Shoot your carry ammo regularly

[JodyH]

When I head to the outdoor range I unload my P30 and place it into the range bag and pocket carry my Kahr PM9.
If I plan on shooting my carry ammo I just carry the P30 and stick the PM9 in my pocket as a BUG.
That way I always have a loaded gun on me while I'm at the range and while travelling to and from.

At the house when I dry fire I unload the P30 in a different room from where I'm dry firing and place my loaded P2000 into the bug out bag next to my desk.
All other ammo is in another room.
That way I have access to a loaded pistol but it's secured inside a zippered compartment to eliminate a stupid LOUD mistake.

[Pistolero]

Recently I've had an interesting experience that reinforced and changed my practice of shooting carry ammo. Generally when I pick new carry ammo, I shoot about 250 rounds of it for figuring reliability and POA/POI. Subsequently, when I practice with my training ammo, I throw a round that was chambered during carry into mix to avoid re-chambering the same carry round twice.

I have a P7 that is coming up to 10K rounds, only stoppages I had were due to parts breakage. For some reason or another, I decided to go through a box of HSTs. To my annoyance, I had multiple failures to feed on last round it the mag - usually a sign of worn magazine spring. A slight increase in slide velocity with +P ammo over my regular training ammo was all that was needed to cause malfunctions. The theory was reinforced when gun went back to usual 100% reliability with all ammo after mag spring change. Despite added expense, I'll be shooting my carry ammo more often and in slightly larger volumes.

That's an interesting story! Yes, I used to regularly shoot off my carry ammo; however, faced with incessantly rising prices and my, now, fixed retirement income I've stopped doing that. Instead what I do is always purchase carry ammo that has lacquered casemouths and primer pockets - This way I don't have to worry (excessively) about carry ammo's number one enemy, oil and solvent contamination! I'm a, 'garage mechanic' with many years of experience taking guns apart, fixing them, and putting them back together again. (The right way!)

Consequently what happened to you with that weak magazine spring isn't likely to happen to me with my regularly changed Wolff Gunsprings. Oil contamination to primer pockets and casemouths is what I worry about; and high quality (good old fashioned) carry ammo is the best way I know to guard against it. My days of frequently shooting off carry ammo are over; just can't afford to do that anymore.