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View Full Version : Minutiae of mag pouch placement



YVK
10-16-2011, 11:55 PM
The title had pun intended, as mag placement could perhaps be described in minutes of angle.

Assuming that people don't put mag pouches behind the hip or do cross-draw, we have a quadrant available for a spare mag position. That would be from 9 to 12 for right handed shooter, or 3 to 12 for wrong-handed. Or, from hip to center line for either; that is, if one doesn't have a hip dysplasia.

While everybody is welcome to pitch in, the question is mostly directed to those who experimented with mag placement with some quantitative and/or qualitative assessment of difference. I am interested in both speed of reload and quality of reload, i.e. % of fumbled ones. That is, if position A gives you the best record time on reload but 30% of reloads from this position are fumbled, I'd like to know both parts, not just the speed portion.

Another specific sub-question is: if you have your mag pouch at 9/3 with a closed garment, do you move it forward if you wear an open garment?

My current mag pouch position is at about 11, but, as I am taking my reloads apart and rebuilding them, I am rethinking the position aspect too.

DocGKR
10-17-2011, 12:56 AM
Pistol at 1-3 o'clock; mag(s) at 8:30-9 o'clock.

JDM
10-17-2011, 01:10 AM
Pistol@1:00 magazine at 11:30.

zml342
10-17-2011, 05:21 AM
pistol @ 12:30-1:00, mag(s) @ 9:00-8:00

JV_
10-17-2011, 05:31 AM
Pistol - 1:30
Mag - 10:30

ToddG
10-17-2011, 07:52 AM
Whether my pistol is behind the hip, on the hip, or aiwb, my primary mag pouch is at 9 o'clock if I'm concealed. If I'm unconcealed (e.g., playing gun games) I may put one or two pouches in front of the 9 o'clock one, but unless I spend some time practicing I'll frequently grab the 9 o'clock mag first anyway. That's especially true now that I've spent so much effort working on my aiwb/closed-front reload because my hand drives straight at the mag from above instead of traveling around the waistline.

I've tried both vertical and canted pouches at the 10:30-11:00 position and find them to be substantially slower from concealment. A big part of that is a function of my reload technique, though, and perhaps if I spent the time to adjust the technique I could make the reload faster by carrying closer to midline.

gtmtnbiker98
10-17-2011, 08:17 AM
Pistol 12-3
Magazines 9 - 9:30

The 9:30 placement is for those instances when I'm carrying more than one magazine.

David Armstrong
10-18-2011, 10:58 AM
When I was in uniform and carrying openly the pistol was at 3 and the mags were at about 10. Nowadays I tend to slide everything back a bit more for concealment purposes in my situation, so the gun is at about 4:30 and if I carry a mag pouch on the waist it is about 8. Personally I don't worry too much about reloading quickly, so if carried the mag is as likely to be in a pocket as anywhere else.

Zhurdan
10-18-2011, 11:20 AM
Pistol IWB at 3:30
Magazines OWB at 9 (mostly due to belt loop placement. I'd actually prefer them more around 8:30)

JFK
10-20-2011, 10:05 AM
Boom Boom at 11:04 - 11:29
Mag at 3:00 - 3:17 depending on belt loop.

mscott327
10-20-2011, 02:00 PM
Pistol at 8 to 8:30 (I'm wrong handed)
Magazine at 2 to 2:30

JonInWA
10-20-2011, 05:08 PM
With an IWB holster, pistol at 3.30; with an OWB holster, closer to 3.00.

Regarding magazine pouches:
-Single mag pouch, vertical: 8.45-9
-Dual mag pouch, vertical: 8.45-9
-Single mag pouch, horizontal: 8.45 (but the key positioning/constraint here is that the mag pouch's opening be directly behind of a belt loop,
so the belt loop acts as a stop for any potential foward movement of the pouch when extracting a magazine)

Additionally, my skeletal structure/nerves can somewhat dictate the exact holster placement, particularly for IWB holsters. For some unknown reason, this particularly seems to be the case with my Glock G17...things are a non-issue with my G19, G21, G34-go figure.

