FrankDrebin
Moderator
Name one example where this was the case.
how many spare magazines is enough??
- Thread starter jekla
- Start date
Name one example where this was the case.
Oh, don't start, Frank. Don't you know, "It's a well known fact!" 
Averages, averages, what are they good for? Well, not much, unless you understand what averages are and how a particular average was derived. Consider:
There is a factory in town that is hiring. You need a better job, so you look into it. You find that the average annual income there is $59,541!! Wow! You are only making $32,000 now, and that's after working at your present factory job for 3 years. This looks like a good deal!
Is it?
Well, here's what people earn at this factory:
700 line workers making $30,000
30 first level supervisors making $60,000
8 mid level managers making $90,000
1 vice president making $200,000
1 president making $400,000
1 owner making $20,000,000
Yep, the average is $59k, but you aren't going to make anything close to that.
The more relevant fact you should have asked about is the MODE, which is what MOST people are making. In this case, that's $30k.
So what does 2.5 rounds in a gunfight mean? Unless you know what went into that figure, the only correct answer is, "I don't know."
57 rounds is the right amount of ammo, if that's what it takes to get you out of a gunfight alive. 1 round is enough, if that's what it takes. An unloaded weapon is enough, if just the sight of your weapon stops the fight.
The problem is, you never know til it's over. That leaves us trying to balance some competing needs.
Since we are doing a balancing act, different people are going to come up with different answers. But the point is, we can never know how much will be enough for the gun fight WE will be in, and averages are not useful in making that decision.
Averages, averages, what are they good for? Well, not much, unless you understand what averages are and how a particular average was derived. Consider:
There is a factory in town that is hiring. You need a better job, so you look into it. You find that the average annual income there is $59,541!! Wow! You are only making $32,000 now, and that's after working at your present factory job for 3 years. This looks like a good deal!
Is it?
Well, here's what people earn at this factory:
700 line workers making $30,000
30 first level supervisors making $60,000
8 mid level managers making $90,000
1 vice president making $200,000
1 president making $400,000
1 owner making $20,000,000
Yep, the average is $59k, but you aren't going to make anything close to that.
The more relevant fact you should have asked about is the MODE, which is what MOST people are making. In this case, that's $30k.
So what does 2.5 rounds in a gunfight mean? Unless you know what went into that figure, the only correct answer is, "I don't know."
57 rounds is the right amount of ammo, if that's what it takes to get you out of a gunfight alive. 1 round is enough, if that's what it takes. An unloaded weapon is enough, if just the sight of your weapon stops the fight.
The problem is, you never know til it's over. That leaves us trying to balance some competing needs.
- The need for enough ammunition. How much? See above. You don't know.
- The need to be able to walk around normally. Carrying 1000 rounds and an M-60 is not practical.
- In some cases, the need for concealability.
Since we are doing a balancing act, different people are going to come up with different answers. But the point is, we can never know how much will be enough for the gun fight WE will be in, and averages are not useful in making that decision.
You must've missed the part where I said:
...even though you quoted it. In fact, pretty much the whole point of the post was that some things will influence decisions without being explicitly enumerated. Name everything that influenced your decision on what to have for breakfast this morning. The factors are too numerous to mention when one includes subconscious influences and "unmentionable" influences. I mean, if a racist da/leo/meter maid/lawyer specifically picks on an indian/black/white/latino guy/gal do you honestly think they're going to put it in the accompanying paperwork?
The DA has an extraordinary amount of latitude with regard to the outcome of a self-defense case. If the DA is an anti inside a city that's full of antis, he's still probably not going to put "used the wrong gun" on the paperwork for every case where the victim didn't use a $10,000 O/U trap gun, even if that's how he feels. Simultaneously, the DA inside a small, conservative 1960s Alabama town isn't going to explicitly put "action performed because person was indian/asian/black" on the paperwork, even if that's how he feels.
