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Should I carry a spare magazine

Jimbo

Jimbo

Elite
Here's a really great article about whether or not you should carry a spare magazine.

Carrying a Spare Magazine – When Two is One and One is None - Online Concealed Handgun Permit

This is one of those issues that is guaranteed to keep concealed carry license holders talking for hours. Whether it is wise to carry a spare magazine with...
onlinechp.com onlinechp.com

The author does an excellent job of presenting the advantages and disadvantages both of carrying and not carrying a spare magazine.

Something that I never thought about: if you carry a spare magazine in your pocket, it can get damaged and become non-functional because of bumping things in your pocket, or because of pocket lint getting in the magazine - "Magazines are designed with some tight tolerances. If you have ever encountered a misfeed because of a bent or damaged magazine lip, you will understand. A bit of fuzz in the wrong place at the wrong time can be a showstopper for some pistols."

When I think about how some aftermarket magazines don't work as well as the ones from the gun manufacturer, I realize that magazines have to be perfect. This reinforces the author's statement about a bent or damaged magazine failing.

I'll bet your spare magazine is more fragile than your gun. If I bump up against something, and my magazine is on that side of my body, I would be afraid that it would get bent from the bump.

I'm looking right now at getting an ankle holster for my spare magazine. I think that is the best option, both for speed of access, protection from possible damage (I can carry it on the inner side of my leg), and not cluttering up my one remaining front pants pocket even more than it already is (I pocket carry my gun in my other front pants pocket).

Either that, or a hard plastic box that snaps shut, that I can put the magazine in while I pocket carry it. Getting the magazine out of a hard plastic box would slow me down a bit if I ever need the spare magazine; however, being in the hard plastic box would protect the magazine from damage and would ensure that the magazine actually works if I ever need it.
 
While most confrontstions will require no more than 3 shots, what if you find yourself in a riot or multiple bad guys?
I would think pocket lint or change or anything else is gonna compromise your weapon just as easily as your spare mag. The bent feed lip isn't really a valid argument either. Quality mags both factory and aftermarket are more resilient than you give them credit for.
 
Regardless of the stats regarding gunfights, a mag is a critical part of your weapon systems and parts do CRAP out at the most inopportune moment. It doesnt matter that you only need 3 shots if your magazine craps out after 1. If your mag craps out, you have a serious problem. Carrying a second magazine is cheap insurance . I agree that the chances of this failure occurring is rather unlikely. It is also unlikely that you will ever be thrust into a gunfight. Still, we are talking about defending life. A $20 magazine doesnt eat much.

As far as damage, lint or whatever, occurring in your pocket, I simply roll my eyes to that. If a person is carrying a spare mag loose in their pocket without some sort of slip case, holder or some manner of "carrier", I call that a goofball move. I carry my extra mag in a pouch designed specifically for the pocket. I seriously doubt that the magazine is going to be damaged in my pocket. As far as lint and debris goes... inspect your kit regularly and dont worry about it.
 
KASHIRA-3 said:
It doesnt matter that you only need 3 shots if your magazine craps out after 1. If your mag craps out, you have a serious problem.
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Recusant said:
A spare mag is easily concealed and hardly noticeable under a shirt. I carry mine on my left side.
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I have shot close to 800 rounds from my factory magazines and they are yet to fail feeding.
Why are people so worried about them failing? Does anyone has a story about factory magazines failing on you? Might as well worry about the whole gun failing.

Where do we stop?

Personally I have a 13+1 round in my EDC and carry a spare magazine in my center console, but that's not on me while walking around.
Why? Because it's too much on my belt, IMO for no actual benefit. Weapon on right, mag on left, wallet, phone...
Recusant said:
I can retrieve it as I push the mag release button. It's a good thing to practice.
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The t-shirt is over it, so you need to clear that first. Then, my mag pouch is kind of tight, takes a bit to grasp the top of the mag. If I didn't clear the self-defense situation by then, with 14 rounds... this will take too long.
Multiple guys? What, they will be all standing nicely in one spot? If one is in back and two in front, no amount of mags will help you.
Awareness is too underrated.
 
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SoNic said:
I have shot close to 800 rounds from my factory magazines and they are yet to fail feeding.
Why are people so worried about them failing? Does anyone has a story about factory magazines failing on you? Might as well worry about the whole gun failing.

Where do we stop?

Personally I have a 13+1 round in my EDC and carry a spare magazine in my center console, but that's not on me while walking around.
Why? Because it's too much on my belt, IMO for no actual benefit.
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Magazines fail all the time. A lot of aftermarket magazines don't function properly from day one. I have a drawer full of 13 rd. mags for my Llama Max II pre Clinton ban .45 commander clone that have FTF issues. I haven't pitched them because I am down to 2 functioning factory mags and the only thing available are Mec-Gar aftermarkets.
 
