GUNSMARTS: How to Unload Your Pistol
The first rule of firearm safety is to treat all guns as if they are loaded – even if you know your firearm is unloaded. It’s the best and safest way to handle it. Learning how to make sure your pistol is unloaded is an important safety skill you should learn as a new gun owner. In this GUNSMARTS video from Smith & Wesson, I walk you through how to pick up your firearm and properly grip it to make unloading easier.
Steps to Unload
With your strong hand and finger off the trigger and outside the trigger guard, grasp the grip of the handgun high along the back of the grip or the backstrap. Once your pistol is in your strong hand, you want to keep it in that hand.
Next, press the magazine release. Ideally, do this with your strong hand thumb but if you can’t reach it, you can use your support hand thumb instead. Even when the magazine is removed, it’s important that you know that you can still have ammunition or a “round” in the chamber. That means you will need to pull back on the slide. This action will eject a cartridge and allow you to visually inspect the chamber to ensure that it is empty.
When manipulating the slide, I think of my support hand as a vice as I grasp the back of the slide along the back near the rear sight. Pulling back on the slide with the support hand and pushing forward with the strong hand, exposes the chamber. Pressing up on the slide release after you pull the slide fully to the rear will allow you to “lock the slide open.” It makes it even easier to confirm that your pistol is unloaded by placing your support hand finger inside the chamber to make sure you can both see and feel if there’s any ammunition is present.
With the magazine out and the chamber empty, there’s no ammunition in the firearm, you’re safely unloaded! It’s that simple and the more you do it, the more comfortable you’ll become unloading your pistol.
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