Maybe this is a stupid question, but I was under the impression that you should bleed the system AFTER the regulator, otherwise you can back-pressure the regulator, causing damage. I used to bleed the system by loosening the bottle gauge, but was regularly rebuilding my regulators. Now that I have started loosening the regulator gauge, it seems that I am not rebuilding my regulators as much. This may be anecdotal, but I don't think so. The regulators are designed to have a pressure loss after the regulator from the firing of the gun. They will regulate to bring the plenum/etc. back up to pressure. If you relieve pressure from the bottle, the plenum will still have your working pressure, until it is forced backwards through the regulator. I suppose you could just keep firing your gun while degassing it, but this seems like a pain when you can just degas the gun after the regulator. Am I off base on this??? I'm interested to know what the consensus thinks.