Home Defense AR Question

[Chuck Whitlock]

Well, I suppose one could ease the bolt forward and then use the forward assist to ensure that the bolt is fully seated, but I have been indoctrinated for many years (with respect to pistols anyway), that a cardinal sin of gunhandling is to ease the bolt (or sllde) forward under penalty of inducing a failure to fire due to an out of battery situation. For that reason, my standard practice (even for admin loading) has always been to fully retract the slide or bolt and use maximum spring pressure to then seat the slide/bolt. Per the late Pat Rogers, I rarely use the forward assist although I will cop to bumping the back of the slide on a pistol after a press check. Now, I understand that I am applying pistol mechanics to an AR, but am I wrong? (Tactical pedant asking an honest question here.)

The other thing is this. It is also my understanding (picked up right here at the P-F) that the anvil inside the primer is relatively fragile and that repeated chamberings (even in a pistol with no free floating firing pin) can cause a no-go-boom situation. I actually had this happen to an HST round. Too, how hard is too hard? (That's what she said?)

We got pretty deep in the weeds on this in another thread not terribly long ago regarding the various state of readiness for firearms. I think where we ended up was that you need to make a choice based on your particular situation and for me that translates into cruiser ready for long guns, and rounds chambered in pistols. Seems like this business of damaged primer came up there as well and was just one more thing pushing me to cruiser ready. I will see if I can find that thread cause it was a good one.

At the end of the day, for me, despite the cost of defensive ammo, when taken as a percentage of what this whole gun thing costs, running the bolt hard and then subsequently tossing that chambered round into the practice pile is not a huge expense - particularly if this is only occurring every six months or so. (The OP made it sound like this rifle is largely staying under the bed.)

ETA: https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?35403-Shtgun-Strategery-Running-the-Pump&highlight=cruiser+ready
Holy crap there are a lot of threads on this.

The good DocGKR has cautioned about rechambering ammo, and Tom Givens has documented failures to fire in one or more past newsletters. Recently, when preparing to fly out, I discovered one of my Gold Dots had a little set back after 2 chamberings. Into the training pile it went.