 Hey guys, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and today I want to talk about a make ready procedure. I went shooting as I was out at the range today and it occurred to me that I haven't made this video yet and some people may or may not have ever thought about a make ready procedure and for other people that have they might be a little confused about it so I thought this would be helpful. Let's start with the purpose of a make ready procedure. For those of you who don't know, the purpose of a make ready procedure is to ensure that your firearms are loaded and all your equipment is good to go. This can be done before you're getting into a class or before you're heading out into the real world. You need to have a make ready procedure which ensures that your guns are loaded, that's first and most important, and then that all your equipment is squared away and ready to go. That's what a good make ready procedure accomplishes. Now there's been a lot of debate but there are certainly some different opinions on make ready procedures. Some people would of course say you know hey on this side of the camp you got look there's only one way to do it and if you don't do it this way you're wrong. This is the only way to do a make ready procedure and on the other side of the camp you got like hey if you forget to load your guns you're an idiot. And to be honest on that spectrum I'm somewhere kind of like right here. Basically look my point and my thought is you need to have a make ready procedure. It needs to be a consistent procedure that you do every time that's repeatable that has the end result of ensuring that your guns are loaded and your equipment is ready to go. So you need to have that. Now what that exact procedure is I'm kind of up in the air about. You can load rifle first, you can load your pistol first, you can do what you want but whatever you settle on make sure that it achieves the end result of consistently ensuring all your guns are loaded and all your equipment is ready to go. So I'm going to show you what my make ready procedure is. You can adopt it, you can take parts of it you like, you can do whatever. If you ever come shoot with me this is the make ready procedure that we will go through in order to ensure again that your guns are loaded and your equipment is ready to go. So the first thing we're going to do is I'm going to load my pistol first. I choose to load my pistol first because hey I want to make sure that that is squared away to go. I kind of look at a pistol as a lifeline, your reserve parachute and so you want that thing to be loaded behind the shadow but now I'm ready to go. So I'm going to draw my pistol, I'll come out, I'll do a full presentation you know because what's one more rep in my life that why not, right? I like to lock the slide to the rear, that's just me. I'll inspect the gun, make sure everything looks good, yep nothing's broken, nothing's weird here. I will then, here we go, I will then take a magazine, I will insert it in the pistol and I will close the slide. I will then take this magazine and I will get rid of it. Then I will take a full magazine, in this case I have a 19 round magazine, right? I'm going to insert that into the gun, give it a good push pull, make sure you have a shadow without the magazine to seed it. I like to press check, you don't have to press check but I choose to press check. I'm going to roll the gun, I'm going to press check, yep I see brass, sling it home, tap the back of the slide. Now, side note here, if you're working under night vision, right, and you decide to press check, you're just going to have to do that digitally, you're going to have to feel that brass in there, okay? I don't work with night vision, so I always just do it visually, that's just me. Same thing, if I had to do a make ready at night, I would have to digitally inspect to make sure that the gun is loaded, right? Again, to me a press check is optional, I choose to do it because I like the added security. I have yet to ever insert a full magazine, close the slide, do a press check and not see brass, so that's why I consider a press check optional. I'm sure there will be lots of debate about that. From here, I want to make sure if there's any other gadgets on this gun that those are working. For me, that's a light, so I'll check the light. Yep, light works. Okay, that's good to go. If I had a red dot or something, I'd make sure that that's adjusted and make sure that everything else that's on this pistol is ready to go. Once I know the pistol's loaded, all the gadgets work, I'm going to safely, slowly, holster the pistol, okay? From there, of course, we'll move on to the rifle. Rifle, same thing. I'm going to lock that bolt to the rear, I'm going to inspect the gun, make sure everything looks good. Yep, everything looks good. Now, here's where I like to get a little fancy. So I will take a magazine that I know is loaded with 29 rounds, okay? You'll see why 29 in a minute here. So I'll say left to remind myself, yep, that bolt's on the left. Now again, if you're under night vision or you're at night, you're going to have to feel it, okay? I'm going to insert the magazine, give it a good push-pull, make sure it's seated. I'm going to close the bolt. Again, I'm going to visually inspect, yep, bolt closed, no problems there. Pull the magazine out. The bullet has now shifted to the right-hand side, so I know that that bullet is in the magazine. I will take this mag, or excuse me, I know that that bullet is now in the chamber. So I'll take that magazine that is now 28 rounds, and I will still that back on my belt kit, right? Or if I was working with the chest rig and I decided to pull it off my rig, it's going to go back to where it came from as my point, okay? Then from here, I will take a magazine that has 30 rounds in it, and I will make sure to give it a push until it clicks in a push-pull so that this rifle is now loaded with 31 rounds. So the reason I do this is because this is an admin reload, right? Some people think that term is dirty, but whatever. Point being, I'm not known shooting at me, and I don't need to get anything done in a hurry. I have time here to make sure my guns are loaded. And my theory is I would like to set myself up for as much success as possible. So excuse me. So why not put 31 rounds in the rifle? I have the time, I have the opportunity. Why not make sure the rifle is as topped off as we can get it? Okay, so the rifle will end up having 31 rounds in it. My pistol will end up having 20 rounds in it. So for me, that's 51 rounds on tap, and I just like to do that. All the other rifle magazines on my body are going to be 28 rounds so that I can do that at, or excuse me, so I can do attack reload at any point because all the other rifle mags are 28 rounds. So I like being able to have that option, but again, that initial load that first one I'm going to go with, I'm going to go with the full mag of 30 rounds on a closed bolt with a round in the chamber so I can have 31 rounds in my gun. That's just me. Like I said, I like to set myself up for success as much as possible. And again, I have the time, so why not take it? From here, same thing. We need to check that all the lights and gadgets and everything on this gun work. So I will shoulder the rifle. I will look down, yep, red dot works. Check the light. Yep, light works. That's all the gadgets I have on my rifle. Everything's good to go. Last thing you need to do, and this is the one that's easiest to forget, is to make sure the rest of your equipment is squared away, right? So right now I'm just wearing a belt kit. So I want to check both of my pistol reloads. Yep, those are both there. Check both of my rifle mags. Yep, those are both there. Check my knife. I'll check my flashlight. Yep, that's there. I'll check my med kit. Just make sure everything else is where it should be and good to go. And if you had a chest rig or you had other kit on, this would be the time to make sure that all the mags are where you want them to be. They're all facing the right way. They're all loaded like everything else is good to go. So that is my make ready procedure, right? That's the one I would bequeath onto you. You choose to so use it. And if not, that's fine too. Again, the point here is that you have a consistent procedure that's repeatable that ensures success. Success being your guns are loaded to your satisfaction, right, so that should at least be full mags in them if you don't want to get all fancy and top off with a full mag before in the chamber, that's fine. But make sure your guns are loaded and your equipment is ready to go. That's all I got for you. Do brave deeds and endure.