Those of you who carry a semi auto handgun...

paperairplane said:
The spare mag is in case of malfunction of the primary mag, I am not concerned about the # of rounds I am carrying.
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If this were my main concern, I would carry a small back up gun ("BUG") instead of, or in addition to, a spare mag. A BUG will address any failure of the primary, not just a bad mag.
 
Warning Gaming Content
Happiness is when your reloads are not a significant % of your times in Plates, IDPA or 3Gun:D It gets reflexive if you practice enough. I've come in ahead of better technical shooters because my transitions & reloads were so short.
Carry On.
 
paperairplane said:
The spare mag is in case of malfunction of the primary mag, I am not concerned about the # of rounds I am carrying.

Picture yourself in a SD situation - you accidentally hit the mag release and drop your mag, where it falls into the storm drain. No spare on your person, hope you had 1 in the pipe.
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Pretty much sums it up for me, except for capacity. Then again, I live in a community in decline in gangland. Tends to make one a little more cautious I guess. I usually carry at least one extra mag.

On a side note, I was in the gun store last week. There were plenty of thugs in there, and all they were looking at were high-capacity semi-autos in .40 or better. I always take into consideration what the opposition might be carrying when looking for the right tools for the job. Something worth thinking about.

p.s. I like Glocks. They do too.
 
oldschool45 said:
Warning Gaming Content
Happiness is when your reloads are not a significant % of your times in Plates, IDPA or 3Gun:D It gets reflexive if you practice enough. I've come in ahead of better technical shooters because my transitions & reloads were so short.
Carry On.
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:thumbup:
In my local club, the guy with the .6 second first shot doesn't necessarily beat the guy with the 1.1 second first shot. In most stages, it seems like the smoothest reload(s) makes all the difference.
 
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When I was working on the Border I carried 3 spare mags for my G19 but that was on a duty belt.Nowadays I conceal carry a Ruger LCP in a wallet type holster in my right pocket with just 1 mag.It's so easy to conceal even on the hottest days of Summer and I forget it's even there,it's always on me.I figure one Mag should be do the job.I do carry a spare in my truck.Like 338 said always test fire a new mag.I have had brand new mags that were no good.Also test fire it with the same ammo you plan to carry.I have known guys that got hand cannons and mutiple mags when they started to conceal carry and then I'd run across them a few months later and ask if they're packen.The answer is oh not today left it at home.:eek:
 
Guess what, got my CC permit in the mail today, holster is on its way, should be here tomorrow. Reading all of the comments I will eventually buy the magazine pouch that I want
When it becomes available as it seems all vendors are currently out of stock ( I'm looking for the black one) http://www.opticsplanet.net/galco-concealable-magazine-case.html
to match my galco belt and holster.
Until then I'm just going to carry without a spare mag, that would only be on the weekends and night store runs since I don’t think it’s a good idea to be packing at work or leave it in the car.
 
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I'll have a couple nearby, but I just started carrying another (2nd)pistol.

You could always just keep an extra one in your back pocket until you get the pouch.
 
in the police academy we got PT'd to death if we dropped our mags!! and we never shot until empty always count your rds and change mags when you have 1 left in the mag and 1 left in the launch tube...I still practice like that, you may ask why not drop the "empty mag" well all of us use the same model gun so lets say my buddy has a mag malfunction I can give him my empty for him to swap out real quick. we were and never are allowed to use mag loaders because you don't carry one in the field so we learn to load mags real fast with our hands.(lots of bloody fingers for the first few weeks) I remember a funny time where during the first week of range week a fellow recruit brought a mag loader... the instructor snatched it out of his hands threw it on the deck and smashed it to bits with the butt of an 870...as he was yelling no pussy fingers allowed... sometimes I wish I could do the academy over again it was a lot of fun!!
 
crackerjax said:
in the police academy we got PT'd to death if we dropped our mags!! and we never shot until empty always count your rds and change mags when you have 1 left in the mag and 1 left in the launch tube!
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Did they really expect you to count rounds during a gunfight!?!:eek:
Seems pretty unlikely. While I've never been in a gunfight, I've been surprised by how quick the gun ran dry when a little stress is introduced (training class that definitely was pushing my skill level.)
 
