Instructors spend hours trying to drive home muzzle control in to students. Most understand why muzzle control is so important and continuously try to not “sweep” themselves or others with the muzzle of their guns. However, there is a drill that causes many shooters, even experienced shooters, to sweep themselves without even realizing what they’ve done.

The drill I’m talking about is a magazine reloading drill and if you’re thinking I’m crazy then try following experiment.

Pick up a blue gun or just pretend you’re holding a pistol in your strong hand and that you’ve just run the gun dry. As fast as you can, go through the motions of a reload, being sure to include dropping the empty magazine and reaching for a spare with your weak hand. Now, conduct the same drill, but stop between each motion while trying not think about the next move. Have you figured out where the problem lies? If not, let me explain that the motion that you want to pay particular attention to lies between seating the magazine and racking the slide to return to battery.

Now do you see it? Do you see how it would be easy to sweep the hand after seating the magazine? You’ve probably brought the hands in close to the body and twisted the gun up and away from your weak shoulder to help with manipulation. At that point, it’s quite easy to bring the weak hand around the front of the gun to pull back the slide. If you do, you’ve just swept your hand and committed a safety violation.

Over the next few days, think about whether there is some little violation that you just might be committing without realizing it.