Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Poll: Do you hunt with a round in the chamber?

I can recall as a kid everyone loading up in the mornings as soon as we left the truck. There was even a sense of urgency at times, like if you didn't load you might suddenly miss out on a deer.
For me there was always a slight sense of trepidation when walking around hot that was a little bothersome.

Nowadays I don't usually put one in the chamber but my rifle gets handled the same way. I also usually just load 3 in the belly and call it good when I used to hunt with 4 in the belly and 1 in the chamber. I've been hunting some with much less experienced hunters lately and it eases my mind a little when their rifles aren't hot but are handled like they are.

I don't recall ever missing out because of not hunting hot. I hunt in the woods, often thick, and every deer I've killed was because I knew it was there before it knew I was.

Now THAT is funny

Wow...Pretty articulate there. Nice to see that people can be polite after all this time.

But it still has a ways to go to acheive the legendary status of Leupys vs Nikon and PF vs CRF.........


Casey

Jeez......


Casey

Then it must be very difficult to hear a bolt cycling in Alaska.

Oh fer chrissakes, horseshiedt is horseshiedt, and a troll is a troll...........hot or cold
dun wit dis crap

Here in Colorado its a rare year when no one gets killed by a firearm during the hunting seasons. Some are shot intentionally (mistaken idnentity, "Officer, with the blaze orange hat and vest he looked JUST LIKE A DEER") while others are "accidents" involving loaded weapons and vehicles, falls, general stupidity, carelessness, inattention, etc.

The ONE CONSTANT in each case is the chamber was HOT at the time.

I understand the occasional need to hunt hot but in most cases I don't think it is really necessary. In griz country I would probably be hot all the time. In Colorado's open grasslands/sage I generally hunt cold, in dense pines where a shot opportunity may be fleeting at best, I tend to hunt hot. Other times it depends.

As I pointed out before, the chances of an AD/ND are:

Cold chamber = ZERO
Hot chamber = INFINITELY GREATER

Assess the risks and act appropriately. Its not hard to live with a missed shot opportunity. Killing your hunting buddy or family member, as happens almost every year here in Colorado alone, is a whole other issue.

You're full of crap, C_H. Everyone knows that a hot rifle is inherently safer than an unchambered rifle. Just ask Jeff and his gang of cronies.

Ah. when was the last fatality in CO during hunting season from a gunshot wound? Certainly not every year for sure.I believe less than half a dozen in twice as many years. Agreed that 1 is too many.

More people are killed from skiing into trees every year or waving golf clubs around in a lightening storm. I don't see any one waving a banner that everyone should go skiing without wearing skis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

You are correct, assess your risk and act accordingly

Sitting in a vehicle in your garage. Zero Risk
Hunting hot. Infinitely less than driving down I25

I can't let this one go by ......like so many here. I'd like to relate a short story about a guy who I'd hunted with a few times and knew he hunted 'cold'. It was his choice obviously. I hunt elk alone but this time I happended to be with this guy on the side of a mountain in Idaho. I'd spotted a nice 6x6 about 300 yards down the mountain with the binocs and pointed it out to him. He didn't ask if I wanted to shoot as he just sat down on the ground and threw his rifle to his shoulder. I was watching through the binocs and since I knew he was shooting a 300 Win. Mag. I answered his question, "How far away is he" with saying "just hold on the center of his chest".

I heard the bolt work to load a round into his chamber and waited for the bang, half pissed off that he thought nothing of discussing whose bull it was. Still looking thhough the binocs and waiting, I heard again the bolt 'work' and thought that's strange. He sat on the side of the mountain and unloaded his rifle until I told him what he was doing. Buck Fever....you bet but he shot and missed with the last round in his rifle.

OK, so most of us would NEVER do this but the story is just one of the side effects of carrying cold. And I should add the guy still hunts cold. Some people should stay out of the woods if they aren't confident enough to carry a hot rifle....just my 2 cents and I realize to each his own. You hunt hot or cold, it makes no difference to me.

I take that as a perfect example of why someone should hunt cold. If a guy completely loses his head while hunting, the last thing I want is for him to have a round in the chamber.

Some perspective on this might be in order. This removes much of the personal opinion, and the touchy feely argument where gun safety is concerned. As I wrote, I carry hot sometimes and sometimes I don't not all events and conditions are equal. It's based on what is going on each moment I'm in the field.


