Chamber Empty or Loaded

You're all lightweights...

 
I will chamber a round when I am in stand/blind situations. I also chamber a round when I am actively staking an animal. At all other times during a hunt, my rifle will be unloaded. If anyone I am hunting with is uncomfortable with that, I will abstain from chambering a round until the final moments before the shot. For me, there is no reason to create a conflict with a friend over something like that.

However, the argument at hand seems to me to be this. There is either no way possible to safely carry a loaded rifle on your person or that it is possible to safely carry a loaded rifle. Doing so or not seems like it should be a personal decision made by a person as a responsible adult and the group they may be hunting with, putting your own or the group's safety in their own hands. While I seem to be largely in agreement with the majority here, I would love to see a strong case that there is no way to safely carry around a loaded rifle. If you ask me, saying that it is safe 99.99% but on the off chance that something does go wrong is enough to absolutely never do it is not strong enough. Our lives are plum full of activities with potently deadly consequences just like that we gladly do daily, mostly with much less thought than we should and do give gun safety.
 
IHEA has a large database of accident information, there is a good mix of states from every region West, East, Midwest, etc.


Weapon related incidents

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Top incidents by type
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Land ownership of incident and if it was fatal or non-fatal
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“Victim moved into the line of fire?” 458 incidences? How the hell does that work? I’d love to here the explanations.
 
It would be really interesting to do a research project on what goes on in a hunters mind, body, etc when they think they see an animal, scrambling to get a shot, etc..

As far as chambered or not, I am normally in big open country so I just have my gun in my pack, chamber empty. If I get in the thick stuff the gun goes on my shoulder and chamber is loaded.
 
...

meanwhile in the whitetail woods
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I had 100 whitetails under my belt before I hit 30. That was when I stopped counting and that was a while back. I did it without much blasting going on to get it done.

This thread is making me nervous though since almost no one you will see in the woods here who is hunting is doing it without a round in the chamber. I spend more time in the woods without a round in the chamber than the vast majority of the folks in the woods around me. Is this a regional thing or a cultural thing I wonder? Maybe it is because a very large percentage of deer encounters here last just a few seconds due to lack of visibility caused by vegetation?

#thankfulforhuntersorange
 
I had 100 whitetails under my belt before I hit 30. That was when I stopped counting and that was a while back. I did it without much blasting going on to get it done.

This thread is making me nervous though since almost no one you will see in the woods here who is hunting is doing it without a round in the chamber. I spend more time in the woods without a round in the chamber than the vast majority of the folks in the woods around me. Is this a regional thing or a cultural thing I wonder? Maybe it is because a very large percentage of deer encounters here last just a few seconds due to lack of visibility caused by vegetation?

#thankfulforhuntersorange

Digging through that data makes me nervous. It reminds me of other aspects of my life, and how I’m more worried about others around me doing stupid crap.

I really should analyze it more. Are people injuring and killing themselves or others? Some of the explanations are eye brow raising. “Firearm slipped off the rest?” WTFudge
 
Digging through that data makes me nervous. It reminds me of other aspects of my life, and how I’m more worried about others around me doing stupid crap.

I really should analyze it more. Are people injuring and killing themselves or others? Some of the explanations are eye brow raising. “Firearm slipped off the rest?” WTFudge
"Horsing around"

"Using gun as a club"

🤦‍♂️

I mean clearly there is some really low hanging fruit for reducing incidents.
 
I had 100 whitetails under my belt before I hit 30. That was when I stopped counting and that was a while back. I did it without much blasting going on to get it done.

This thread is making me nervous though since almost no one you will see in the woods here who is hunting is doing it without a round in the chamber. I spend more time in the woods without a round in the chamber than the vast majority of the folks in the woods around me. Is this a regional thing or a cultural thing I wonder? Maybe it is because a very large percentage of deer encounters here last just a few seconds due to lack of visibility caused by vegetation?

#thankfulforhuntersorange
1. Not sure if HT is a representative sample, there are a bunch of folks on here that teach Hunter's Ed... it's probably skewed
2. I imagine you're hunts look like MA hunts... I hunt with one in the chamber here for shotgun and muzzy. But my gun is always in a ready carry position, much the same as if I was pheasant hunting... or I'm sitting in a tree. Very different than western hunting. In Vermont I don't put one in the chamber, but it's closer to western hunting.
 
Out West here I refuse to hunt with anybody that has a round chambered while hiking/walking. Steep terrain, deadfalls, sagebrush, shale... too many opportunities to trip, slip or fall. A human life or limb is not worth any animal. That being said, I have yet to miss an opportunity on an animal while hunting safely.
 
I agree with Greenhorn, if someone is wandering around the woods with a round in the chamber you should probably find a set of golf clubs or knitting needles.
That's a pretty strong statement. I'd been hunting for over two decades before I'd ever even heard of someone hunting with an empty chamber.
 
Negative outcome from not having a round chambered in a bolt action rifle while moving: missed shot opportunity

Negative outcome from having a round chambered in a bolt action rifle while moving: negligent discharge +/- injury/death, with injury/death risk increasing if it’s multiple people in the field and muzzle flagging is an issue

That’s the risk assessment for me.
 
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