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Like it or not, most Americans have been conditioned through the media to regard a noise being made by a firearm as a threatening sound, and the "lion's roar" of those sounds is the racking a shotgun. Racking the slide on a handgun is high on that list of scary gun sounds, and if you are at contact distance, cocking the hammer back on a revolver will make honorable mention. That's because most people in America count the vast majority of their firearms experience from television and movies, where sounds are used for dramatic effect in order to enhance the suspension of disbelief necessary for entertainment.

Even if you were to select a sample from those with experience with real guns, I still think we all know that after you rack the slide on a 1911 or rack a shotgun the chances of it being loaded and ready to fire are no lower than they were before such action, so there is a reason to expect the weapon to be more "ready" after it has made this scary sound.

Now I think the BG who breaks into your house is not likely to be scared off by any noise, because they probably are high on drugs or totally accustomed to having guns pointed at them all the time. So I think relying on the deterrent effect of this noise is foolish. You had be ready to follow the click-clack with a big BANG if necessary.