Massad Ayoob: Three reasons why you need to carry extra ammo and magazines

[BigDaddy]

I carry an extra mag not so much for the extra rounds but in case the one in the gun malfunctions and here's why. One day I was going to clean my 239 and ejected the mag. When I did, all the bullets, the spring and the follower all shot out of the top of the mag. I realize that had I needed the gun I would have been able to get at least one round off but what about the rest? Would the mag continue to feed? I don't know. A careful examination of that mag appears to reveal that the feed lips are just slightly deformed. I'm glad it happened at home and not on the street.

[Crazy Dane]

Dang, do you still carry 1911s?

Occasionally, it all depends on where I will be. The city I work in has an ever increasing number of shootings. Most days its a P365x. If I will be inside of my small community I will carry a revolver or a 1911. My LCR is always with me regardless of what primary I have.

I do want to add that the Chip McCormick mag that broke had seen some hard use a few weeks prior at a class. The instructor had us doing partial mag changes and I'm sure it had hit the concrete several times with rounds still in it. This is when I learned that you need sperate gear for training.

[HCM]

You’re right that needing a spare magazine is not something seen in the typical shooting. I’ve seen it in video of a couple of atypical gunfights though, including one posted here a few months back which showed a magazine repeatedly falling out of an officer’s gun. First, as soon as he exited his cruiser, forcing him to reload with a new mag, and again several shots into the exchange, forcing him to load his final mag. People getting poor grips on their guns at the start of a gunfight is something I wouldn’t consider atypical. If that poor grip drops your mag accidentally and you don’t have a spare, you’re in trouble. I’ve also found spare mags to be much easier to carry and conceal that the gun itself. You can just throw one in your pocket if you don’t want to bother with a magazine pouch. I’ve always been of the opinion that if you’re going to bother carrying a gun, there’s no harm or extra hassle in carrying a spare mag. Sure, you probably won’t need it, but you also probably won’t need the gun to begin with. If it just so happens you do end up needing it, it’s there.

Agreed.

IME you are more likely to need a spare magazine in a fight than the rounds in that magazine.

I am a fan of capacity in the gun, because why reload if you don't have to? Nor is it likely I will expend the 16 or 22 rounds in my gun.

However, the current plethora of video of both LE and civilian shootings shows malfunctions occur more often in actual fights than on the flat range. While poor grip and general operator stress / error are the most common cause, magazine problems are the leading cause of mechanical issues and going to a fresh magazine is preferable to re-using the old magazine when remediating malfunctions.

Things like the Neomag mag clip make carrying an extra mag in a pocket easy.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Unfortunately, Ed - in the gun world you can folks who speak to those who carry more than '5' as a touch deranged. Not hard to find such folks. I certainly understand all the issues. Just read a piece by a retired police officer who was a hunter, sportsman, veteran who denounced the higher capacity guns as unnecessary for self-defense and the AR as a gun whose round will go through a bad guy, a wall, then another wall and out into the community. It was on news feed in a major op-ed but I can't find it now.

I heard the 5 mantra in a gun store in Austin (a good 'ol boy store) where the clerk said: If you can't get it done in 5, you ain't doing your job.

My attempt at satire, was that supposed gun folks do support bans and attack those who want weapons of war, mass destruction as unnecessary given the statistical 'guarantee' that you don't need more!

The actual utilization of the smaller guns - of course, they are understood by those here (for the most part). Folks do miss points such as one mag is enough capacity - ignoring the role of the extra mag in failures. I had one rip out the mag type jam in a steel challenge a few weeks ago.
A few months ago, my 1911 did one of those. Dropping the mag and going for the spare - oops, I don't believe in spares - oh, my.

[TGS]

I think there's a strong disconnect in a lot of peoples' thought trains, personally. If we were all out having lunch during a class, I bet no less than 100% of ya'll would cite something like Mumbai or Westgate as a reason you carry a gun. Or, any number of active shooter incidents, in which case some fold under pressure without offering any resistance yet a sizeable chunk go down with a fight.

But, when push comes to shove, you're not actually preparing for that, and use statistics regarding simple criminal encounters to justify carrying as little as possible. When you look at incidents involving dedicated shooters as opposed to simple, chance criminal encounters, the spare mag quickly gains relevance.

So, all I'll say is just be honest with yourselves.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

The problem with statistics, so to speak, is that there is a fallacy that the central tendency (mean, mode, median) is so likely that it makes the more extreme needs so unlikely as to be ignored in planning. No understanding of distributions. That's the core ignorance of the '5 is enough' mentality. The idea as I said earlier of a distribution of incident intensity and planning for a reasonable cut off in the tail of higher intensity isn't a consideration. That's why a statistics course as compared to spouting ' a statistic' is a good thing to have.

The modal, no shots fired in a DGU would argue for not bothering to have ammo - it's expensive anyway. This argument will go on until is whether:

1. You should carry an energy weapon over a 1911
2. Should you carry a spare power pack for your energy weapon.

I note that #1 was part of Robert Heinlein's Beyond this Horizon, a book that gave us the misunderstood Armed Society is a Polite Society line. The hero carried a retro 1911 and surprised his opponents who expected a neat, cauterized hole as compared to a bleeding mess.

The reasonable extreme cut off point is a semi (capacity of .GE. 10) and an extra mag or two. The Js and pocket semis are acknowledged for dress constraints. Even then some extra is a good idea. What else is new?

[BobM]

I'd like to see that article, have a link? That's definitely some serious dedication...

https://gunsmagazine.com/discover/redundancy/

[karmapolice]

I respectfully, and without judgement, disagree with @Utm and @Mark D on capacity > reload.

If a weapon is unable to properly cycle, capacity becomes irrelevant. I experienced a real-world event that required a reload two (2) rounds in and that pistol/magazine capacity was 17+1.

I suspect many, many more have experienced similar failure-to-feed issues on a flat range, but inexplicably discount this experiential-knowledge.

In the end, as friend says, outlier events are not outlier events when they happen to you.

Well said. A reload is important for so many reasons.

[Clusterfrack]

@Totem Polar, @Cdub_NW, and I were at @SouthNarc's ECQC last weekend. During evolutions (pressure testing scenarios) of gun grappling with Glock 17T (UTM paint marking trainers), I observed mags falling out of the gun 3 times just as a consequence of handfighting for control. In each case, the person didn't realize the gun had no mag, and repeatedly tried remediation that failed. While accessing a spare mag while entangled seems unlikely, this does underscore the usefulness of carrying a spare.

[Totem Polar]

@Totem Polar, @Cdub_NW, and I were at @SouthNarc's ECQC last weekend. During evolutions (pressure testing scenarios) of gun grappling with Glock 17T (UTM paint marking trainers), I observed mags falling out of the gun 3 times just as a consequence of handfighting for control. In each case, the person didn't realize the gun had no mag, and repeatedly tried remediation that failed. While accessing a spare mag while entangled seems unlikely, this does underscore the usefulness of carrying a spare.

This, all the way.