Originally Posted by
Rex G
Some random thoughts:
Easily-reached/convenient controls can be all too easily inadvertently activated at inconvenient times.
Most gunfights conclude before the in-gun magazine is expended.
The best way to carry a second magazine, is inside the mag well of a well-positioned second gun. (I have found, with double-column-mag Glock pistols, it can be about as easy to conceal another whole gun, as it is to conceal a spare mag.) This means a speed-reload need not occur until one has expended 30+ rounds, which, unless one is wasting rounds, is a quite extraordinary gunfight. This does not mean I always carry two Glocks, but some of the time, I do.
I voluntarily returned to Glocks, after eleven years of SIGs. I switched from Gen3 G22 pistols, in 2004, to the SIG P229R, for accuracy. The .40 Snap & Whip, fired from high-bore-axis SIGs, had started to hurt too much. (Not blaming .40 for anything; I fired too many big-bore Magnums in the Eighties.) In 2015, my chief authorized 9mm as an alternative patrol duty cartridge, so I switched to 9mm, and returned to Glocks, because Gen4 fits me better than Gen3.
I had already bought a pair of G19 Gen4 pistols, in anticipation of potentially moving to a plainclothes investigator position, where I would be allowed to qual with 9mm duty pistols. Being able to carry 9mm on patrol, by October 2015, I added a Gen4 G17. Having recently been assigned a smaller patrol vehicle, I now tend to carry a G19 in my duty rig, especially when riding shotgun, in the FTO role, as it is harder to bail from the right front seat with a larger pistol on the right hip.