HUNTING SAFETY

According to the 1991 figures from the U.S. National Safety
Council, here are the annual rates of outdoor recreation-related
injuries requiring hospital emergency room treatment in the US:

Recreation # of injuries per 100,000 participants
-------------------------------------------------------------
Football 2,171.1
Baseball 2,089.6
Soccer 910.2
Bicycle riding 904.6
Skateboarding 869.2
Horseback riding 464.6
Ice skating 334.9
Fishing 141.2
Tennis 119.7
Golf 104.4
Swimming 93.3
Hunting 8.0

From the same source (1991 figures of National Safety Council), here
is the table of accidental deaths in the US:

Accident cause Mortality rate per 100,000 people
-------------------------------------------------------------
Automobiles 18.6
Home accidents 8.6
Falls 5.0
Poisoning 2.6
Fires 1.7
Suffocation 1.3
Hunting (among participants) 0.85
Lightning 0.04
Insect stings 0.02
Hunting (among non-participants) 0.001

-----------

"Many hunters have participated in hunter safety courses. Hunter
education is now mandatory in 39 states for at least part of the
hunting population. These educational efforts are an important part of
hunting today. Despite anti-hunter's claims to the contrary, hunting
has become an extremely safe sport relative to many other common
activities. The probability of being killed or injured in a hunting
accident is lower than when you are attending a sporting event or
major concert, playing billiards, or taking a bath.

[Report of International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies
Hunter Education Study Team. "Hunter Education in the United States
and Canada with Recommendations for Improvement." (Fred. G. Evenden,
Team Leader). Bethesda, Maryland. 1990 112p.]

-----------

"..the [U.S.] National Safety Council reports for 1988 there were 161
hunting fatalities, 49 of which were self-inflicted. Thanks in part to
hunter safety education classes, hunting fatalities have declined by
more than 50 percent over the last two decades.

In general, three-quarters of the hunters who have accidents have not
taken hunter safety education courses. Participating in hunting today
is safer than swimming, bicycling, playing baseball, golf, tennis,
touch football, basketball, fishing, horseback riding, and driving to
the place where you are going to hunt, if you look at the numbers of
injuries per 100,000 people participating in various sports compiled
by the National Safety Council. In 1988, ten states reported no
hunting fatalities, and Connecticut had no hunting accidents at
all. Statistics show that you are more likely to be killed by
lightening when outdoors than to be killed in a hunting accident. In a
normal season, more hunters die from heart attacks than hunting
accidents. According to the California Department of Fish and Game,
there is a 0.0015-0.00425 percent chance of being killed or wounded
while hunting deer in California. In 1992, despite the presence of
nearly half a million deer hunters in the field, no one was killed and
only one person was wounded in California.
In response to [president of Fund for Animals] Cleveland Amory's
charge that hunters are harming "many innocent bystanders", the actual
data show that "Hunting accidents involving non hunters are extremely
rare. On the average, only one nonhunter is injured by a hunter for
every 12 million recreation days of hunting. A nonhunter is 20 times
more likely to die from stinging insects than wounding by a
hunter. Media tend to sensationalize accidental hunting deaths and
injuries, but in comparison with many urban areas where violence has
reached epidemic proportions, the woods and marshes during hunting
season are extremely safe, especially when you consider that everyone
hunting is armed with lethal weapons. In 1992 in California there were
no nonhunter injuries or deaths associated with hunting."

Talk about the swiss cheese analogy........

Driving (at least some form of transportation) is an absolute requirement for damn near everyone in the US. You simply cannot get by without it.

Hunting hot is only a requirement for those uncoordinated enough to be able to feed a round into the chamber under pressure.

So, JJ, I take it that you are perfectly comfortable crawling through the thick stuff, with a client carrying hot directly behind you?

As someone else so eloquently pointed out, the problem with people that carry hot is that it is rarely themselves that they kill or maim.

CAS,

In case you missed this part of my post:

"As I wrote, I carry hot sometimes and sometimes I don't not all events and conditions are equal. It's based on what is going on each moment I'm in the field."

My English and my power of articulation are not capable of making this more clear then what is typed here. I'm sorry that this may not be as well understood as I would like it to be for you.

As far as "perfectly comfortable" crawling through the bush with or without another hunter............. well I'm not sure I would be "perfectly comfortable" doing this myself, with another person, with a fully automatic 50 caliber machine gun, "perfectly comfortable" is a pretty high standard to meet. Can't say I've been Perfectly comfortable very often in much of my career where DG and Bears have been involved.

But,......... it's my choice to have this job nobody is holding a "gun to my head"!

I take that as a perfect example of why someone should hunt cold. If a guy completely loses his head while hunting, the last thing I want is for him to have a round in the chamber

Sad to say but you make me feel bad about hunting hot
I guess it's easy for some to forget that rifles are made with a safety. If there weren't a safety, then I agree everyone should hunt cold.

But I'm glad I don't have to do as you wish.

Ah, back to the safety thing. You got me there, nothing mechanical ever fails. Good point.

JJ,

I didn't miss any of your post. I just wondered that if it was safe to hunt hot most of the time, why isn't it safe to hunt hot all of the time?

I carry hot sometimes, and sometimes not. I'll give you an example of when I do:

When I use a side by side or an over/under while quail hunting, which I do more and more of lately.

I hunt behind a Springer. Gotta be hot there.

Depends on the situation.

rb