Couple points:
(1) this rule supposedly/reportedly was for troops ON PATROL. So yeah, it applied to the “tiny fraction of troop who actually have to worry about “giving themselves away.””
(2) I was never a “ninja” nor a mall ninja or any other “tactical” form you might label derisively. Nor was I a REMF. Lighten up, Francis.
(3) Can you silently chamber a round? Can a solider on patrol do so? THAT was my point. What’s yours? Just askin’.
“Can you silently chamber a round?”
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I can’t even do it silently on a T-bolt .22, pretty quietly but not silently, and I have owned it for 45 years. I have a .270 and chambering a round in it makes all kinds of noise. Loading the chamber in my pump shotgun makes enough noise to hear a hundred yards away.