As a result, expecting to find cold, hard documentation on why some cases were carried forward and some weren't is spotty at best. This is exacerbated if you're talking about a technical subject such as weapon features or weapon handling (e.g., carrying a boatload of spare mags). For an example, google for details on US vs. Kevin D. Mitnick. Shimomura hated Mitnick. You think you'll find *that* in any legal documents? I can guarantee it had an enormous impact on his apprehension. Same with Ed Cummings and Det. John K. Morris. You won't find any signs of intense hatred in his USSS reports, but any research at all on the case will bear it out. Things affect people's decisions. Not all things are explicitly documented, especially when "things" are inclusive of personal vendettas, racism or bigotry. If you do any research on the two cases mentioned, remember these people weren't rapists, child molestors or murderers. One man intruded into SCO and DEC's networks, embarrasing them quite fiercely. The other man made a little beige box that echos the same sounds a touch-tone phone makes. Every time you hear about a case where the punishment is in asinine proportion to the crime, remember there's a reason for it, and that reason isn't going to be in the transcript.
I'm not parroting what I've heard. I'm making observations about possibilities based on how the legal system works. If you disagree, then I suggest you spend some time either in the machine or with members of "the other side" who have discretionary authority. You may surprise yourself.
Quartus:
While the "average" number of rounds fired in a fight may not be useful on its face, it isn't useless either. There are spikes, yes, but some of those spikes can be discarded. What about the gunfights that require 1000 rounds? That really bumped up the average, but there's no way you're going to survive a 1000 round gunfight, so its presence in the tabulated statistics is useless. A normalized average can be very useful.
Preparing for the extremes isn't always feasible; something to do with them being "extremes."
If we were to prepare for extremes, we wouldn't leave our bunkers except to shoot IPSC matches or to purchase supplies. We all select a "reasonable" level of preparation and go with it. What is "reasonable" has some variance from person to person. So long as it's somewhat in line which reality, everything else is semantics. Since everyone I know carriest at least 5 rounds, I dont' see why this is a problem; that's a 100% fudge factor on top of the average. 
Never by itself. For example, if say, 30% of the fights went to 8 rounds, then it's not unreasonable to prepare for a scenario where you need 8 rounds. If that were the case, relying on the average to tell you that a 5 shot revolver with no reloads is adequate would leave you unprepared for 30% of gunfights.
30% is a big chunk; much bigger than in the fictional average I was working with. I would agree that if that were the case (and it doesn't seem unreasonable), one would do well to either pack a reload for the J-frame/Officer's ACP or otherwise be able to perform at the 8 round mark. I also strongly agree that one shouldn't just look at the average and discard all the contextual data. I pretty much only disagree that a (normalized) average is completely useless. After re-reading your post, I don't think you're implying this. If that's the case, please disregard.
As an additional plain English clarification: My point was just that some say a 2.5 round average is useless because you might need a lot more than that. This is misleading because "a lot more than that" might reference cases that either used more ammo than you can carry or more than you can reasonably expect to fire before you're killed. If someone burns through three magazines in a Ruger AC-556 that doesn't carry over to carry 90 rounds worth of Glock pistol magazines. As a result, these cases can be discarded because you can't derive anything useful from them.
I didn't address the instances where "a lot more than that" is a reasonable number (e.g, 8 instead of 5). As you pointed out, that omission may have left the jist of my post slightly ambiguous. I didn't mean to imply that one should completely discard the context in favor of the average, normalized or not.
As an additional plain English clarification: My point was just that some say a 2.5 round average is useless because you might need a lot more than that. This is misleading because "a lot more than that" might reference cases that either used more ammo than you can carry or more than you can reasonably expect to fire before you're killed. If someone burns through three magazines in a Ruger AC-556 that doesn't carry over to carry 90 rounds worth of Glock pistol magazines. As a result, these cases can be discarded because you can't derive anything useful from them.
I didn't address the instances where "a lot more than that" is a reasonable number (e.g, 8 instead of 5). As you pointed out, that omission may have left the jist of my post slightly ambiguous. I didn't mean to imply that one should completely discard the context in favor of the average, normalized or not.
