Administrative Reload: Reloading Techniques

I want to talk about the administrative reload and the concept of the administrative reload as it pertains to defensive firearms training. If I'm primarily concerned with using this device as a defensive tool, the administrative reload is irrelevant. I don't need to practice it. I don't need to have a technique. I don't need to have any awareness of it at all. In fact, it'd probably be better if it wasn't even in my lexicon. If I didn't think about it as a term. When I get out on the range, if I do have an unloaded gun, I'm simply going to take my magazine. Insert it firmly into my magazine well, just like I would during a slide lock reload. Rotate my hand up and over, pull back and release. At this point, the gun's loaded. If I make sure that magazine was seated. If I want to check that, fine. I can check that also. If I really want to worry about it, I can look down and know well I had one round in there, now I have zero rounds, that gun's loaded. If the gun is not loaded, I don't understand the physics of it. The magazine was seated. There was a round in there. I pulled back, released. It's gotta be in the chamber. And certainly there are other external ways that some firearms let you check to make sure something's in the chamber. But at the end of the day, I think common sense is probably a good guide here. If I loaded the gun, I loaded the gun. If I want to do anything else, then I simply would take another loaded magazine and put it into the firearm. And now if this magazine were loaded fully, I would know that I'm now at maximum capacity. So again, knowing that the magazine is loaded with a certain number of rounds, inserting it, racking the slide, checking the magazine to be sure that it has one less round. Even if I want to empty them out on the table and check. That's fine. There's no reason to have a different technique for reloading the gun than the one that's going to save you in the most efficient way. When you're actually shooting you actually reach slide lock and you need to get the gun reloaded and back into the fight. That's the reload. That's the way you should practice reloading your gun. If you're really concerned about personal defense or the defense of others.