The charging handle, to the rear.

This is correct.  Press check was the original term from the 1911 Manual of Arms from pre-WWI.  It was a term designated to indicate you were pressing on the front of the slide on the 1911 to allow a visual and tactile verification that the weapon was loaded.  People have been applying this term to all fire arms for a long time now...even if you can't "press" anything to do the check.  But the original inception of the term was accurate.

Words do mean something...and these words mean exactly the correct thing in the context they were originally conceptualized for.  History also means something.

Here's one for you, MORTGAGE.  If I say mortgage to ANYONE now days, everyone assumes that I'm talking about a loan for a house.  But that isn't what the original meaning of the word was.  The entomology of the word is a concatenation of two different words.  Mort - from mortality, or life; and Gage, an old english synonym for debt.  Originally a mortgage meant literally a "Life Debt", or a loan you paid on for your entire life.  But that's not how we interpret it now days.

So press check originally had a very specific meaning, but has now been generically applied more loosely for a specific task.  I see no problem with this.

You are very lucky.

Brass check


Bass check


Ass check


Press check!

...



Truth here



 

Why is this thread still going? OP hung himself.

You can't see brass at night so you 'press'  on it to ensure it's chambered.   Duh.

The entire word is Old French.  Dead Pledge.  The deal dies when the pledge is fulfilled, or payment fails.  It never had anything to do with the life of the borrower.

Also, entomology is the study insects.

But you're right about press checks.  

So I can't spell...   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology  I could claim autocorrect got me, and it may have, but I was wrong regardless in the above quote on that.

And as far as the word's etymology is concerned, dead pledge is what I was trying to convey from memory in taking literature in college over 14y ago.  I think I was close enough for hand grenades and to get the point across .

Agreed.  Now if we could get everyone on board with notion that banks don't give mortgages, I'd be happier.  

Poor form, usually results in covering part of ones hand with muzzle.  Better to pull from the rear, or press from the top of the slide.