Best, Jon

DonovanM
10-21-2011, 11:56 AM
This is a classic example of overthinking things IMO. Outside of comfort and concealability, I think the only worthwhile consideration to mag pouch placement - as long as it's not too far behind your hip - is that you know where it is. The more times this is changed the longer it takes to learn intuitively.

YVK
10-21-2011, 01:10 PM
This is a classic example of overthinking things IMO. Outside of comfort and concealability, I think the only worthwhile consideration to mag pouch placement - as long as it's not too far behind your hip - is that you know where it is. The more times this is changed the longer it takes to learn intuitively.

Depends on priorities. If comfort and concealment are your only concerns, that's fine. For others, there maybe additional aspects - gain in speed, decrease in fumbles, decrease in fumbles at speed, one-handed accessibility etc. I agree that moving it around all the time is not a great idea, but trying to figure out an optimal placement, as well as what mag holders work best for what reasons, could be worthwhile for some here. That's why I was mostly interested in opinions of those who have done some objective/semi-objective comparisons.

JDM
10-21-2011, 04:26 PM
I should add to my post above that I'm not using a standard vertical pouch. It's a pouch that cants the magazine toward my weak side.

DonovanM
10-21-2011, 10:53 PM
Depends on priorities. If comfort and concealment are your only concerns, that's fine. For others, there maybe additional aspects - gain in speed, decrease in fumbles, decrease in fumbles at speed, one-handed accessibility etc. I agree that moving it around all the time is not a great idea, but trying to figure out an optimal placement, as well as what mag holders work best for what reasons, could be worthwhile for some here. That's why I was mostly interested in opinions of those who have done some objective/semi-objective comparisons.

Those are considerations I was talking about.

I've put a bit of thought into mag pouch positioning for USPSA, and I've always daily carried my mag in the same place as the first mag pouch on my competition rig. When I first started practicing, I had the first one at 9:00. I practiced this way for a while until I started thinking about placement. In Production I can shift the first one up to around 10:00, so I did just that, the purpose being so I didn't have to reach so far around to grab the 4th and 5th ones. For a while, I reloaded quicker and more consistently out of my 2nd mag pouch, which was at 9:00. I believed without doubt that this was because of the different angles involved and it was a more natural movement to have the mag further back, so I shifted my first mag pouch back to 9:00. After thinking about it some more I came to the conclusion that I was nuts and I was better because I had practiced more with the pouch further back. I went back to 10:00, and have been running that since. Since then, my best run in practice has been 6 sub-.8 reloads in a row out of my pouch at 10:00, and from concealment (untucked t/polo shirt) a solid time for me is around 1.2, both with an essentially stock P226. These kinds of times are basically just a parlor trick - I couldn't replicate them in a match setting without MUCH more time in the saddle - but the moral of the story is that I was wrong, pretty much the only thing that matters, to reload quickly and consistently, is that you know where the thing is.

My advice would be to keep practicing with what you have now. And if you simply must change, go for the position that's most concealable/comfortable/convenient for you, and learn how to reload quickly and consistently from it. Speed is not a quality of equipment, it's a natural byproduct of mastery with whatever it is you're using. I try to remember this whenever I get trapped in equipment minutiae, which happens often. Good luck!

YVK
10-21-2011, 11:06 PM
My advice would be to keep practicing with what you have now

What I have now is too slow and too inconsistent after spending a reasonable time on it, hence the question. Thanks for your thoughts!

zRxz
10-21-2011, 11:23 PM
I don't know if this pertains exactly to this discussion, but...
How do you access your magazine? Do you scoop up the concealing garment and then shove your hand down to the magazine? Do you grab it, using the outline of the pouch on the shirt as a tactile reference point? Do you just grab shirt and go?

YVK
10-21-2011, 11:45 PM
Do you scoop up the concealing garment and then shove your hand down to the magazine?

