15 +1 magazine

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Doc Holliday 1950

New member
I have a Glock 19. my mags hold 15 +1. Question is
1-Do you load your Glock with 15.
2- Do you load one in the chamber and 15 in the mag?
3- Does anyone do this or just the 15 that loads into the mag.
4- is it safe to load 1 in the chamber & 15 in the mag?

As always, any and all responses are welcome and wanted. This is not an idle question.
 
I fill the magazine to capacity, then charge the pistol. I never add the extra round afterwards.

First, I almost always carry a reload for whatever pistol I'm carrying.

Second, I have seen several and heard of more incidents at the range where a full magazine exerted enough pressure on the bottom of the slide that it caused the slide to slow down and not eject the spent case.

Last, I have heard, but have no concrete evidence to prove, that downloading doublestack mags by one or two rounds increases spring life and tension.

Plus I'm lazy.
 
I've been loading all of my semis the same way for the last 30 years: insert fully loaded mag into pistol, charge pistol, drop mag and load up another round, re-insert mag.

I have had pistols in the past that would occasionally choke on full mags, but I got rid of all of them, if I couldn't solve the problem by trying different mags, smoothing certain areas on the slide, modifying mags, etc.

My Glock 19 (gen 4) has functioned just fine with a full mag +1 in the chamber so far. Is yours experiencing problems?
 
I have a Glock 19. my mags hold 15 +1. Question is
1-Do you load your Glock with 15.
Click to expand...

I load it with 15.

2- Do you load one in the chamber and 15 in the mag?
Click to expand...

No

3- Does anyone do this or just the 15 that loads into the mag.
Click to expand...

Just the 15.

The only autoloader I do a "+1" with is the XDS45 with the short magazine. With everything else, I don't bother.

4- is it safe to load 1 in the chamber & 15 in the mag?
Click to expand...

yes
 
I load all my mags to capacity, drop one round into the chamber, release the slide and then insert the full mag. I run my duty Glock 22 that way. My off duty/concealed 19 and my secondary 43 are also run that way.
 
I personally don't do the +1, but I'm not "against" it. For me it's a matter of how hard it gets to seat those magazines when full and one in the chamber.

If you choose to do this I advise against dropping one in the chamber and sending the slide home. This causes the extractor to go over the rim of the case which isn't something it normally has to do. To me, insert the magazine, chamber a round, drop the magazine and then top off the magazine and re-insert.
 
I carry full mag (12) +1 in my PT 111 g2. I never bothered in my P-07 when I carried it, and I don't plan to worry about the +1 when I switch over to my new SD9. Realistically, I have no doubt that 12 without the +1 would do me just fine, but for me, the lower the capacity, the more likely I am to go for the +1. I would definitely top off if I were running a single stack.

As far as whether it is safe, that is how the gun is designed to work, so yeah, it's safe.
 
I fill the magazine to capacity, then charge the pistol. I never add the extra round afterwards.
Click to expand...
This is a pretty good practice.

Inserting a magazine into a typical autopistol compresses the magazine spring slightly more than it would be compressed out of the pistol. It turns out that the spring in a double column mag loaded with one round less than full capacity AND inserted into the pistol is under about the same compression as the spring in a fully loaded magazine that isn't inserted into the pistol.

Beretta actually recommends this practice in at least some of their autopistol owners manuals and gives the explanation above as the reason. Of course, after making the recommendation, they go ahead and provide their recommended procedure for topping off the mag after chambering a round. So they're obviously not dogmatic about it.

It's worth pointing out that mag springs are pretty cheap. Function check your mags every so often (by shooting regularly and checking to make sure they'll feed and lock the slide back reliably) and replace the springs if you start to note problems.
 
HistoryJunky said:
Why not have 1 extra?
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Agreed. I used to just load a full mag, rack a round into the chamber, and never top off the mag. Then an acquaintance of mine (who had spent several decades as a lead instructor at a nationally-recognized training center) found out that I carried that way and asked me why. He asked me, "Why not carry with as many rounds that will fit in your gun?"

The way I see it is this: I'll probably never need that extra round, but it's really not much extra effort to top off your magazine. Especially if you're like me and you don't unload your carry gun each night; I just take off my whole holster and leave the gun in it fully loaded.
 
So much depends on the magazine, and how it seats.

My Gen 4 Glock 19, and any Glock that I have owned, fully loaded, as in 15 in my carry G19, can be compressed about half a cartridge, just a wee space, when loaded with 15. So no trouble inserting the full magazine. No big struggle, push, and click.

First off, insert full magazine, rack slide, top off mag. Sixteen capacity.

Over the years, Glock has made minute alterations to magazines, followers, and locking cuts. IMHO Glock magazines are as close to perfect as you can get.
 
I also have a G19 and it's my EDC.
Doc Holliday 1950 said:
I have a Glock 19. my mags hold 15 +1. Question is
1-Do you load your Glock with 15.
Click to expand...
Always.
2- Do you load one in the chamber and 15 in the mag?
Click to expand...
No. While I understand the theory of "can never have too many rounds on tap," I tried topping off for a little while, but found it to be kind of a pain for just the one extra round. With an extra mag, I'm already carrying 30 rounds, and that was a big step up from the 16 I'd carried prior to that.
3- Does anyone do this or just the 15 that loads into the mag.
Click to expand...
I'm sure plenty of people do it.
4- is it safe to load 1 in the chamber & 15 in the mag?
Click to expand...
As far as I know, it's safe. Take that for exactly what it's worth. I'm neither an engineer nor a RSO.
 
Spats, with all respect. The rounds in your G19, that one fires, each time you press the trigger? Not to fully load your life saving pistol, is not a good idea.

The rounds in your gun, they are your life saving 9mm life jackets.

In simulated fights IDPA, the Stage can call for a reload! And you are lying on your mag pouch! Of course, this is a game with rules, 11 rounds is the max. you can start with.

Even a magazine change, standing, with being concealed can be a problem.
As you are expected to be in cover at the same time.
 
I fill the magazine to capacity, then charge the pistol. I never add the extra round afterwards.
Click to expand...

This is how I do it with Glocks - they seem to rattle when the magazine is inserted in the gun and full to capacity so the easy solution seems to be to keep them at one under capacity.

If the first 10 (or 17, or whatever) rounds don't do it chances are that very last one is going to be inconsequential as well.
 
Mine is a Glock 26, and I don't carry +1, for the reasons previously given. And to reinforce a point made earlier, Glock IIRC specifically recommends against loading directly into the chamber and jumping the extractor over the rim. If you are going to carry +1, load it from the magazine.

My pocket pistol, a Sig P238, has had a couple of problems at the range when I topped off. I have read of other pistols being a bit unreliable with the +1 configuration, too, but don't recall them at the moment. If I was going to carry +1 I would definitely test pretty extensively first.
 
In simulated fights IDPA, the Stage can call for a reload! And you are lying on your mag pouch! Of course, this is a game with rules, 11 rounds is the max. you can start with.

Even a magazine change, standing, with being concealed can be a problem.
As you are expected to be in cover at the same time.
Click to expand...

To be honest with you these are examples of reasons why I don't consider IDPA to be a simulated fight. Arbitrary rules that often don't have a basis in reality. If you want to carry +1 by all means go for it and I think just the idea of having one extra round is justification enough assuming it all works reliably for you. But to me pointing out reasons specific to IDPA isn't really convincing.
 
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