Thanks! I must have missed that thread, I’ll go find it.
Just to clarify:
At home I don’t have a loaded chamber, for 3 reasons.
been there done that, it does takes practice, honestly, i would probably be dead by the time i get it right, i learned to buy me some different handgun sights that sit just a tad bit higher in order to do that! catches the clothes much better or anything i use at the time.
outside of the home, 24/7, when i am at home, i have grandchildren now at home, they are small for now, but my older grandchildren 4 boys, 6yrs to 21 yrs are grown and i have taught them at the range everything they need to know of how to shoot, what to do is they see a gun laying around etc. still that doesn’t mean they have friends that use to come over when i wasn’t home. all my guns are locked up, except what i carry, when i have kids at house or other company, i run empty chamber and place gun in my secure location accessible only to me (wife doesn’t care about it or want to shoot it). yes, i heard all the arguments of having one in chamber at home. i’m 50/50 on that, depends on the circumstances, why? being a police officer for over 40+yrs retired once for saginaw city and now working saginaw county sheriff, i have picked up my fair share of dead kids who were killed by loaded guns left by irresponsible adults, and kids that found guns on streets or at home and knew how to get to them, those parents and family living with that is difficult. seeing kids at autopsies is difficult. so . my advise, is cold chamber at home based on circumstances, lock and loaded at home also based on circumstances. lock up guns that are not being used. and pay for gun insurance such as this uscca or any other company that gives good coverage in case you end up in court, most do!
Once about 10 years ago while I was working . I was coming out of a parts store. There was a drive by shoot. I recognized the pop pop. I dropped back behind my van. While doing this there was a lady standing in the open looking around to see where it was coming from. I holler at her that it might be best to take cover. She didnt even know they were gun shots ???
Sorry if this was off topic. For some reason this came back to mind
If you do not use firearms, you will not know what they sound like, they do not sound like they do on TV and in movies. I have heard handgun fire mostly only with hearing protection, or muffled by sound-proofing at the range. On the rare occasion I have heard live fire, it sounds different. It also sounds different at open air ranges compared to indoor ranges. So I can understand why someone might believe it to be fireworks or whatever, and not realize it is the sound of a firearm.
That’s true. We had a brief conversation after the fact. She might be a little wiser
Greg, check to see if your revolver has a transfer bar or similar mechanism that prevents the hammer from reaching the firing pin unless dropping from a fully cocked position (single or double action). If so, every chamber may be loaded and you can still carry with 100% confidence you won’t have a discharge if you drop it or it is struck by something. If you have a transfer bar, you really should carry every chamber with a round in it.
Why would you deliberately handicap yourself with an unchambered pistol? This defeats the purpose of self-defense - you have to be WILLING, and you have to be FIRST.
The attached compelling video suggests regularly changing out one’s very first cartridge in semi-automatics (pistols). Because that very first round becomes worn and torn over time, and a malfunction or misfire on that first pull/shot may occur, which you’d need to manually re-rack to clear, in a real emergency.
In this vid, the presenter describes a unique method of caring for one’s CCW ammo as “recycling”.
What to do with the warn cartridge? The presenter suggests shooting it at the range. Unless you have a safe alternative system of how to dispose of a bullet.
Although this video is helpful, the timing might be off between the voice/sound and the audio movement of the orator/presenter. However, even his very last sentence is worth listening to.
I imagine how often one should recycle depends on how often one carry’s out of the home per week. Assuming one keeps a round racked into the chamber. If one carry’s daily (outside of the home), how often do you think one should recycle out that cartridge; Once per week, once per month, once per every three months?
Please share your advice and experience.
What he’s referring to in that video is called “bullet setback”. In another thread I compiled a few videos on the subject. In particular, watch the first one from Sage Dynamics which includes some measurements with a caliper.
Every time a round is chambered, you may get some setback. It’s not usually until you’ve chambered it a bunch that you see setback, but “bunch” varies from firearm to firearm and bullet to bullet.
Before COVID, my carry pistols normally only came unloaded at the range when practicing, or a clean/check every month or two. I kept that habit to reduce administrative handling. I would take that once-chambered round and set it aside and when I had enough that would go in a mag that got fired at the range.
