ironbender says: "My problem with a hot chamber is less with the probability of a negligent discharge as it is with the potentially high consequence that accompanies it."
Sure; I get that.
Obviously, the riskiest thing we all do, other than getting out of bed in the morning, is driving a car. It's also where we present the highest risk to others. I can't back that up with statistics but it's gotta be so, right?
I bet just about everyone on this thread speeds a little from time to time or in other ways, drives in a fashion that is not the absolutely safest they could drive. You show me someone driving, and I'll show you someone that could be driving safer. That's a reasonable statement, right?
However, we all accept that we are both endangering ourselves and endangering others every day when we get in our machines. In fact, I bet the majority of us drive big vehicles (I do) that are both not the safest for us, statistically (in crash tests and so on) and will absolutely crush a small car if we hit them or they hit us. Right?
In the same way, hunting can be seen as an assessment of risky behavior. If two guys are driving in seperate cars to a hunting area, and one goes 5 mph faster than the other, then the fast one hunts empty and the slow one hunts hot, who has presented a greater overall danger to themselves and society in general on that day?
Anyway, in my assessment, while it MIGHT be marginally safer to hunt empty-chamber, given a functioning firearm and good gun habits, the difference is vanishly small as far as your chance, in general, of hurting another person or yourself in life. And believe me, and Tom, and Ruraldoc, or not... but I would be greatly handicapped by needed to chamber a round- enough so that in my assessment of the risks and rewards, it's simply not worth it to hunt empty. I don't see the "value" there.
Then again, I will go 70 mph on the freeway, instead of 65. I guess I am willing to push it a little, looked at that way. 'Course... most of us are! And just for the record, I have not had a moving violation since 1989!
(I did do some damn fool things with cars and motorcycles in my wild youth though... gotta admit.)
