During unload and show clear.....

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  • Tanfodude

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    Why is it that most people just drop that ammo on the ground and not pick it back up? If you do that for every local match, you just wasted 6 ammo. If going to local matches 3-4 times, that's 18-24 ammo wasted per month. That's a full mag of ammo thrown away. I see this all the time. Makes me cringe.

    So my question is, why waste that much ammo?
     

    hammerd13

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    One reason I don't tend to pick it up, is that (on a busy range) you may accidentally pick up a round that isn't yours and perhaps wrong caliber. All sorts of bad things can happen if you put unknown ammo in your gun. At 16 cents per round, the risk outweighs the reward for me personally.

    I will, however, roll the gun port-up and eject the round in the air...and usually catch it. That way I know it's mine and hasn't hit the deck (plus it looks cool).
     

    Trapper Jim

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    One of the many training scars left by the shooting sports. Ammo acrobats look cool and save ammo but create a transference of association that is seen by a new shooter in which he adapts to doing which in turns creates a conditioned result that could get him kilt on the street or sweep himself or drop his gun. The few rounds that you can’t recover (most RO’s watch where your round goes to help you locate it) are a drop of water in the ocean of required rounds you are going to have to shoot each season. There really is no unloading in a defensive situation so the habit of doing it at matches is even more baggage for street principals.

    shoot your course, follow the commands, UASC, let the round fall, take careful aim at the backstop and pull the trigger practicing your trigger control and sight picture. Holster. Leave the grandstanding to the acrobats.
     

    Fuzz

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    If you tilt the ejection port upwards and SLOWLY pull the slide back you can get the round to eject onto the gun or between the gun and your hand and it will stay there most of the time. I do this and it works well. Then you do not have to pick it up. Try it after a while it becomes simple.
     

    Tanfodude

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    One of the many training scars left by the shooting sports. Ammo acrobats look cool and save ammo but create a transference of association that is seen by a new shooter in which he adapts to doing which in turns creates a conditioned result that could get him kilt on the street or sweep himself or drop his gun. The few rounds that you can’t recover (most RO’s watch where your round goes to help you locate it) are a drop of water in the ocean of required rounds you are going to have to shoot each season. There really is no unloading in a defensive situation so the habit of doing it at matches is even more baggage for street principals.

    shoot your course, follow the commands, UASC, let the round fall, take careful aim at the backstop and pull the trigger practicing your trigger control and sight picture. Holster. Leave the grandstanding to the acrobats.

    That doesn't justify a waste of ammo. That analogy also isn't true about carry over of bad habits. Plus, competition and defensive shoots are 2 different scenarios. No one is telling you to unload and show clear in a defensive scenario. I also doubt most people eject rounds just to look cool.
     
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    gregkl

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    Catching rounds ranks up there with fast holstering. Form without function. I'm not a competition shooter but I take training classes. I have had RO's and other attendees pick up my round once the range was called safe. And I have picked up my own.

    I don't see it as a good practice or safe for that matter to leave live rounds behind at a range. I police my brass, so I'll police any live rounds.
     

    Mitchel

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    If you shoot 9mm and pick a major power factor round up instead of yours you prolly won’t like the outcome unless you shoot major power factor I pick one up but don’t shoot it. it goes in the bucket or trash because I don’t want to blow my gun up.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     

    dung

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    If I see where it lands I may pick it up, but on a range covered in brass it isn't worth the time I take to look for a dropped round.
     

    Trapper Jim

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    That analogy also isn't true about carry over of bad habits.

