keith44 wrote:I keep it fully loaded, and a round partly in the chamber. I say partly because I put the round in the chamber, close the action, load the magazine, then pull the bolt out of battery so that the round is partly chambered, the hammer is blocked by the bolt carrier, but the safety is off.
Another (relatively) safe way to keep an 870 with a round chambered is to load the magazine, open the action all the way (pressing the rearmost shell in the magazine past the forward shell latch at the same time to keep it from feeding), slide another shell directly into the chamber, and then manually raise the shell carrier. The tip of the shell carrier will keep the shell from sliding out of the chamber no matter how the gun is oriented, but the firing pin is nowhere near the chambered shell, so even an inertial strike is impossible. If the gun needs to be deployed, all you have to do is slide the action closed as you pick it up and flick the safety off (unless you kept it off, but I wouldn't advise that). With the shell fully chambered and the carrier already elevated, closing the action takes so little force that you can reliably close it one-handed by simply picking the gun up by its grip and jerking it forward & back sharply. The gun can also be disabled in this state by attaching a fore-end block device, or by passing a cable-style gun lock or a long-shackle padlock through the ejection port, under the elevated carrier, and out the loading port (see
this video for a demonstration). Running the cable or shackle through in this direction reduces the likelihood of snags or hang-ups if the lock needs to be pulled out in a hurry.
This is the safest, most Murphy-proof method I'm currently aware of for storing an 870 with a loaded chamber. I'll be demonstrating this technique at some point in a future video, but I can post some pictures here if folks would find it helpful.