Sld1959 said:
I know a guy who has twice found a magazine that dropped free on the bench seat at a restaurant he worked at. For a time, whoever it was had a one shot pistol on thier belt. Hopefully they had a spare magazine, just in case.
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Did that fall because the magazine? Or because his holster depressed the release button? Or he had an oversized button to start?
Spare magazine won't help there.
 
SoNic said:
Did that fall because the magazine? Or because his holster depressed the release button? Or he had an oversized button to start?
Spare magazine won't help there.
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Of course it will help. Not only do magazines fail, but shooters fumble them, drop them accidentally, etc.. When they do you don't think having a spare or two will help ?

When I was a working musician I had a spare of every single thing I had in my trailer. Spare sound board, spare amps, spare subs, guitars, basses, mains, cables, literally everything. I can't tell you how many times hauling all that extra stuff around saved a gig. One night 2 of my monitor speakers started smoking and caught fire. Thankfully I had spares.

The same idea here. Anything can happen and while it won't hurt you to have a spare magazine or two on you, it could hurt you not to.
 
I can definitely see there's opinions all over the place. I guess the answer is do what makes you feel safe. I carry 1-2 extra mags and most of the time 2-3 guns. I've had all kinds of things go wrong with guns, mags. etc.. I've had ultra reliable firearms go belly up and there has been more than once in the heat of things that jams occurs that rendered the magazine completely useless. The biggest thing is to be prepared and ready at all times, even at home behind locked doors.
 
Kanoy said:
I can definitely see there's opinions all over the place. I guess the answer is do what makes you feel safe. <snip>
The biggest thing is to be prepared and ready at all times, even at home behind locked doors.
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^ I really think that this hits the nail on the head - we all have different takes on what we need - be it skill-level or in terms of hardware.

The really is to be aware of what your abilities and limitations are, and understand the trade-offs that you've made.

SoNic said:
I have shot close to 800 rounds from my factory magazines and they are yet to fail feeding.
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In early 2016, I responded to a thread on on M4C.net, where a fellow Xdm shooter asked some questions about the magazine springs for his Xdm.

At the time, I wrote that I had accrued about 70K live-fire rounds through three XDm9s, cumulative since Q4, 2010.

Virtually everything had been through the same 6 range/training magazines I purchased in November of 2010, when I started shooting. The majority, actually, rest on four of those six, but even taking the larger figure as the basis for calculation, that's still well north of 11,000 rounds per magazine, live fire. That's well over 500 cycles of the magazine spring, assuming full 19-round cycles.

It was only at the end of the 2016 class-season that I started noticing failures that were, as I diagnosed, magazine spring related.

I had other magazines ( how many? well, I wrote this post on XDTalk just earlier this month, as an encouragement to @BassCliff https://www.xdtalk.com/threads/bass...ncho-magnum-range-8-6-21.452549/#post-7981700 ), so I just put new ones into service. It wasn't until a bit later that I actually got around to replacing those magazine springs, but when I did, they were restored to full function.
 
One thing that I did want to come back and add -

Yes, I do carry a spare mag - and yes, I carry it because I fear my primary magazine failing when I need it, most. Yes, I know that as the magazine that's resident in the gun, this is most unlikely (and as I carry my autoloaders "+1," it's even more unlikely that a first-round problem will be due to the resident mag) as it is essentially more protected than the spare that I carry, but given that I've just become that "n of 1" (as the late Paul Gomez used to say) statistical outlier (CONUS) by having had to use my firearm in lethal-force self-defense...I'm even less optimistic about the rest of my day's odds. 😁:p

The understanding that we all have as more experienced gun-owners and more-practiced gun-users is that for box-magazine fed autoloaders, the weakest link in the mechanical system is, more often than not, that magazine. Be it the magazine spring, the follower, the base-plate, or the feed-lips and/or body, there's a lot that can go wrong, there.

Certainly, the argument can be made -as @SoNic did- that maybe we should carry a spare gun (or two), and we do have folks like @Kanoy , who do just that. But as with many other considerations -hardware, how to stage the gear, what we train/how we train, etc.- we should all realize that our individual decisions are arrived at through multifactorial considerations that can oftentimes be very, very individualized and highly personal. Rarely is it as easy as we can make them out to be, academically. :)

Now, that said.....

For those who would suggest that the magazine is among one of the biggest potential failure points, I would like to implore that, if you have not yet done so, for you to please, ASAP, go and mark your magazines each in a unique and near-indelible manner.

What I mean is that you should mark EACH magazine so that you can tell it apart, for-certain and with-ease, from any other magazine.

