The main reason I never got into competitive shooting is because reloading seems to be a big part of a lot of drills/standards. I generally don't carry a spare mag on me so this makes the competition a lot less worthwhile to matching what a real-world encounter would look like for me. We all have limited time to train. Even if you don't sleep, you only have 24 hours in a day. Every second a person spends practicing mag reloads at speed is one second you aren't practicing the actual shooting aspect.
I think it's fair to say that none of us are really happy with our shooting skills from an accuracy/speed perspective and could all use more time. If we were happy, we probably wouldn't be here trying to improve. Given that this is the case, all of us who spend any time practicing mag reloads at speed are taking away training time that could be used for accuracy/speed work.
That's not to say some people don't need to practice magazine reloads. LE/MIL need it. Civilians I am not so sure. Has there been any documented cases of a civilian reloading their gun in a firefight? This has come up in the past and I think there might have been one or two situations and in neither did the reload actually make a difference because it happened after the shooting was done.
I find myself drawn to the drills/standards that don't include reloads and I would like to get better at those. The Run Your Gun Standards and Gabe White Standards have no reloading involved.
My best guess as to why reloading is a big part of a lot of this is that competition has relatively few things to do compared to other sports. Adding in reloading gives one more thing to do. In boxing there's only a few punches (jab, cross, hook, uppercut) at different angles and in different combinations. In shooting there's also only a few "things" like drawing under speed, shooting under speed, split times (follow up shots) under speed, transitioning targets under speed. Maybe some other elements I'm missing, but it's only a few in total and adding reloading gives a huge increase percentage wise of "new things" to do.
What if instead of reloading, you did type 1 clearance drill instead? Imagine a FAST where instead of reloading you had 5 live rounds and 1 dummy round loaded in a single mag. You have to draw, shoot to the dummy round, tap/rack, and get back on target and finish the string. Instead of the dummy round always being the 3rd round, your training partner puts it in randomly in position 1 to 4. Because if you knew it was always the 3rd round, you could game the score by tap/racking without even pressing the trigger. By putting it in randomly it forces you to take the time to align the sights and press trigger on the dummy round, because you never know when it will come. Just like in real life.
What if we modified every drill that required a reload to instead have a dummy round in your mag and do a malfunction clearance instead and adjusted the part times accordingly? That gives you the same "extra" thing to do to add more depth and the extra thing is actually something that may happen in a real civilian encounter.
I struggle to see a real world civilian encounter that I'm reloading my handgun mag. Even if I did carry a spare mag, when do I reload? I've already fired 7 to 16 rounds on the threat (depending on if carrying G43 or G19). And now, after firing those 7 to 16 rounds the following all must apply:
- The threat still exists
- The threat is still a lethal threat
- The threat is far enough away that reloading my gun makes more sense than punching him in the face or muzzle striking with the gun
- But the threat is not so far away that I cannot run away to escape
It's really unlikely for me to be in a lethal force encounter outside of my home given use of situational awareness and avoidance techniques. And now not only has that unlikely event occured, but I've mag dumped or I've shot to malfunction and my type 1 clearance (tap/rack) has also failed, and all four of those other things in bullet points are true. Man, that's one really unlucky day!
To include reloading in competition means that not only am I training for that extremely unlikely fringe situation (which I'm not sure has ever actually happened in the US to a civilian), but that I've modified my EDC towards that extremely unlikely fringe situation by carrying a spare magazine with me at all times.
I'm open to having my mind changed about carrying a spare mag if anyone can point to actual documented situations where it has made a difference or would have made a difference. I'm also open to reconsidering my opinion on civilian-based competition and drills that include reloading as part of it. And I'd like to explore the possibility of exclusively focusing my training on drills/standards that don't include mag changes.