Press Checks (Moved from French Army Selects G17 thread)

[Trihonda]

Ok, here’s the deal... I’m a cop with 30+ years of shooting experience and training. I’ve been in LE proper for 20 years.

In my career (and pre LE shooting training), I’ve never been once instructed to press check. I’m meticulous about loading any gun I plan to use on duty or for SD. My entire career, I’ve never seen anyone press check regularly at work, and in fact my medium sized agency would argue against unnecessary administrative handling of our duty firearms. We shoot at least 5x per year to qualify, sometimes 6x. After each range session, our duty weapons are cleaned meticulously, reloaded, and placed back into our holsters. At the end of our shifts, our duty bels (holster and duty weapon) are hung in our secure lockers. There is very little removal of our sidearms from their holsters. I will admit that a few days after a range day, I’ll do a double check to ensure my gun is loaded, but to me this is a redundancy as I’m always 1000% sure my duty weapon NEVER is placed into its holster unloaded. I’m competent and confident. To me, there’s no need to continually remove my gun from the holster each shift, in a crowded locker room, to administratively handle my firearm for a press check. The gun never leaves my chain of custody. I could be wrong 8n my thinking, but I don’t think I am. That said, if my gun is ever out of chain of custody, or taken home for cleaning, dry fire drills, etc, I’d do a press check.

Why I bring this to you... I am switching to a new 19mos with optic (for work). a buddy of mine is a newer cop, works for the county sheriffs office, but arguably way more into guns and shooting than me. He’s SWAT, FA instructor, etc. and was helping me zero my optic... when he argued for a daily press check when putting your gun into its holster, I explained I dont do that, that I don’t remove my gun from its holster, unless I’m doing dryfire drills or on range days. He claimed this was verging on negligence. That a press check was paramount.

This got me thinking. I’m always one willing to challenge my paradigm, and hate being stuck in the past ways of doing things.. but I just don’t see the need for daily press checks at work (in MY situation). Now don’t get me wrong, if I’m snagging a gun from my jointly used home bedroom gunvault (wifey and I both have guns there), I always press check or verify MY weapon is loaded prior to carrying it off duty. Ya never know, wifey may have inadvertently messed with it.

Thoughts?

[TomBowie]

Deleted

[C-grunt]

Because the time it takes to conduct a press check after a reload during a time critical event would be counterproductive. It really is that simple. Ok, so you did an “emergency reload” and a round didn’t chamber. You didn’t press check after the reload (it should be self explanatory why you wouldn’t) so you didn’t know that no round chambered. What do you do? Access your personal SOP database and come up with an expedient method to remedy the problem. Maybe that’s tap-rack-bang.

Would you conduct a tap rank bang to ensure that a round has chambered during an administrative reload? I guess you could. You could also do a press check. Situation dictates. Do I clean my gun after shooting sometimes, but not after shooting other times? Yeah. So if I don’t clean my gun after every mag fired, in the middle of a fight, after every mag, regardless of the situation, the practice of cleaning has zero value, ever? This is the way your argument reads.

Press checks are not a zero sum endeavor. You do them when you can because they are easy to do. When they become no-easy-to-do and/or reach the point of diminishing returns, they are not done.

Easy or not easy to do depends on the user. I have been taught to press check and to use the forward assist (oh ma gawd) so I do it. I do it in the dark, under NODs or not, with a shit ton of kit on, sweating profusely, and tired. I do them when none of those things are present. It’s not that hard when you do it all the time. If I load a round and don’t have the time or ability to do one, I don’t do one, or wait until I can if applicable. Simple as that.

Excellent reply.

I press check at the beginning of shift to ensure my gun is ready to rock. I press check after the range before I head back out onto the street to make sure my gun is ready to rock.

I do this because it's a simple assurance that I didnt do anything to the gun overnight that I might have forgotten about. Like cleaning, or dry fire, etc...

I also do it because Ive seen people start gunfights with an unchambered gun. For whatever reason, the last time they loaded their gun they forgot to chamber it or chambered air from an unseated magazine. A simple press check could have saved them some stress and time.

[LowSpeed_HighDrag]

Cop here, 10 years on the job. Agency Firearms and Taser Instructor.

