

Same thing if you need to keep the weapon in your car, in which case don't leave any ammo in the car with it, but bring your 6 rounds with you in a speedloader in your pocket.

If you don't have a safe, you really need to go to extreme lengths to keep the ammo and weapon separated when you do not have the weapon with you.

You might also invest in a trigger lock, if you don't have a safe. Those are really hard to break off the weapon, but two crowbars can still do it.

Gun locks are worthless, as are most single gun "safes." I am an amateur, yet learned to pick a master lock with about 30 minutes of practice and instruction. Watch the below video and know your equipment and the limitations therein:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yr6ATdaDQ8

Interesting, no?

 

[Zaydok Allen]

Putting it in your nightstand or whatever is not storing because the whole point of putting it there is to have it ready to use immediately. Having it where you can get at it quickly but unloaded would nullify having it at all.

+1 to this. I keep a loaded .357 in my living room, and a loaded .45 next to my bed. If a gun goes in a case, I make sure it's unloaded so I don't forget, take it out of the case in the future, and have an accident. If a gun is sitting out in my home, it is loaded.

 

[Dave_in_Fairview_Park]

A unloaded gun is just metal and wood to throw at the bad guy,IMHO a "GUN" is loaded all the time,for safety think its..for protection make sure it is.

 

[Ironclad]

Something that no one seems to think about when storing loaded firearms around the house or in a safe is the possibility of rounds cooking off in a house fire and injuring a firefighter. I have been on a call where most of the ammo inside a fire safe had cooked off, and another where almost all the ammo went off in a cabinet.

Luckily I don't think any cartridges were chambered or else we could have had a problem. I have never shot an RSC but I doubt that one would stop a 30.06 round. Correct me if I am wrong.

What I typically do is leave my EDC 1911 chambered and handy. During the rare times I lock it in my cabinet, I either try to point it toward the basement wall, or un-chamber it.

Rifles and shotguns that are in the cabinet I typically fully load but never chamber in case firemen have to make entry on my ground floor.

As far as I know, un-chambered ammo cooking off shouldn't be too much of a hazard given eye protection and thick clothing.

Thoughts?

 

[Steve_NEPhila]

In the event of a fire a single round cooking off in a chamber will be about #247 on my list of concerns. Smoke inhalation, getting my people to safety, pets. Smoke is the killer in fires and it occurs at much lower temperatures than what is needed to cook off a round in a chamber. Thus, presenting the most lethal danger to the occupants well before a round could be cooked off.

If a round were to be cooked off in a chamber, it would most likely be one and done. A semi automatic pistol or rifle would malfunction (think limp wristing) and that would be the end. A revolver may cook off multiple rounds, yet it is likely that the first round to cook off (5/6 or in the case of my 8 shooters, 7/8 chance) the round to first cook off will not be lined up with the barrel. If that were to happen, the probability of a catastrophic weapon failure due to the chamber not being lined up with the barrel is very high. I see very little risk posed by a loaded firearm in a house fire.

As for the burning and detonation of bulk ammunition, again there is no significant risk. The mythbusters did a neat bit on cooking off unchambered ammunition in an oven. They cooked 22 LR up to .50 BMG. The casing is what became the flying piece of debris as it offered less resistance to the energy of the burning powder because it had less mass than the projectile generally. These cooked rounds did not have enough energy to seriously injure or damage a human analog.

However, this does bring up a very good point... do not store ammunition in your fire resistant gun safe. I could see keeping a pistol or two loaded, but keeping cases of ammunition in an expensive fire resistant gun safe is foolish and places the protected items at risk. Storing bulk ammunition in a fire resistant safe places those expensive weapons (S&W Performance Center guns, Merkel rifles, Pardini pistols and the like... if you've got them) at risk. Keep your ammo in a locked metal cabinet and you will be better off.

 

[FAS1]

Gun locks are worthless, as are most single gun "safes." I am an amateur, yet learned to pick a master lock with about 30 minutes of practice and instruction. Watch the below video and know your equipment and the limitations therein:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yr6ATdaDQ8

Interesting, no?