    You are kidding right? The AD's, the sweeping, putting partial mags in your belt holders, tweaking guns to an unsafe trigger, brain farts on stage execution, dropping guns, sights falling off, double tap form without function, trick holsters, and many more DO develop a Conditioned Result. Not to mention the many shooters who go unnoticed while they violate the trigger call each weekend. I have seen it first hand carry into Street Carry. Just last week I had two USPSA/IDPA/SCSA shooters new to CCW that was not seating completely. When I pointed this out they said the gun breaks faster on presentation and that's the way they have been shooting and no RO has said anything. I doubt if they will be back as I made them use the holster as intended. Scary. Consider this, If you have driven a car with the shifter on the column for many miles and then went to a floor shifter with a new car, you will find yourself reaching for the column. Then when your even newer car comes along with a push button shifter, you will be reaching for the floor. This is a Conditioned Result and it is all around us in everything that we do. Guns included. The shooting sports are a fantastic place to become one with your equipment and to develop actual shooting skills but one has to get out of them what is important to them. It may not mean winning the match but experience is what you get when you do not get what you want. Many competitors never carry or casual carry (casual carry like casual gunowners that are not committed to the art) so they just don't know or care. Don't take any of this as a downer on the sports as I enjoy and shoot in all of them. But to be clear some habits can kill you.
     
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    Tanfodude

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    Dropping/wasting ammo to what you just pointed is overkill/over analyzing. If they are that bad, they're just bad with gun safety and it's on them. No correlation really. Those people are just bad whether they're competing or not. There are people just as bad in safety who don't compete. Just because you've seen them do bad practice doesn't mean that my question is the cause in general.

    Good thing they joined a sport as the sport usually helps hone firearm safety. Good catch on them. And I doubt no RO told them for improper gun holster in USPSA/IDPA.
     
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    Coach

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    I don't like picking up rounds off the ground because I may not get my round. Many people load ammo of their own and have no idea what they are doing. I don't want to put that ammo in my gun accidently.

    So I catch my round. Have never swept myself or anyone else.

    I would rather just have a hot range and behave the same way I carry. Loaded with a round chambered, but most shooting sports do not allow that.


    If you are a gun owner/ shooter operating conditioned responses beyond very basic fundamentals you are doing it wrong.
     

    worddoer

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    As a newb to shooting sports, I understand the question. I have thought that myself...but for different reasons. I don't like leaving live rounds on the ground because if someone steps on a round just right, I don't want it going off.

    See Kirk Feeman's thread here: https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...on/474352-dropped-live-ammo-can-detonate.html

    Maybe I am doing it wrong with my Glock or Beretta, but I don't find it that hard to get my ejected round. I keep my pistol facing down range and turn slightly to the right (I'm right handed). I drop my mag, then I turn my ejection port down to the ground. When I cycle my slide moderately I cup my hand over the ejection port and the round just drops into my hand....round goes into empty pocket. I then show my chamber and empty grip to the RO...face forward...drop slide and pull trigger for click.

    I see people do the "catch the ejected round" thing. Since it looked cool I tried it once or twice with some snap caps I have. I kept dropping the snap caps, so for me it's a no go.
     

    rvb

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    It's going to be a long winter if we have cabin fever already to the point we are arguing whether picking up dropped rounds @ULSC will get you killed in da streetz.

    IMO, unloading a gun slowly, especially tilted at odd angles, is more likely to cause a primer to end up where it shouldn't and I cringe watching folks w/ their hands over ejection ports because if it goes go off, your hand will catch all that frag (use google, you can find images of this).

    My suggestion is always whether you dump it on the ground up or in the air, rack it w/ some authority the way it's designed to work and get that hot round out of the gun vs trying to balance/juggle it. When I RO you'll see me take a couple steps back when someone is trying to gingerly roll the round out.

    If you really want your round back but are afraid of picking up other people's crap (a valid concern), that's what sharpies are for.

    I always ask in our shooter's meeting that people put in the effort pick up hot rounds, either from ULSC or malfunction clearing. The club asked that I do that as apparently the club has had problems w/ neighbor kids sneaking in and finding them and being mischievous. Not to mention the unexpected pops when hit by lawn mowers & gravel graders (bigger concern w/ 22s).

    worddoer: flipping out snap caps consistently to catch is almost impossible.

    2c.