Being able to track individual magazines will not only help you keep track of that one magazine that may be failing or have failed, but also can help you in real-time troubleshooting, when you are at the range, in a class, or during competition.

Particularly when you have more than just a handful of magazines for one fitment/gun ( remember that Larry Vickers advises shooters to have at least five [5] magazines for each of their "serious use" guns :) ), it's often really easy to lose track of which mag is which. This, added to the frustration and confusion that often comes with having to deal with an unexpected malfunction of the gun....it's really easy to mix up mags.

I embedded a link above to an XDTalk thread where I showed my cache of XDm mags, the vast majority of which I'd already labeled, but here's some more motivational pictures! :)

Rig.jpg



^ This was from a rather low round-count three-day + one-night class, but I'd used those mags a least in 4 other classes by that point in the year. You can see that the paint-pen'ing on the XDm mags' basepads are a bit beat-up, but it's still very legible (and I'm one of those guys who likes to use his spare mags as an armrest, which you saw here: https://www.xdtalk.com/threads/bass...ncho-magnum-range-8-6-21.452549/#post-7981700) . Those were my spare user set while I awaited replacement magazine springs for my main user set (which I'd referenced above, as one of those that saw upwards of 11K live-fire rounds used), of which " #3 " you'll see below, in-gun:


Urban Prone.jpg


^ This was towards the end of that calendar year, and those mags had been through several outings by that point (and yes, that's the same shirt - the picture above this one was taken in Q2, 2017, while this one was Q4, 2019 😅 ).

And from many years ago......

CostaHE02-2.jpg


^ That was a SIX-day class that was also very heavy on ground-work (the tape was holding my flayed palm together, user-error 😅 - damn that Dawson front sight post was sharp!). Again, you can see that the markings (fresh before the class) were beat-up, but far from indistinguishable.


Rows 2 and 3.JPG


^ I also mark the magazine bodies on the front and rear flats, near the base-pads (where my grasp naturally miss), with a Sharpie. As with the ones in my XDTalk out-link, you can see that on the back of the magazine that's sitting on the white Lego at the top right of the picture that there's a number "4" written there. I find that unless I'm fondling the mags for some reason during class breaks, these markings tend to stay on quite well (with the X-Tensions covered mags, those are covered by the X-Tensions, of-course).

It's quick and dirty and gets the job done - but at the expense of occasionally needing to revisit. :)

[ I also wanted to show this picture as you can see the kind of wear that the base-plates get over time: the middle row is that set of really heavily used mags. There, you can also see that the feed lips have taken some damage/wear over the years. ]
 
Funwithfuel said:
I would think pocket lint or change or anything else is gonna compromise your weapon just as easily as your spare mag. The bent feed lip isn't really a valid argument either. Quality mags both factory and aftermarket are more resilient than you give them credit for.
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First thing I do when I get a pair of pants out of the laundry is clean all of the lint out of both front pockets. I then check my holster for lint or other crud - I make sure it is also clean. Only then do I holster my gun and put it in my pocket. And that's all that ever goes into that pocket, so I don't think I'll have a problem with lint clogging up my gun. If I didn't do that, then there would be that risk, even though I use a pocket holster. Same thing would apply to a spare magazine.

I'm not arguing about the quality or resilience of magazines; I'm saying that I want to reduce the chances of failure as much as possible when it is my life that is on the line.
 
Funwithfuel said:
I totally misunderstood your opening. I took it to mean , why carry one when it could become damaged? My position is as it's always been. Better to have and not need than the other way around.
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My purpose in posting that article was because it struck me as being very well thought out, presenting good arguments for both sides - whether or not you should carry a spare magazine.

The reason I mentioned the possible damaging of your spare magazine is because I had never really thought about it before, and it seemed like something that would be good to at least consider.

The reason I am thinking about carrying a spare magazine is because I have finally decided on my preferred carry gun - a single stack gun. This mean that I won't have a whole lot of ammo with me if I carry only that gun. I'm still deciding that issue.

My honest opinion is that each person needs to inform themselves, and then make the very best decision that works for them.

Thank you for your last comment.
 
Bassbob said:
Magazines fail all the time. A lot of aftermarket magazines don't function properly from day one. I have a drawer full of 13 rd. mags for my Llama Max II pre Clinton ban .45 commander clone that have FTF issues. I haven't pitched them because I am down to 2 functioning factory mags and the only thing available are Mec-Gar aftermarkets.
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I had a Mec-Gar magazine for my AMT Hard Baller .45 ACP 1911, a few years ago. I was demonstrating a drill for our police recruits with the new magazine when the magazine literally fell apart. Needless to say I threw it away. I will never own another Mec-Gar magazine.
 
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