That Defcon video should enlighten some people on inexpensive handgun safes and they didn't even give them the hammer/screwdriver test on their flimsy sheetmetal. Not all handgun safes are the same, but all electronic ones need a back up key for when the electronics fail or the batteries die. Just gives another entry point to exploit, especially with a tubular lock.

 

[Ironclad]

Smoke is the killer in fires and it occurs at much lower temperatures than what is needed to cook off a round in a chamber. Thus, presenting the most lethal danger to the occupants well before a round could be cooked off.

This is true, but firemen go in with air packs well after the fire is involved enough to cook off ammo. A friend of mine had rounds going off about 4 or 5 feet from his head during one structure fire. If the rounds had been chambered that would have been it for him.

 

[Shoobee]

Gun locks are worthless, as are most single gun "safes." I am an amateur, yet learned to pick a master lock with about 30 minutes of practice and instruction.

Precisely why I rely on a full sized gunsafe, myself. But nothing is safe from a master thief.

If you live in a really big home then you are quite likely to be targeted by a master thief.

Whereas if you live in a small home you are quite likely to escape the scrutiny of any master thieves, but may be burglarized by a petty thief. And a full sized gunsafe is good protection against a petty thief.

 

[Steve_NEPhila]

Your statement is a logical failure. If the round was chambered and the weapon was pointed directly at your friend and the bullet were to penetrate into a vital area then your friend may have been seriously injured or killed.

As you can see from the above conditions that would have to be met, the probability is small yet still existent. I doubt bullets fired from cooked off cartridges ranks in the top 20 causes of death for firefighters. The most reasonable thing to be concerned about as a firefighter is myocardial infarction, or heart attack. I would estimate that trauma injuries from structure collapse and falls are the top three killers.

 

[skipjackrc4]

I doubt bullets fired from cooked off cartridges ranks in the top 20 causes of death for firefighters.

While this certainly may be true, I feel that Ironclad is correct in addressing the issue with his firearm storage methods. I have always done the same.

I have read somewhere (on this site, I believe) that when an unchambered round cooks off, the bullet itself travels only a few feet with the brass travelling much further. This is due to the differences in mass.

 

[OldCavSoldier]

All the guns in the house are like all my fire extinguishers......loaded and ready for use!

 

[shiftyer1]

It is just fine, as long as you check your ammo evry now and again. especially in maybe a barn or shed. It'll probably still work but just looks nasty.

Those labels are for consumers ignorance.

 

[Ironclad]

I see very little risk posed by a loaded firearm in a house fire.

http://my.firefighternation.com/forum/topics/exploding-ammunition-is-this

A round from a rifle hit a fire truck. Luckily no one was injured. It is not the most likely thing to happen but is a possibility. I would feel pretty terrible if one of my guns killed someone who was risking their life to save my home.

Like I said earlier, I completely understand keeping your primary SD or HD weapon chambered. Just try to think of where the muzzle is pointed if it were to go off.

 

[Brian Williams]

The operative idea is; Store vs put away.
I never store a gun with the ammo. This means I am placing the gun in some sort of protective storage for a length of time because I am not gong to use it or it is a safe queen. I am probably putting either a coating of wax or grease on it. Wax and/or grease is not a good thing in regards to ammo.
Putting a gun away means I will probably use it in the near future and I still would not store the gun with it loaded.
Keeping a gun loaded and ready to use for a SD/HD situation I would not be putting it away nor storing it like that.

 

[Rem.222]

I never put a gun away without mag loaded or cylinder loaded. Only single shots and dbl. left unloaded. The tube mag on my 22 or my pump shotgun isn't loaded when put away family is grounded. I have no need of a club or paperweight that is how I was raise and my children as well. SO LOAD THAT GUN!

 

[asia331]

My 2 cents reference revolvers; always loaded... with the stipulation that they are either physically "on" me or locked in a safe (long term or quick access type). Has anyone found any utility for an unloaded sidearm?

Rifles on the other hand are stored unloaded with a "ready service" loaded magazine nearby.

 

[Cosmoline]

There is a legitimate concern here: fire.

If you leave your firearms with one in the chamber or behind it in the case of revolvers, and there is a hot enough fire, it will cook off and potentially injure responders. I do sometimes leave them with loaded mags, but I try to avoid having any stowed firearms with one up the spout.