Girlfriend challenging the PAL and CORE exams tomorrow: one question

[brian]

With a bolt action sure, and that is an option I personally give students. However, try looking from chamber to muzzle on a lever action rifle.

Of course... but the poster said he removed the bolt, which implied it was very easy to remove the bolt from which I deduced he was handling a bolt action. Removing the bolt from a lever, pump, or or semi auto usually involves stripping down the firearm and is a much more involved process than is normally tested on your average PAL exam. Which is why I asked my question.

[hoochie]

I remember doing my training with Silvercore and they were very anti looking down the bore. Their rational at the time was that it just a bad habit to get into. To this day I can have a fully disassembled rifle and I am still nervous looking down the bore from the muzzle end.


Couldn't you simply examine the bore from the breech end if you could remove the bolt easily?

There are devices; I call them bore lights. You open the bolt and stick it in the chamber end of the gun. it will send light up the bore so you can examine it well. I have an adaptation on a small pocket sized mag light, and there are other ones we have in the house that are some kind of plastic that work by gathering daylight etc. Looking down the bore is something that should be taught. when a gun is unloaded it is nothing more than assembled steel/plastic parts. Its much easier to look down the illuminated bore from the muzzle end than it would be to look from the chamber end.. you'd be waiving it around trying to find enough light to see properly.

as long as there are people on this earth, there will be mistakes. I could see that Silvercore wouldn't want to instruct people to look down the bore; as it would only take one incident of a student having an accident and their instruction to look down the bore would land them in a court room.
They are playing it safe to cover their ass. Its a smart move on their part. It doesn't mean that looking down the bore of an unloaded firearm is unsafe, its more that they don't want to be the ones to tell you its safe in the event of an accident...follow me?