Before you actually trust it, any firearm intended for self-defense needs to be tested. Two basic reasons: first, to see where it's hitting in relation to the sights and second, to see if it works.
Modern firearms, they'll always work? I once thought so. The idea of pulling the trigger and nothing happening(unless the cartridge was bad) never occurred to me. Until...
This was some years ago, my dad was stationed in a county in northern OK. The sheriff there ordered himself a new S&W Model 19, a fine handgun I will say. It came in and he took his old piece out of his holster, loaded the 19 and put it in, and went to work.
A while later he decided "With those adjustable sights, I ought to make sure it's hitting where the sights are looking". So he went out, set up a target, backed up a ways, took careful aim and pressed the trigger. Snap. ("Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom! /martian) Waited an appropriate time, tried again. Snap. Opened the cylinder and found neither primer had a mark on it. Oops.
Turned out like this, as I recall: S&W revolvers have a channel in the sideplate that the hammer block rides in. The idea is that unless you actually pull the trigger- which slides the block down- the firing pin cannot strike the primer. There was a burr in the channel that kept the block from sliding down, which meant the pistol could not fire. And he'd been carrying it on duty.
For a month.
I was in my early teens when Dad told me about that. And whether for target or hunting or self-defense or just owning the thing, I've never trusted a firearm to go 'bang' until I've actually used it.
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