After COVID I have been dry-firing a lot more and as a result have needed to empty the firearm more often. But I also don’t want to be so cavalier about shooting my defensive ammo which is now super expensive if you can even find it all. So now I mark the case with a marker every time it gets unloaded and after 5 chamberings I set it aside instead of just 1 chambering.
I don’t think the amount of time (days, weeks, months) matters unless it’s been in there a long time (like over a year) or exposed to the elements for some reason. It is the chambering that does the damage.
Thanks Harvey. Especially liked the “marker” idea. Going to buy a good permanent marker or two today, per your idea. 
Advice?: Regrding my snap cap; it looks too much like a real round, I was thinking of marking it off with a circle of nail polish but worried the paint could damage the firearm; You all here agree with my worry? Should I go with a permanent marker instead?
Your snap cap looks like a real round? Mine are some sort of magenta/faded red color, there is no way (unless I was in the dark) I would confuse them.
Paint wont damage the firearm per se, but it could gunk it up pretty good. Better to buy a snapcap that is obviously not a real round (orange, yellow, red) they should be super cheap
This was interesting. The factory determined that the problem was not bullet setback, but primer failure. The presenter did make the setback point (four impacts for each chambering from the magazine).
I don’t load my chamber that way in making ready. I insert the “plus one” cartridge into the chamber manually, press it home into the chamber with my finger, and then pull the slide all the way back off the slide stop and let it snap home. I decock, (in the case of my double action carry pistol with the decocker) or I leave it alone for my Glock, and then seat the magazine.
So I won’t have a problem with set back at any time… although the primer disintegration is a very curious and interesting issue. I’ll be aware of that as a possibility in the future and will limit the number of times I close the action on the same round. I’m wondering how that even happened… The explanation doesn’t really make sense to me. But I’m good with keeping the ammo fresh and not constantly smacking it around.
Pretty brutal on the extractor, but even if it snaps you will at least get one shot off.
Now that’s funny! 
I’ve been doing this for a long time, so not advising others to follow my lead, but I get get one draw from the holster every day as a bare minimum. That draw happens with a round chambered when I am getting ready for bed. I draw from the holster with discipline to keep my finger off the trigger. I put the gun down pointed in a safe direction, remove my holster and put the gun back in the holster - being sure the trigger has no chance of being pulled during the entire process.
Gary_H (!) That’s a point. I am unaware how that practice affects the extractor. Please tell me more! (Thanks) If that IS a factor, I’ll load the chamber from the magazine, than drop the magazine, top off and place it back in.
A good way to think about it is these firearms were designed to have the slide/bolt pull a cartridge off the top of a magazine and slam it into the chamber. That means parts (like an extractor) are designed to impact certain things (like a cartridge) at a certain angle and a certain speed.
Anything we do outside of that normal operation “can” cause issues. Maybe its the cartridge not being chambered properly, or the slide is maybe slightly out of battery, or in some cases damage to the firearm (like an extractor). Is it going to break the first time you do it? Probably not. And some firearms are more susceptible than others. But for something you want to guarantee that it works when you need it to, it’s best to just use as the manufacturer intended.
Piggy-backing on what @Harvey said, the cartridge is moved forward by the breach and slides up under the extractor as slide moves forward into battery. From my perspective the extractor has two jobs. The first is the one we are discussing which is to help hold the cartridge up while it is in free space prior to hitting the feed ramp. Hitting the feed ramp is where the bullet setback occurs. Its second job is to “extract” the spent case from the chamber and hold onto it until it hits the ejector. Rinse and repeat.
The extractor, whether external or internal to the slide, is spring loaded. I’ve never seen one that didn’t have a curved feature on the front to help it jump over the rear rim of a cartridge in the loading scenario you described. That said, it is a risk I am not willing to take with life support equipment. Here’s a couple of photos I found on the internet:
It was pretty funny, at the range. Wouldn’t be in a self defense scenario. 
Needless to say, after that wake up call I started doing a lot more draw practicing to “overrule”, if you will, that nightly habit.