The "Count Your Rounds" idea died over 25 years ago.
It doesn't happen under the stress of a genuine shots-fired encounter.

As far as not allowing mag loaders to load up before shooting strings goes, what's the point of that? Whether or not you carry mag loaders in "the field" has zero bearing on using them to make range loading easier & quicker.

Denis
 
Wait a second. Why would it matter if you did/didn't have a mag loader in the field, when are you loading mags in the field with or without a loader? I may be assuming here, but I didn't think cops carried loose rounds, just extra mags...
 
michaelmcgo, in the OLDEN DAYS cops carried loose ammunition...I carried in duty belt "drop boxes", later speed strips in the drop boxes, finally speedloaders which rode on the belt..quit toting tin on my chest before them, new fangled semi-auto shooters came in to play.

I don't know but would guess that prior to drop boxes, loose ammunition was carried in the strong side pants or jacket pocket.
 
UNK,
I worked with loops, dump boxes, and all the rest of the way down the line.
Once autos came in, nobody loaded mags "in the field" with loose rounds, so any prohibition against using mag loaders on the range during training or qualifiers would have been pointless.
Denis
 
I have had mags fail in competition and practice. One Glock mag and a couple aftermarket SKS mags. I've seen mags fail in other guns, too.

Every mag I've seen jam has jammed at the TOP few rounds. This means those mags would have failed in the first few shots of a defensive encounter. A few have lost the baseplate and dumped every round, the spring and the follower. Mag catches can wear out, locking notches can get stripped, welds can split. Dirt, pocket lint, sticks, gravel and other crud can get inside.

Thoroughly test every mag you own and carry spares.
 
I shoot IDPA and 3 Gun with a Deputy Sheriff who is the Firearms Instructor for the Dept. He gets paid to travel around the country to training facilities(That would be tuff huh?:cool:). Anyway, every place he has gone has said the same thing. Carry at least one spare mag, preferably two.
 
DPris said:
UNK,
I worked with loops, dump boxes, and all the rest of the way down the line.
Once autos came in, nobody loaded mags "in the field" with loose rounds, so any prohibition against using mag loaders on the range during training or qualifiers would have been pointless.
Denis
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When I went through training there were 3 officers on shift for the whole county. Backup was a long ways away. I am sure our training was a bit different. As far as I know all the people I trained with are still alive so far its worked out. Iv done round counting under stress, it has worked for me but I can understand when your under stress you cant hear anything and life is a blur for what seems to be hours it can get confusing. Things have changed in these past years but I'm sure in parts of rural Missouri they still have 2 officers for a whole town and 3 officers on shift for a whole county.
 
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I still can't see where that has anything whatever to do with loading mags with loose rounds in the field.

Here in parts of Utah, you can find the same manning tables today.
Troopers & deputies can expect backup to arrive in 10 minutes or an hour, depending on their location in some areas.

They carry reloads, in mags, but not loose in pockets or cars.
I can see no good reason whatever for dis-allowing mag loaders at the range. Easier on the fingers, speeds up reloading times between strings.
Has zero effect on field use of the duty weapon.

As far as round counting goes, that was demonstrated to be so far removed from the realities of a dynamic shooting encounter that it began to be dropped by knowledgeable trainers well over three decades ago. My department & nationally ranked instructors outside it were avoiding it in the early 80s. May have taken some time to spread, but I haven't even heard the term used in many years till you brought it up here.

It's the reason more effective training has replaced it. That consists of basically if you fired anything at all, you reload at the first opportunity. Studies & de-briefings have shown clearly that the various sensory input processing in such situations is so distorted that most could not accurately recall how many rounds they'd fired, and later were very surprised to hear the actual number.

There are so many other things going on that trying to count your rounds fired is very counterproductive, to say the least.
Denis
 
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