    -rvb
     

    Alamo

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    I was taught that putting your head down near the ground where all the muzzles are pointing might not be the smartest move. Most of my training was on hot ranges, and usually there was a rule forbidding picking up loose rounds (e.g. from tactical reloads or malfunction drills) until it was verified that everyone was holstered and hands off the gun. Then we'd walk the range picking up expended brass and ejected live rounds as part of the clean-up.

    I rarely had a problem figuring out which 9mm rounds were mine. 7.62x39 tho….
     

    rhino

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    Why is it that most people just drop that ammo on the ground and not pick it back up? If you do that for every local match, you just wasted 6 ammo. If going to local matches 3-4 times, that's 18-24 ammo wasted per month. That's a full mag of ammo thrown away. I see this all the time. Makes me cringe.

    So my question is, why waste that much ammo?

    I don't because there isn't a reliable way to know it's the same round I ejected. I may retrieve it, but I'm going to dispose of it later because I'm not confident not safe to load it in my magazines.

    One of the things I learned early in my training experiences is to leave unfired rounds on the ground until the "brass call" at the end of the day. This was stressed by the very wise teachers who helped form my foundation. Some reading this may dismiss the potential for having problems with retrieving live rounds from the ground, which is their right, but I've witnessed a few incidents myself that convinced me that my training mentors were correct. One in particular was in a class I was teaching. A student (who may choose to remind of us of his identify because he's discussed it openly here before) chose to disregard my warning to leave ejected rounds on the ground because you can't know for certain that it's yours. He loaded a round he collected from the ground that he knew was his. When that round fed through his magazine and fired in his gun, we all learned that it was not, in fact, his round (it was a .40 that got cycled through a .45ACP 1911). It required tools to get the gun apart and get it working again, but fortunately no one was injured and no permanent damage to gun.

    So . . . I say: pick it up so it's not just laying there, but don't actually load it in a magazine and try to fire it later. Pull the bullet, dump the powder, and reload it or give it to someone who does reload.
     

    bwframe

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    I don't because there isn't a reliable way to know it's the same round I ejected. I may retrieve it, but I'm going to dispose of it later because I'm not confident not safe to load it in my magazines.

    One of the things I learned early in my training experiences is to leave unfired rounds on the ground until the "brass call" at the end of the day. This was stressed by the very wise teachers who helped form my foundation. Some reading this may dismiss the potential for having problems with retrieving live rounds from the ground, which is their right, but I've witnessed a few incidents myself that convinced me that my training mentors were correct. One in particular was in a class I was teaching. A student (who may choose to remind of us of his identify because he's discussed it openly here before) chose to disregard my warning to leave ejected rounds on the ground because you can't know for certain that it's yours. He loaded a round he collected from the ground that he knew was his. When that round fed through his magazine and fired in his gun, we all learned that it was not, in fact, his round (it was a .40 that got cycled through a .45ACP 1911). It required tools to get the gun apart and get it working again, but fortunately no one was injured and no permanent damage to gun.

    So . . . I say: pick it up so it's not just laying there, but don't actually load it in a magazine and try to fire it later. Pull the bullet, dump the powder, and reload it or give it to someone who does reload.

    What kind of idiot would do that! :n00b:

    Yes, a fotay will load in a 45ACP mag and fire in that gun. :rolleyes:

    I still pick up the loaded rounds off the ground, although hardly ever at unload and show clear. Brass and loaded rounds get collected later. Any loaded round that comes off the ground goes into the empty brass bag for processing back at the ammo laboratory.
     

    downrange72

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    What kind of idiot would do that! :n00b:

    Yes, a fotay will load in a 45ACP mag and fire in that gun. :rolleyes:

    I still pick up the loaded rounds off the ground, although hardly ever at unload and show clear. Brass and loaded rounds get collected later. Any loaded round that comes off the ground goes into the empty brass bag for processing back at the ammo laboratory.

    Because of this story, I don't grab a round off the ground. I try to be cool and catch it but unless I know for 100% sure it is mine, it stays or goes into a brass bag.

    People who hand me rounds asking if it's mine, I tell them to pitch it into the berm
     
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