Always Check For A Round In The Chamber
 

It looks like this~~

Always a good reminder to be safe with firearms. These collectables are still guns and can fire when loaded. I think we tend to forget this as these are old and not seldom shot. They can still "bite" if not dealt with safety in mind.

G2

Eric,

That's one of the best advices ever. :thumbsup:

It always amazes me the high number of accidental discharges reported with a pistol that has a loaded chamber indicator.

Check out this one!!! Scary! http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthre...881#post287881 A luger can be fired with the upper alone!!!

That one I don't find particularly scary.

As long as you know it's loaded. And if you do it on purpose, it's perfectly safe, except for the person who doesn't think he's going to get shot with a half disassembled pistol. The Germans used to do it to unsuspecting enemies.

As an afterthought: Weimar Police firearms handling ought to have had really low standards, cause they thought necessary to add a sear safety that prevented firing a half disassembled Luger and a magazine safety that prevented firing the pistol after removing the magazine. All that in a pistol that had a loaded chamber indicator. :eek:

Tangential thought: I have a Ruger Mk III .22lr automatic pistol. The amount of wailing and crying about the LCI on that pistol is flabberghasting. I personally *like* an LCI, I remind these folk that the Luger has one too - it isn't just a "Nanny-State Conspiracy (tm)"!

Perhaps, but the loaded chamber indicator on a P.08 is nothing more than the extractor standing proud of the breech block. Granted, it's marked "geladen" but it's still nothing more than the extractor. On the Ruger MKIII, however, (and the P.38 and PP, just to keep it somewhat related to German pistols) the loaded chamber indicator is a separate part that serves no other purpose than to indicate a loaded chamber.

Just to be picky, they are not accidents. They are best described as "negligent" discharges, at least as I have been taught.

True enough.

I still like an LCI, regardless of how its accomplished. People seem to miss the point of one though.

In Law Negligence is defined as The failure to use due care by a reasonable man!! I don't know of many!

Wondered when someone would bring this "minor" point up. Back in 1970, I taught rural youth (4-H) hunter and gun safety. These were kids growing up on the farm, ranch, and small towns where they would be handling and around firearms.

Rule #1 was, "Treat every gun as if it were loaded until you personally knew otherwise". You hand one of those youth a firearm and the first thing he or she would do was to open the chamber to see for themselves that it wasn't loaded. If you told them it was unloaded, they would still open the chamber because they did not personally know that it was unloaded. (Side point: I've never known anyone to be injured or killed with a "loaded" gun. It always seems to be the unloaded ones that do the job just like I've never been kicked by a "kicking" horse. Its always been the ones that won't kick that have gotten me.)

If the youth didn't know how to open the chamber of a particular firearm they would hand it back to the owner and ask the owner to open the chamber so that the youth could personally see that it was unloaded.

Rule #2 incidentally was, "Always maintain proper muzzle control". Make it a habit to always keep a firearm pointed in a safe direction (down range, directly up or directly down depending upon the construction of a building, away from all persons, etc) even when you know it to be unloaded. It was a great habit to form. It was so ingrained that it was done instinctively.

Following those two rules, as those rural youth did, would eliminate most if not all negligent discharges.

Add in rule #3, "Always know your target and what's beyond your target" and you've eliminated most "hunting accidents". Obviously implied was if you could not positively identify your target and were not able to see where your round would go if you were to miss - and that was a safe place - you passed up the shot.

To paraphrase a slogan from the boating industry, "Safe gun handling is no Accident".

The real purpose of the "geladen", I believe was not gun safety. I read somewhere that for safety reasons, the Luger was often carried without a round in the chamber. Before going into action, the pistol was "charged". The "Geladen" tab allowed a soldier to easily tell by feel whether there was a round in the chamber. In the dark or in a situation where the slightest noise might get you shot, being able to tell the status of the chamber by feel without moving anything might be the difference between surviving the encounter or not surviving.

Doug you might be saving some real lives! A wonderful post by yourself!! A MUST READ!!! Eric, TKS

You got any actual documented instances of a German shooting an "ususpecting enemy" with a disassembled Luger?
I really would like to see it.

I got my 1st Luger at age 13 and immediately saw this as a possibility but never was dumb enough to actually do it with a live round.

Doug

I agree, but there is a fourth rule, perhaps the most important of all:

Keep your finger OFF the trigger until your sights are on the target!

This is called "The Golden Rule" because its violation is responsible for about 80 percent of the firearms disasters we read about.

My two bob.

Cheers!

Hey Sergio, shouldn't that be TWO LIRE! :D

Sergio has been over-paying! A bob = a shilling = 12 pence! Wouldn't the Italian version be due centissimos--although obsolete?

I took the NY Hunters' Safety Course over 50 years ago, and these were the basic caveats. The points of etiquette still in play are for the "personal" checking of the chamber, finger out of the trigger guard until a target is acquired, and assuring the muzzle is pointed in a safe direction. I remember the instructor's story about his son, who would ask to handle a gun. If the dad didn't hear the action open right away for the check, he'd go in and put the gun away for another time.

The "loaded" guns that wind up killing people were indeed neglected--e.g., the mom in WalMart whose 2-year-old got hers from her purse while she was distracted, with fatal results. My take on these situations is that a firearm should be afforded the same attentiveness to its status and situation as a newborn. You do not drop a baby, nor leave it lying around on a picnic table while you're "busy". And you certainly do not hand it to someone unqualified or unable to handle it properly.

Thank you Dave and others. This discussion was long over due! Tks for all your input!!I suggest everyone reads it twice!! Georg Luger printed the warning in different languages. My 1906 French Contract with "charge". The 1906 Swiss is the same in German~"geladen"~ Eric

John and David

I've never heard the translation of: "my two bob, or my 2 cents" to end up your opinion.
On the other side always talking about coins in Italian you can say: "that person isn't worth a cent" (quella persona non vale un centesimo)

:)

In 1965 my dad gave me a new Remington Nylon 66 22lr rifle for my birthday. He taught me how to shoot it. He taught me the same safety principles listed above by several folks.

If I every pointed the muzzle at him, I got yelled at. If he was close, I got (lovingly) slapped in the back of the head. If I ever did not know the status of my weapon (round chambered or safety not being "on" when not prepared to fire downrange, I got the same medicine. I learned gun safety and basics principles like caring and maintenance for my gun. A bit strict on the methodology some might say. Looking back I don't think so. I learned dear lessons the easy way and not the hard way from a disastrous mistake.

Today, I still have by beloved Nylon 66 ....and I still 'feel' the great education my dad gave me in firearm care and safety. :thumbup: