Week 308: Mag Retrieval 500

[Mr_White]

Week 308: Mag Retrieval 500

Results may be posted until March 15th, 2019.

Designed by: Gabe White
Range: N/A
Target: N/A
Rounds Fired: 0

For this drill, all you need is your spare magazine in whatever you carry it in – no pistol, target, or safe direction is required (for purposes of the drill, if you are wearing a pistol it will remain holstered.)

When working for a faster reload, one of the areas where many people have an opportunity for gains is in more efficiently retrieving the spare magazine. This is a very simple drill for use in working to retrieve that magazine reliably and at the full speed you can move.

Start with your hands held out in front of you as if gripping a pistol, even though you are not actually holding a pistol. Retrieve your spare magazine with your support hand as rapidly as you can, taking care to acquire a consistent index on the magazine, and bring the magazine toward your strong hand as you would if you were going to reload a real pistol. Repeat ~ 500 times.

It's not important that you do exactly 500 repetitions. Do more or less if you prefer.

What is important: Explode into motion. Get moving as abruptly as you can and drive your hand to the magazine at the full speed you can move. Clear any concealment and acquire a clean and correct index on the magazine. One of the clearest kinds of feedback that you have not gotten a correct index on the magazine is having difficulty cleanly inserting it into the magazine well. Since inserting the magazine is not part of this particular drill, you need to be mentally disciplined in indexing the magazine properly. When you make a mistake, try to notice what you did wrong and pay attention to correcting it. If you carry more than one spare magazine, retrieve the spare magazine from all your pouches over the course of this drill.

Please report the magazine, magazine pouch, and concealment used (if any, concealment is optional), and anything you noticed during the drill.

Training with firearms is an inherently dangerous activity. Be sure to follow all safety protocols when using firearms or practicing these drills. These drills are provided for information purposes only. Use at your own risk.

[That Guy]

I keep forgetting to post here!

PX4 magazine, Kytex Gear magazine pouch (that due to my lack of support gear is technically too small for the PX4 magazine, but if the Army taught me anything it is that the square peg will fit in the round hole with the proper amount of force ) and a generic shirt as cover garment.

I haven't done anywhere near 500 repetitions of this drill (at least so far), but I did learn very quickly that my support hand moves very slowly when retrieving a magazine. Or moved, until I started to pay more attention to it. Thank you for this drill, I shall have to keep this in mind in the future.

[0ddl0t]

Magazine: Sig P365 10 round flush
Magazine pouch: DeSantis Quantico double
Concealment garment: extra-long T-shirt

Main takeway: I found myself wanting to lean my upper body away from the mag pouches during retrieval which seems like a lot of wasted motion.



Upon reading the details of this drill, my knee-jerk reaction was "Meh, seems so elementary - surely I'm beyond that." Like most knee-jerk reactions, it was only part right. It is elementary: breaking motions down into smaller pieces. But no, I am not beyond that. In fact, I later found myself breaking this drill down into two even more elementary parts:

1) racing down from the imaginary gun, clearing concealment garment, and obtaining a good grasp on the magazine.
2) exploding out of the magazine pouch, rotating the magazine upright, and guiding it home into the imaginary pistol.

Step 1) takes me all of one second and offers the most chance of a fumble. My shirts run pretty low/baggy so I can't just sweep my thumb under the hem, I have to grab a wad of tshirt, yank it way above the mag pouch, and then try to retain the wadded shirt above my thumb as I grasp the magazine with my fingers.

Step 2) Feels pretty good and currently takes ~0.2-0.3s


I don't carry a spare magazine outside of idpa or the range, so I probably ought to just lean more toward the gamer side and use a fishing vest or unbuttoned Hawaiian overshirt. Alternatively, I could realize it isn't the 90's anymore and stop wearing such loose-fitting clothing (much less likely).