Spare mags - a rational discussion

Until I find a nice leather rig with dual mag pouch like a shoulder rig I just obey the first law and bring a gun. I hit what I aim at, and I have 9 lawyers in my weapon.
 
sweet i been lookin for IWB ammo pouches. It would be nice to have one of those
mleake- I carry on a simplyrugged Cuda holster and belt. I <3 them. most comfortable holster I have found while doing everything from laying around to driving.
pax thanx for the ted blocker link im gonna pick up a concealment mag holder

this mainly comes down to convenience. obviously, if it was so we would all carry as much as we could afford in guns, and ammo. reality sets in, and I am willing to give up some comfort for safety, just not all of it. Thats why I have a leather holster instead of crap, and a gun belt instead of crap as well. I learned real quick that if its that much of a drag to carry you wont. But I do it comfortably to my threshold. My threshold would be 1 mag in the pocket. 2 is too many because there is no where for them to go when I sit down. As i sit with 1, I can move it to the side and be fine.
 
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I see where you're going Mleake, about the mag malfunctions. But I've never had a malfunction with any of my pistols. I also use good magazines ( Mec Gar or Wilson) which absolutely doesn't rule out malfunctions, but cuts down on the risk substantially. If I carried a low quality pistol, with low quality mags, I might have a different opinion. If I carry, I carry the most reliable, or best that I can afford. My life is worth more to me than the $1000 I spend on my carry gear. Plus, I shoot my carry mags regularly, but I never drop them out of the pistol onto the ground. I take care of them, and clean them regularly. My range mags are marked with red tape on the bottom, and I beat the living crap out of them.
 
For me it depends on where I am going

Hi,

I kit up according to where I am going.

Most of the time it is my S&W 4006 (11+1) with one spare mag either in my pocket or in my laptop bag (which either is on my back or next to me)

In my car I keep one more spare mag and a box of 20 Rounds ( always, it takes little space and it is always there, right next to the first aid kit and the extinguisher)

In some instances I may do away with the spare mag and carry only the gun
( mainly in places that are very secure to start with) and on the other hand, there are instances where I will have my carry gun with 2 spare mags, and a back-up gun with spare mags for it. (Like when I am part of the guard at a synagogue in a religious holiday and the chances that I may have to fend off an attack are much higher)

So my answer if one asks, is to kit up for the circumstances.

Brgds,

Danny
 
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MLeake said:
....I have two reasons I consider rational for combining a reasonably high-cap pistol with a spare.

1) While muggers may often act solo, the trend in Atlanta (where I reside, though in the outskirts) and Orlando (where my parents reside, or in the outskirts) area robberies has been young males, in groups of 2 or 3. While I'm a very good shot, I don't expect any bullet to be a magic bullet, and I'd like to at least have a chance at 3 double-taps prior to a reload.

2) Standard stoppage drills, if tap/rack/pull doesn't fix the issue, often go next to dropping the magazine and trying a new one. Just because the first magazine is high-capacity, doesn't mean it will work....
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FWIW, I agree completely.

I carry whenever I legally can, and most of the time I carry, it's a 1911 or an H&K P7M8. And I always carry at least one extra magazine. Probably won't need it, but then again, I probably won't need the gun in the first place. But if I'm already carrying almost 3 pounds of loaded gun, what's an extra magazine or two? Magazines, especially single stack magazines, are easy to carry. It's the gun that's hard to carry.

And if one really paid attention to the odds, one wouldn't even bother carrying the gun in the first place. Most people in Western Civilization will die quietly in their beds without ever having had to defend themselves in a violent encounter. But the thing is that rare things do happen.

So okay, one is unlikely to need an extra magazine (or a gun for that matter). But the upside of not carrying an extra magazine is pretty modest -- just a little convenience. At the same time, the downside of needing one and not having it can be pretty catastrophic (even if unlikely).
 
I agree fully with MLeaks post If you are going to carry you might as well be ready for the worse case scenario. Normally I carry 1 spare on me with one in my car unless I am on a Ride along with a police agency then I carry 2 plus my BUG

CWPinSC I hope that while you are doing the shooting you are actively seeking good cover at the same time and not just trading shots.
 
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Skan21

I also take pretty good care of my magazines, and avoid dropping them where possible. (IE, at the range, I normally baby them; during military quals, I have no trouble letting them drop, so I'm pretty sure I'm not training in a bad habit at my more normal sessions, though this could be a potential concern.)

As far as reliability, the SIG P series and CZ75 series are known for it. So's the Kahr, though again I pick that up next week, and have yet to shoot it (but a range report is likely to follow shortly after I do). I agree fully that reliability is critical to any carry system.

But by nature, and maybe even more by training, I like spares.

On a loosely related note, aircraft engines are very reliable things. Still, I've never regretted having one or three extras, because sometimes engines don't function properly, too.

For that matter, I've never regretted having backup radios. Or backup navaids.

I think you see where I'm going with this...

Cheers,

M
 
wait a second

It does not matter what the odds are that a civilian will ever end up in a shooting situation is. Last time I heard stats most cops never have to discharge their weapon at someone during their career. The fact remains that once you have been in such a situation, at the first opportunity you should always reload your gun so it is fully loaded. You do not pull out your mag and put one or two rounds back in it, you drop it, put in a fresh one and pocket the less than full one. This is nothing more than efficiency and training.
 
