Yesterday as I was handloading some .45 ACP, I thought to give it the practical test to see if it's crimped right. The test consists of dropping a loaded round in a 1911 barrel, or any other suitable barrel, press the head with the thumb, confirm it lines up nicely, then invert to see if the round slides easily out.

So I dig out a 1911 that I normally do not keep loaded, and start to field-strip it. Step one, rack the slide. It went back, then forward into battery. Hel-lo! Since when does an empty magazine not lock the slide back?

And if the slide is in battery, that would mean the magazine was not empty, and that would mean. . .

Yup, I just unintentionally chambered a round.

Have I not written many times, and said many times, that Step One is always to confirm the supposedly unloaded gun really is unloaded? By actually checking it?

I have. It's just a question of reminding myself that the rule isn't just for other people.

One of those moments that turn the guts into jelly. I've never had that particular one, but I know what my automatic body reaction would be to that.

That's one of the reasons that I decided to stick to a wheel gun. I just seem to be having more and more senior moments as I get older.

You can buy case guages from Dillon (and probably others) that will let you check that kind of thing without using an actual firearm. Another thing you can do is keep a sample of factory rounds and use a caliper to measure the case mouth on them. Despite the lack of published crimp diameters in any loading manual I've seen, all of the factory 10mm stuff I've measured has been within +/- .001.

Either one keeps firearms away from the reloading station, which I think is a generally good idea.