Read in a book recently (American) Civil War Firearms ISBN 0-306-81459-5 and in the section of 'Six guns and cold steel' there is a chapter concerning a Private Bill 'Nick' Nickerson an excerpt from

Following frontier custom 'Nick' every few weeks went out into the bush and tried the pistol at a tree. He would then spend a couple of hours cleaning and reloading it with fresh charges.

Seems the guys who carried these as weapons of war were happy to leave loaded until needed but would refresh the charges as a confidence booster after awhile