Unless we know what went into it, an average (normalized or not) is useless. It's probably the most abused statistic in existence. With no context it has no meaning. For example, does that average include confrontations where a gun was drawn but no shots were fired? Obviously, that would skew the average way down. If you don't know those are included, you'll be misled by the average. IF we understand the context, an average can be useful for some things. I don't think it's useful for this kind of thing, though. I don't want to be prepared for the "average" gunfight, I want to be prepared for the realistic worst case scenario.
Agreed. "A lot more than that" could be a ridiculous figure. The Hollywood bank shootout is a good example of an aberration that could really skew an average, but doesn't really tell us much about how much ammo is reasonable to carry on a routine basis.
What we're trying to do is to find a good balance between portability and survivability. Portability is pretty easy to figure out - we can all gauge that for ourselves, and it will vary depending on build, clothing, weather, etc.
Survivability is where it gets tricky. If a significant number of gunfights require 10 rounds, then it's reasonable to carry 10 or more, even if the AVERAGE is 2.5. Now, what would a "significant" number be? That will probably vary for each individual. It's a judgment call. But without knowing what the distribution is, you can't make that call. The average simply provides no useful information to that decision making process.
BTW, buried somewhere in John Farnam's Quips & Quotes is a commentary on gunfight findings for NYPD. The usual number (the mode) of shots fired had been 6 for many years. When they went to autos, they expected the number to increase considerably, probably to the new capacity, which was 14 rounds, IIRC. The theory was that officers shot their weapon dry and only THEN would stop shooting, even if fewer rounds were actually needed. In reality, it went to 8 and pretty much stayed there, regardless of magazine capacity.
Well, I just picked up a very slightly used G27 w/night sights to go along with my G26 ...
It came with the standard 2 mags, and I picked up a third mag ...
All 3 mags seem to function normally, after only having fired a bit over 200 roudns through them ...
I have enough mags for my normal carry requirements ... for now ... and I want to run more rounds through all 3 to establish their functionality ...
But I also want to buy another 2-3 mags in the next few weeks to bring me up to my preferred 5-6 mags, so I can have a couple of dedicated "range" mags for frequent training. I tend to allow my training mags to be "abused" a bit, to see how they hold up when they aren't treated as nicely as my dedicated carry mags.
It came with the standard 2 mags, and I picked up a third mag ...
All 3 mags seem to function normally, after only having fired a bit over 200 roudns through them ...
I have enough mags for my normal carry requirements ... for now ... and I want to run more rounds through all 3 to establish their functionality ...
But I also want to buy another 2-3 mags in the next few weeks to bring me up to my preferred 5-6 mags, so I can have a couple of dedicated "range" mags for frequent training. I tend to allow my training mags to be "abused" a bit, to see how they hold up when they aren't treated as nicely as my dedicated carry mags.
Eh, I guess I assumed that goes without saying. The average number of kerdoobles per widget usage is 109327.
Yes, exactly. Key word, realistic. My intent wasn't to fixate on an average value. My intent was to note how easily a couple of (spike) cases could affect the average, that they should be viewed as anomalous and removed from consideration. I fully agree that the 2.5 round average value is useless if there are a substantial amount of cases where 8-10 rounds are fired. 8-10 rounds is realistic. 90 rounds, however, is not; and it's not so much the affect on the average value as the anecdotal value. Just because someone happened to have half a dozen loaded mags for their AR-15 in their pickup on trip back from the range and used that ammo down to the last cartridge doesn't mean we should all keep ARs and loaded mags with us at all times.
Hi 45 fu, this was in the 70s and it was hard to find a mag that fed every time. Mags had the standard bent tin follower. I remember someone trying with a design that had a bearing surface up front, but the sample I had wasn't too great, either. I've been away from 1911s for a while (1979), have the mags changed?
Hunter Rose
New member
See now, I was always taught that "enough" mags was one more than you currently had, and "enough" ammo was 100 rounds more than what was on hand. Always seemed to make sense to me...