This. I get my hand to where the mag is (don't need tactile reference), I pull my shirt (99% of the time I have a closed-front garment) high to be certain to clear the mag, and come down to grab it with index finger extended to get my index point as early as possible. I have three issues with my current reload.
First, I sometimes look at my mag pouch during reload. I didn't realize I was doing it until forum member SecondsCount told me. This
error is fairly easily correctable with some concentration effort.
My second problem is that I fumble during mag insertion more often than I expect it to, given amount of time I have devoted to this. This is actually the part that I am hoping to resolve partially with mag pouch position change.
Third, I am plain slow and need to figure out where I can pick up my speed; most likely, at every step of the process.

David Armstrong
10-22-2011, 01:46 PM
My second problem is that I fumble during mag insertion more often than I expect it to, given amount of time I have devoted to this. This is actually the part that I am hoping to resolve partially with mag pouch position change.
Third, I am plain slow and need to figure out where I can pick up my speed; most likely, at every step of the process.
I might suggest that if you are fumbling the mag insertion very often the issue is not magazine placement, as that shouldn't impact the insertion process. The location should only play a factor in getting the grip on the mag, not how the mag is manipulated after it is grabbed.

YVK
10-22-2011, 11:12 PM
David, perhaps I might have made it sound more dramatic than it actually is, but I don't fumble very often, I fumble more than I think I should. I certainly believe that getting that technique down and practicing to subconscious are the main answers, but I also think that pouch placement may affect fumbling on insertion. I am not stating this as a fact, but that's my theory.

JAD
10-23-2011, 07:18 AM
I've put a bit of thought into mag pouch positioning for USPSA, and I've always daily carried my mag in the same place as the first mag pouch on my competition rig. When I first started practicing, I had the first one at 9:00. I practiced this way for a while until I started thinking about placement. In Production I can shift the first one up to around 10:00, so I did just that...!

So, let me check this: the way you wear your carry gear is dictated by the rules of a game? Not criticizing-- there's lots of good reasons for that -- but I'm always interested in how competition affects defensive pistol craft.

DonovanM
10-23-2011, 10:24 PM
So, let me check this: the way you wear your carry gear is dictated by the rules of a game? Not criticizing-- there's lots of good reasons for that -- but I'm always interested in how competition affects defensive pistol craft.

Yeah, pretty much. I've reloaded a few thousand times from a mag pouch located there and it's perfectly comfortable/concealable, so I might as well.

I carry my gun in completely different spots though. Daily I carry appendix but I don't think I'd ever run a competition rig that way. I like my game holster at around 3:00.

David Armstrong
10-23-2011, 11:16 PM
David, perhaps I might have made it sound more dramatic than it actually is, but I don't fumble very often, I fumble more than I think I should. I certainly believe that getting that technique down and practicing to subconscious are the main answers, but I also think that pouch placement may affect fumbling on insertion. I am not stating this as a fact, but that's my theory.
OK. Still not seeing how mag placement would effect the insertion unless it was somehow causing you to not grasp the mag correctly, but if that were the case then it would be a regular problem. Personally I'm more than willing to lose a little speed on the reload in exchange for increased reliability.

YVK
10-24-2011, 09:19 AM
OK. Still not seeing how mag placement would effect the insertion...

Slightly different motions for support hand with mag pouch at 9 vs more central location. One seems to find magwell more naturally than the other.
This is of course at full speed; at reduced speed, location doesn't seem to make difference.
As I said, this is just a theory.

David Armstrong
10-25-2011, 05:09 PM
Sure, but hopefully the theory can help ID the issue more precisely, and that is difficult through the internet, which is part of the problem. I think what I am trying to convey is that the insertion process should not change based on location of the pouch anymore than the location of the holster should matter. No matter where things are carried the actual insertion of the mag in the gun should be done in the same position/location, so there might be two different issues here. One may be speed of getting mag out and into position and the second may be the insertion problems, instead of a single issue. Like I said, hard to diagnose stuff like that over the internet!:cool: