What's The Etiquette On This?

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My methods of transferring a weapon:

In general to a gunnie:
Clear weapon and hand it over butt first with the action open.

To a non-gunnie (or someone with unknown gun handling skills):
Clear weapon and make a point of displaying the empty chamber to them, then closing the action and handing it over butt first. I do this so that they won't slam the slide down or flip the cylinder closed. I'm usually re-iterating the 4 rules at this point and am watching them like a hawk.

About the only time I will ever hand over a loaded weapon is on a hot range to someone whose handling skills I am damn sure of. If possible, I'll bench the weapon with the muzzle downrange, if not, I'll keep the muzzle as safely oriented as possible (never towards flesh, but sometimes a non optimal direction i.e. concrete floor), with all manual safeties engaged. In either case I will loudly state "Weapon is HOT". If they aren't going to immediately fire it, I would expect them to press check to verify.

I used to gas up a gun for inexperienced shooters then safe it, and put it on the bench for them. I've since adopted the philosophy that if they can't charge it themselves, we need to find a different gun for them. It helps that my collection now includes guns like a P22 that a smurf with the shakes could operate.

To get around to addressing the OP: if the gun were holstered or cased and I was confident of the recipient's skills, I would have retrieved it and handed it over unmolested. Otherwise, I would have cleared it and handed it over action open, letting the recipient store it or charge and holster it as desired.

My two cents worth,
Joe
 
It's not necessary to "clear" a weapon when you pick it up. "Clearing" in general means that you open the chamber and render the weapon unloaded and harmless.

What you should do is determine it's condition of readiness, ie. is it loaded.

What should happen is when you retrieved the gun, as soon as you picked it up, you confirmed it was loaded. Then you hand it to her, muzzle away from each of you, fingers off the trigger. You release it when she has a firm grasp. You use your hand as a steady fixture that she removes the gun from. Never place the gun in her hand. She should remove it from yours. This is the same technique that scrubs and surgeons use to pass hepatitis and HIV tainted bloody scapels, needles and such back and forth. Trust me, a gunshot wound is not as sure a death as a cut or stick with one of these instruments.

As she reaches for the gun, You say "It's loaded." She confirms the handgun's readiness for herself, again checking the chamber. Muzzle and trigger discipline is maintained throughout.

If you are going to be retrieving her gun frequently, the two of you might want to rehearse this a bit.

An alternative is to bring the gun in the house, place it on a table or counter telling her "It's loaded." Then she can pick it up herself to confirm it's readiness and holster or otherwise secure it. This eliminates the chance of dropping a loaded weapon.

Another alternative, you could just say "Go get your own dadgummed gun, lady."

Of course, this is only my opinion. Others may hold another opinion, as is their right. What is not OK is to not check the condition of readiness yourself before picking it up. What is not OK is unloading the gun and then handing it to her in such a manner that she continues to believe it is loaded.
 
I would not have cleared it. Just check if there was an external safety that it was on and handed it to her with me holding it by the slide, muzzle down, handgrip facing her with a statement of "it's still loaded" before she reached for it.
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I'd add a press check to this....as it's my responsibility to KNOW the condition of the weapon.
 
I always check the gun every time I pick one up.
If I was handing it over with one in the chamber I would make mention of it to the person I was handing it to. Even if they already know or assume it was loaded.
 
I like XavierBreath's script. It's that thing about asses, yous, and mes, doncha know.

BTW, that moniker is a lot less fun when you have to remember to pronounce Xavier in English rather than Spanish every stinking time you read it!
 
Communication is key.
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Precisely. I strongly believe that no matter how busy you may be this is a FIREARM. It's worth the effort to stop all other actions and thoughts for a few seconds, make eye contact, and give the transfer of the weapon your full and undivided attention.
Just check if there was an external safety that it was on and handed it to her with me holding it by the slide, muzzle down, handgrip facing her with a statement of "it's still loaded" before she reached for it.
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Almost exactly what my wife and I do, with the addition that I maintain a strong grip on the firearm and the person taking the firearm must say "I have it" out loud before I will relax my grip.

following this procedure I have never "fumbled" a firearm because at least one person (me) always has a firm grip on it.

Now the hand-off to other people runs a bit more strict (cleared, locked open, etc.)
 
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So, my question is this, it never occured to me to clear the weapon before handing it to her because we both knew it was loaded and it was going to stay loaded.

So was that the proper way to do that?
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NEVER hand a loaded weapon to anyone. Let them go to the weapon.

1. Remove the magazine.
2. Lock slide back. Keeping finger off the trigger.
3. Physically, check the chamber to make sure the gun isn't loaded.
4. Leave all pieces on a table, pointed in safe direction, and allow next person to safely pick up the gun.
 
Thanks for the beginner's course Glockula, but I think our OP and wife are past needing lessons on clearing a gun.

Just because you're not comfortable with transfering loaded weapons between hands doesn't mean its a bad thing to do.
 
RobMoore said:
Just because you're not comfortable with transfering loaded weapons between hands doesn't mean its a bad thing to do.
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But you will never be wrong following CountGlockula's procedure.
Accepting risk is fine, but I am a fan of "always right" methods, and you'd have to be in a fairly unusual/unique situation for post#34 to not be an acceptable method of transferring a firearm.
Personally, in our household, we either use Glockula's method or hand over unloaded firearms after a visible clearing, action locked open if practical.
 
...the watch stander going off duty ALWAYS handed off the 1911 with mag out, and slide back.
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Sailortoo:
Why is a transfer of weapon required at change of watch? Doesn't the Navy have enough 1911s to go around ?
 
NEVER hand a loaded weapon to anyone. Let them go to the weapon.

1. Remove the magazine.
2. Lock slide back. Keeping finger off the trigger.
3. Physically, check the chamber to make sure the gun isn't loaded.
4. Leave all pieces on a table, pointed in safe direction, and allow next person to safely pick up the gun.
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There are "safety rules"... and then there are rules that exist solely because of people not being able to use common sense.

This is an example.

First... let me postulate that the relationship between a husband/wife (or other committed relationships) is quite a bit different from two people who just happen to know one another.

Secondly, there are far too many times during a day that a gun can pass between the hands of a husband/wife for this to even make sense.

A couple examples...

We are in the car and I need to run into the post office. I hand off the handgun to my wife to hold for a moment while I make the run. Does anyone really think the above "never" applies? Do I leave it in pieces on my seat for her to gather up?

Or she is coming home and needs to check on something right away so she hands me her purse and gun and asks me to put them up for her while she takes care of the immediate business at hand.

Or I am down in the office and I hear something outside that concerns me so I ask her to bring down my handgun. She's supposed to hand it to me in pieces?

Or even just the two of us getting ready to leave the home and one of us asks the other to hand us our gun since they are getting theirs also.

Never is rarely a good word to use when discussing something with as many variables as proper gun handling, especially in a family context.
 
Or I am down in the office and I hear something outside that concerns me so I ask her to bring down my handgun. She's supposed to hand it to me in pieces?
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She's not supposed to have to because you're supposed to be carrying it at home :)
 
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OK, I am going to admit right now that I did not read this entire thread. But I have a question, if it has been addressed please feel free to flame me.

For the "always clear it and hand it over slide open no matter what" folks.

What do you do about bullet setback which is likely to occur when the same round is chambered multiple times?
 
For a carry gun, a simple check of all ammunition daily would solve the problem and should be routine anyway.
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Elaborate please?


Clarification

On a CZ-82 you can look at the chamber and tell if it's loaded cause you can see the brass.

The only place that my wife isn't armed ( barring places that she isn't legally allowed to carry) is in church.

She does not ever under any circumstances unload her gun unless she is:

A. Unloading her carry ammunition prior to loading ball at the range

B.Reloading her carry ammuntion at the range or

C. Unloading to clean the weapon at home after the range

The only other person on the face of the earth who ever touches that gun except her is me.

There is zero chance at any other time that her gun would be unloaded so ,to me, reminding her that the gun is loaded is redundant. It would be like telling her the stove is hot. That said, I do understand the concept.

To those that want me to drop the magazine, rack the slide, unload a few rounds so I can rotate the chambered one and thus avoid set back. The put the gun down. so my wife can come and reverse the process.

Doesn't that significantly increase the odds of an AD vs. just putting it on the table?

Now all that aside I was thinking about this at work and what actually happened was, I walked in the house and went to the dinning room. She was already fixing lunch so I asked what she wanted me to do W/ the gun and she told me to put it on the table and she'd deal W/it later.

No kids in the house so don't go there.
 
If you're not going to clear it, put it down and let the other pick it up.
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That's sounds like the way to go. I'd add, "It's loaded."

Clearing the gun adds more opportunities for a ND, especially if the new handler is going to turn around and load the gun.
 
raytracer said:
In general to a gunnie:
Clear weapon and hand it over butt first with the action open.

To a non-gunnie (or someone with unknown gun handling skills):
Clear weapon and make a point of displaying the empty chamber to them, then closing the action and handing it over butt first.
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I would never hand anyone a gun butt first while I'm downrange of the muzzle. We'd have to be side by side while downrange is over there if you know what I mean.
 
NavyLT said:
What do you do about bullet setback which is likely to occur when the same round is chambered multiple times?
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How often are we handing over our loose carry guns here?
If it is in a holster/case the clearing drill doesn't apply in my mind. On the other hand, if it is cleaning day, or the firearm is being handed over without the trigger covered for whatever reason, I'd run through the clearing procedure.

If setback is that much of a concern, one could make a point of expending those rounds while at the range, thus limiting the number of times the round is chambered. I'll wait for a more expert opinion on the number of times a round must be chambered before setback would affect performance or be a hazard. I assume it varies by firearm and caliber.

It seems to me, that at a minimum, loaded firearms should be noted clearly to all involved while transferring from hand to hand.
 
it's your wife, she knows its loaded, you know it loaded, just hand it to her, no big deal. now, if it was a freind, or someone you don't live with day in and day out, that would be a different story. in that case, i would tell them to get the gun theirself!
 
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