I typically carry one reload for my gun, but usually it's a speedstrip since I've become such a revolver nut of late.

I doubt I'll ever need it, but it's not like it's a lot of extra gear to lug around. I just drop it in my offside pocket and go about my day.

With my LCP I have a handy little pocket mag carrier that I use. Got it from stmcelroy aka www.rkbaholsters.com. Good stuff there.

If I am carrying a full size semi auto (rare these days) I have a couple of fobus mag paddles that I can use. One's a double that pretty much just stays with my truck gun as I rarely actually wear it. The other is a single and I honestly don't wear it very often either.

I do occasionally just tuck a full size mag in my back jeans pocket, but I find by the end of the day it ends up riding in my console or door pocket of my truck or my wife's car.
 
If one gives it a little thought, one can comfortably dress and conceal a reasonable semi and mag pouch. With no offense, I find the statements that you can't not believeable.

Even in TX, a nice TX tee shirt and then a big floppy light weight over shirt , like a Magellan or Columbia fishing shirt works just fine. Many folks have the t and overshirt look so you don't stand out. Get a size or two bigger. You don't print.

I've hung with groups of folks dressed like that and we don't look like the SWAT team.

Basically, there is no down side to extra ammo - what we do see is folks locking into a position and then defending it because it's an argument.

If you shoot a lot, you see guns and mags go belly up quite a bit.
 
I always carry a spare when carrying a single stack. I carry my spare in an old leather Schrade multitool scabbard. It works great and doesn't look like a mag pouch at all.

--Dave
 
The two most cogent arguments for me are the possibility of multiple attackers and the possibility of a stoppage.

A second magazine makes sense. So does a back-up gun, frankly.

Likelihood of needing either? Probably less than remote. But if you do, you will not be able to rewind and change the script.

I've been carrying a Centennial. But in thinking about it, I have started to believe the few people would be likely to try to attack a man on the street by themselves unless they thought they had the element of surprise. So--two perps, moving fast. Are five enough? I'm having second thoughts.

I now have fired my M&P9C enough to trust it. I've also bought a 4 inch 1911. Holsters are back-ordered for months.
 
The odds argument is getting so old - the odds argument extended argues against a gun in general.

Also, I just don't buy the inconvenience argument. As I said - it's really not. If you cover a gun on one side - you can cover a mag on the other.
 
you can rationalize from a 2 shot derringer after all the average gunfight is 2 rounds all the way to "mall ninja".so if you do your own risk assesment and load out accordingly your probably over prepaired.Which is not a bad thing.
 
Also, I just don't buy the inconvenience argument.
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I kinda laughed about that too especially when the person making the argument is known to carry a seecamp:rolleyes:

MavcomeonhowinconvienentcanitbeRacer
 
The odds argument is getting so old - the odds argument extended argues against a gun in general.
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Why yes it does.

But you have it backwards. To extend the odds argument would be to say the odds of needing a gun are very small, by extension the odds of needing multiple mags or guns is very very small.
To go from very very small to very small is a retraction.

The safety argument also has an extension, if extra mags is a an important safeguard, then why not open carry a shoulder arm with a 30 round mag? You would be carrying more ammo in a more powerful caliber and in a more accurate weapon.
 
All your arguments in favor of a second magazine are even better arguments in favor of a second gun. New York reload. If you can carry one high-cap automatic, you can carry two.
 
To extend the odds argument would be to say the odds of needing a gun are very small, by extension the odds of needing multiple mags or guns is very very small.
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Maybe--just maybe. I thought so too--and then I thought about it a little more.

Look at it this way: is the likelihood of being attacked by two people less than or greater than the likelihood of being attacked by one? I think it might be greater. A perp acting alone may be too risk averse to try anything.

And if two or more people were to attack from multiple directions, both moving quickly, would it be better to have ten or twelve shots available than five? The "New York reload" solves the capacity problem and the problem of a failure. A larger capacity goes halfway, and a second magazine is somewhere in between.
 
The odds argument is getting so old - the odds argument extended argues against a gun in general.
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Thats why a whole bunch of times I go out without a gun :)

Also, I just don't buy the inconvenience argument. As I said - it's really not. If you cover a gun on one side - you can cover a mag on the other.
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Now Glenn you are falling in to the trap....:)

Here....the less a person has to put in his pockets or carry around every day, the more convenient it is. Less stuff=more convenience. More stuff=less convenience. You may have a level of inconvenience you are willing to put up with, but you cant argue that my minimalist level isnt more convenient than yours:p

I have trouble keeping track of my keys and have to wear my cellphone around my neck so I dont lose it. I found $100 in my change pocket that I forgot I put there. I lose my gun. Half the time I dont even wear a belt. Im fat and I'm deadly at 10 feet with my Seecamp. I live in a low crime area and dont go into harms way. I keep a rifle in my truck. I spend most of my waking moments contemplating the space-time continuum and even if I had a spare mag, I would forget where I put it. All of the foregoing militates me from carrying a spare mag.

Caveat primus: I do carry a SIG 210 frequently and openly. Thats more of a fashion statement :)

Caveat secundus: I get psychic waves now and then of ethnic hostility and then carry my HP....but not a second mag.

Who is it here that says a handgun is for fat guys to fight their way to their MBR:p

WildgodifeelbloatedtodayAlaska ™
 
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