Thread: How to verify an airgun is unloaded ?

Originally Posted by Bagheera

For my gun, I made up a shortened MSC chamber flag so I could fit it in through the loading port. It's a .22 cal so you'd need to fine the prong down a bit for .177. Airgun barrels are said to be soft, so I polished it for smoothness so it doesn't pick up grit.


Here it is in place. Proves there's no pellet there and is visible even without a torch.

It is certainly visibly safe, but from personal experience it proves the bolt cannot be closed in that position. It is actually possible the pellet could be further down the barrel, possibly even pushed with the flag. In 99.9% of cases that would be noticed when the flag is inserted, but we have had incidences of malformed slugs of a slighlty smaller diameter that would almost fall through the calibre they were made for with no resistance so the potential for te flag and a pellet to be there is at the very least a possibility.

Still definitely one of the safest options I have seen so far.

The cleaning rod idea earlier was an interesting one. If it did discharge how far would the rod travel.........(spear gun perhaps?) Action would still need to be open and the rod visible a both ends for that to work.