Decocking

[Jorge]

For my clarification, although a firearm cannot be decocked on the firing line, can one cycle the firearm to clear the chamber, leave the chamber and action open, stage if necessary or move to another location, and then chamber a round and add a round to replace the ejected one, without penalty?

This would be any of the firearms, long guns or 1911.

[Boggus Deal]

Yes, you are correct.

[Garrison Joe]

The main use of "decocking" would be to correct having worked the action and loaded a round when you are in the wrong position. 

 

On most of our long guns, it's not easy (certainly not fast) to keep a round in the mag tube from getting onto your carrier when you eject a round  as you mentioned wanting to do.  You'll get the round in chamber out, but you will still have round on carrier (unless you dump it out of gun, too).  And rounds in mag tube.  And action open.  The gun cannot be laid down in that condition.  You CAN move to another position, though.

 

So I'll try to cover all the ways you can recover from having jacked a round into the chamber at the wrong position or even into the wrong gun.

 

Problem: Cocked correct gun, but in wrong position

Short answer, yes, you could do your recovery technique as you describe (eject the round in chamber, leave action open for long guns, or eject round, manually lock slide back for 1911) if you immediately move to another position, carrying the gun with muzzle down range.  You could then reload one round for the round you "jacked out".  That would give you no penalty, and all your original number of shots to hit targets with.

 

Alternatively, you can fire one round at correct target, or into the back berm if you can't fire at the correct target.  You will get a P for firing from wrong position.  With action closed on fired round or open with round on carrier, move to correct position.  Fire rounds from correct position.  If you obviously "dumped" a round into berm at first position, you can load one round "extra" to have enough to engage all targets.

 

Problem: Cocked wrong gun

The hard part is if you loaded the chamber on a long gun and instead need to shoot some other gun first.  You can only restage a gun having rounds in the magazine, if it's chamber is empty or has a fired round it it, and you leave the action CLOSED.  Doing anything else with rounds in mag tube would be a Minor Safety for allowing a loaded long gun out of your hands in improper condition.  So, two ways to fix this.

 

The cleanest way (not necessarily always the lowest time way, though) to fix this is jack out all the rounds without firing any of them, lay the gun down with action open.  You may need to pick up all those dropped jacked out rounds for reloading later!

 

Or, you can fire a round from the incorrectly cocked gun, either into berm or at first correct target.  Giving you a P for incorrect gun order used.  Leave action closed on the fired round.  This is "restaging gun for further use" in the rules) 

 

Then you can pick up correct gun, fire it, then make safe.

 

Then, you can pick up the incorrectly-cocked long gun that you staged, move if needed, load the gun with however many rounds that you still need to fire, and fire it.

 

Here's the conditions for safely laying down a long gun:

Safe for long gun to leave the shooters hands.

– Empty of live ammunition, action cleared, and muzzle safely down range.

– Hammer fully down on an empty chamber or expended round, action closed (restaged for further use)

 

It gets complicated. 

 

Generally, folks avoid making this error like the plague!  It comes with practice, lots of practice, and being sure of each shooting position and the gun order before you begin the stage.

 

Good luck, GJ

[Boggus Deal]

 

 

  If you obviously "dumped" a round into berm at first position, you can load one round "extra" to have enough to engage all targets.

 

 

As long as you're looking up rules, Joe, can you point this one out to me, as well.

[Garrison Joe]

Sure - it's in item 3 on page 24 of SHB    :)

 

If a firearm is shot out of sequence or from the wrong position or location, the

shooter will be awarded a single procedural penalty. In this situation, if the

shooter elects or is forced to miss an appropriate target due to unsafe angles or

target availability, a round may be reloaded to avoid a miss penalty (the

dreaded “Double Jeopardy” of a procedure and a miss).

 

Good luck, GJ

[Boggus Deal]

Sure - it's in item 3 on page 24 of SHB    :)

 

If a firearm is shot out of sequence or from the wrong position or location, the

shooter will be awarded a single procedural penalty. In this situation, if the

shooter elects or is forced to miss an appropriate target due to unsafe angles or

target availability, a round may be reloaded to avoid a miss penalty (the

dreaded “Double Jeopardy” of a procedure and a miss).

 

Good luck, GJ

 

Gee, Joe! Conveniently edited your post AFTER I questioned you! Three times in as many weeks, you have blatantly posted misinformation. I would suggest you either not post or learn the rules a bit better....

[Garrison Joe]

The piece I edited was to simplify the way to get a 1911 open and ready to move to another position while recovering from cocking at wrong shooting position.  Didn't change anything you had concerns with. if I remember right.

 

Good luck, GJ