"Cruiser Ready"

A shotgun is one of the best guns to keep for home protection (if you practice with it) but in what condition should you stash the weapon, keeping in mind both safety and readiness? You want some shells in the magazine tube, surely, but is it best to keep a round chambered or not, and how about the safety?

I like to go with the “cruiser ready” condition, which is how cops store their shotguns in their cars. In this configuration the magazine tube is loaded, the chamber is empty, and the slide is unlocked. Sometimes the safety is on as well, though it is not necessary with no chambered round and can be an impediment in an emergency. With this setup, all that is needed is to pick up the gun and rack it and you are good to go.

The main reason you don't want a round in the chamber is that most shotgun safeties only stop you from pressing the trigger, but don't block the pin or hammer. This means that a loaded shotgun can go off if dropped or if it falls off a rack or in your closet. With the chamber empty, this concern is eliminated. As long as the slide was left unlocked, a quick rack is all it will take to be ready to fire.

Another good idea is to load one less round into the magazine tube than your gun holds. If you are keeping the gun in a ready spot for an emergency, it may be sitting for a very long time, and if the tube is full there will be a lot of excess pressure on the internal spring, which have a tendency to break.. The last thing you want in an emergency situation is for your weapon to fail to load. One less round means the spring is not fully compressed and will hold up much longer.