Close call. Really drove home the importance of the 4 laws of gun safety.

Jokes aside, I'm glad you're safe and nothing happened to you!

"Your trigger finger is your first safety." Never heard that before, but it's actually great.

If the gun is secured in safe, why clear it?

you make an interesting point. it's just the way I do it.....

Hey, you might forget that there's a round chambered and you go to take it out the next day and you didn't remember and it goes off. This is actually serious because a guy who I was hunting with told me that one time, his friend left his gun loaded and put it away. The next month, he took it out and had no idea it was loaded since he forgot and went to put it in his car to go hunting and when he took it out, he pulled it by the muzzle that was facing his stomach and the gun went off and shot himself in the stomach. Yes, he survived but it's still serious stuff.

Also, as an armorer of multiple different platforms, let me suggest that you load firearms through the magazine and not feed the ammo manually through the chamber. That method tends to break extractors. Also, after each unload, place the extracted round somewhere in the magazine that is not the next round loaded. Constant loading and unloading of the same round can cause setbacks.

Yeah, I've had a similar experience with a deformed round. It got jammed and I had to do some wacky thing to remove it.

Also, I'm not a pro, I know how to load a mag and rack a pistol and all of that stuff. Not the technical stuff. I shoot Ms and 12s.

I agree with the safety aspect. Better safe than sorry. Any gun that gets put away for awhile should be left unloaded. However, guns that are carried daily or set away for protection should be left loaded. Either way you do it, train that way constantly so you don't have any unwelcome surprises.

Yup, make safety a habit.