9/10 failures to fire are from unloaded guns. It happens ALL the time on the range, and even on the streets. In fact I saw a video of a female Chicago Sgt being stabbed and her partner didn't have a loaded gun!

Press checks are free. They should happen before every shift. It's a great habit to get into. The same as a taser spark test. I want to know that all my gear works before I need it to save my life.

[jpmuscle]

Cop here, 10 years on the job. Agency Firearms and Taser Instructor.

9/10 failures to fire are from unloaded guns. It happens ALL the time on the range, and even on the streets. In fact I saw a video of a female Chicago Sgt being stabbed and her partner didn't have a loaded gun!

Press checks are free. They should happen before every shift. It's a great habit to get into. The same as a taser spark test. I want to know that all my gear works before I need it to save my life.

Agree with this. Especially coming from LE land where firearms are literally a uniform or suit accessory to many. A quick double check in a safe direction prior to shift or heading out the door is sufficient. No reason to over think this stuff.


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[john armond]

Agree with this. Especially coming from LE land where firearms are literally a uniform or suit accessory to many. A quick double check in a safe direction prior to shift or heading out the door is sufficient. No reason to over think this stuff.


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I also check my cuffs open/spin freely prior to every shift. I’ve had the double fork side pinch together during fights on the ground from body pressure.

[jpmuscle]

I also check my cuffs open/spin freely prior to every shift. I’ve had the double fork side pinch together during fights on the ground from body pressure.

#excellence

dumb shit always happens at the worst time.

[lonestardiver]

Cop here, 10 years on the job. Agency Firearms and Taser Instructor.

9/10 failures to fire are from unloaded guns. It happens ALL the time on the range, and even on the streets. In fact I saw a video of a female Chicago Sgt being stabbed and her partner didn't have a loaded gun!

Press checks are free. They should happen before every shift. It's a great habit to get into. The same as a taser spark test. I want to know that all my gear works before I need it to save my life.

This ^^^^

The beginning of every shift a fire crew checks all the gear, pumps, tools, chainsaws, jaws of life, etc. They run the motors, ensure they are fueled up, oil, etc. If they get onscene and something isn’t working because it wasn’t checked, someone could die whether another firefighter or a civilian who was trapped. Same thing goes with the medical gear...every shift.

[Trihonda]

In fact I saw a video of a female Chicago Sgt being stabbed and her partner didn't have a loaded gun!

I saw that as well, if you look close, the partner didn’t even have a mag in the mag well... I’m a use of force instructor, I am also on our UOF review team (I’m tasked with reviewing UOF incidents). So I look at these incidents with a highly critical eye.

Press checks are free.

I don’t agree with this. While I respect and trust all my coworkers, anytime you administratively handle a firearm or taser, it increases the risks to some degree. So if your point is that it’s a relatively low effort (and low risk), that might be more factually correct.. but it’s never risk free. I’ve seen my fair share of unintentional discharges at work, both FA and Tasers, and they were all during administrative handling..

The same as a taser spark test

Ha, you DO realize the main reason for the daily spark test is for Taser(Axon) to make more money.. (Taser instructor since the beginning)


But I do appreciate the feedback from everyone. I still haven’t seen anything that makes me feel it necessary to press test my duty weapon. It stays in my chain of custody. I’m competent, and if I for whatever reason remove the gun from its holster, it gets checked prior to returning it to its holster. It’s always ready to go. I’m 1000% confident. For weapons I handle more often, such as my CCW rig, which gets moved from safe, to various holsters, etc, this absolutely does get checked every time. But my duty gun rarely leaves its holster... so there’s no reason to check it every day.. since it was loaded the previous day, and didn’t get unloaded mysteriously on its own (while on my belt, in a holster, in my secure locker))

[chamber143]

The loudest sound you will ever hear is when u put sights on a perp and hear click. We had a patrol officer follow a perp into a residence and came around the corner and the perp was standing there with a pistol and the officer pulled the trigger and “click” nada. He ended up getting shot in the face and luckily didnt die. But he reported that the click he said was louder to him than all the training shooting live ammo in training.


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