No one may touch a firearm until they know the Four Rules by heart, and can recite them back to you.

Next, what is a AR? It is Not an “Assault Rifle”! The AR comes from Armalite, the first maker of Eugene Stoner’s iconic design. It is a semiautomatic rifle, NOT a select fire (machine gun). It requires one trigger pull for each round fired. Select fire (such as on the military M 16 or M 4) will continue to fire so long as the trigger is held back and ammunition remains.

There are so many designs of the original that they are now known as “AR pattern” rifles. They function similarly and are quite modular and can be tricked out in many ways. There are somewhere between 20 and 30 million AR 15s in the USA; hence, it is sometimes known as America’s Modern Sporting Rifle.

It fires a quite small bullet, but very fast. There are many variations of rounds, but the original military round was 5.56 millimeters in diameter, weighing 55 grains and had a muzzle velocity around 3,000 feet per second. The civilian version is the .223 Remington – there are some differences we will get to later.

It is a magazine-fed rifle with a standard capacity of 30 rounds.

Today, we are going to cover loading by looking at the Charging Handle, the Bolt Release and the Magazine Release Button. Below, locate the Charging Handle at the rear of the receiver, the Bolt Release on the left side near the magazine well, and the Magazine Release Button on the right side magazine well.

Found them? Now (observing the Four Rules!), pick up your AR, right hand on the pistol grip, finger outside the trigger guard and left hand on the barrel handguards. Pull the stock butt against your hip. Does the rifle have a magazine in it? Remove it by taking your trigger finger and pressing the Magazine Release Button. Catch the magazine with your left hand and set aside. Left hand back into position.

Now, with the first two fingers of your right hand, pull all the way back on the Charging Handle. If there was a round in the chamber, it will have ejected off to the right.
Keeping the Charging Handle all the way to the rear, depress the bottom of the Bolt Release and slowly let the Charging Handle forward until the bolt is caught, then push the handle all the way forward. Rotate the rifle 90 degrees to the left and look in the chamber. It should be empty. You can now turn the safety lever to Safe from Fire.

Take a loaded magazine and energetically push it into the mag well; you should hear and feel a click. If not, rap the bottom of the mag with your left hand. Check that mag is secure by trying to pull down on it.

To load a round into the chamber, smack the Bolt Release with the heel of your left hand. The bolt should go energetically forward, stripping a round off the top of the magazine and ramming it into the chamber. You are now ready to start the shooting process.