Loading Magazines for Defensive Shooting

All right When you get ready to go hit the range you're gonna get out on the firing line. Whether it's your training with your training partners or actually taking part in the class. Let's think about the best way to set up our magazines for the maximum training value. Now, we know that we're gonna be wanting to shoot multiple shots strings of fire. And we're gonna talk about that in a second but we also know that we're probably not gonna wanna be doing full magazine dumps. If we're really trying to prepare ourselves for realistic defensive use of a long gun. So in the absence of specific directions from your instructor, how are you gonna load your magazines? How are we gonna set your magazines up? Well let's just break it down to fundamentals. If you have one box 100 rounds, two boxes of 50 rounds whatever. You got a hundred rounds to use at the range. If you take three magazines, load them fully you have a couple of rounds left over and you take a fourth magazine, put the spare ones in there. What you're gonna end up with is the opportunity to practice three actual reloads and then one simulated reload. So for your hundred rounds, you get not that surprised by the actual reloads. Because you're gonna be shooting so much to get through that 30 or more rounds. When you're actually going to the bolt lock that you're gonna start anticipating when that reload is coming. Also because you have 30 rounds inside of that magazine. You're gonna know for a fact that the first several commands the first several multiple rounds Springs of fire there's no way you're gonna hit boat lock. So your brain is saying, just shoot, just shoot, just shoot. You're not worried about the bolt lock. And then when you get closer to the bolt lock you're actually gonna start anticipating it thinking about it a lot more. That's not what we want for counter ambush training. It's not what we want for stimulus response training. So downloading your magazines. Usually I'll say something like 10 to 15 rounds. If you're doing the kind of multiple shots strings I think you should be doing, in terms of home defense, personal offense, law enforcement use private security use. And probably even the military use of a firearm especially in close quarters. You're probably gonna wanna be able to get multiple strings of fire during any one of your commands for any magazine that goes into the gun. But also not exactly be sure if that reload is coming in the third string of fire the fourth string of fire, or the fifth or maybe even the sixth string of fire. Putting 10 to 15 rounds in each mag is gonna give you that opportunity. Also if we go back to our simple math if we put 15 rounds inside of the magazine 10, 12, 15 rounds somewhere in there. And we have a hundred rounds. Now we get much closer to having seven or eight real reloads, maybe even nine. Maybe as few as five again but it gives us a much better opportunity to not know when that reloads coming to not be able to anticipate the reload. If I put 10 to 15 rounds in here or I'm shooting four to six rounds every string of fire. I might hit my reload on the second string of fire or I might be able to go four or five. We don't know. That helps us to be more open to the stimulus. The stimulus is what actually elicits the response. That's how it's gonna be in the real world. When we're focused on our threat, we're focused on our family. We're worried about getting hurt. Whatever our other distractions are, those the things that are gonna be in our mind, not thinking, Oh I've done four or five strings of fire here comes a reload. So the way you set up your magazines can be very important. So again, in the absence of direction from an instructor, I recommend 10 to 15 rounds per mag have a few mags on your body. And the one thing you want to make sure you're doing is cycling these mags through your primary reloading location. For me, if that reloading location is this back pocket, I might be carrying a dump pouch. I might be putting magazines in all kinds of different pockets. But after I reload from my back pocket, I wanna make sure I take that magazine from my cargo pocket, from my dump pads, from my bag whatever it is and put another one into my back pocket. If that's where I'm gonna be reloading from. I wanna get as much practice as possible reloading from there. If it's one magazine, it's gonna be on my duty belt or on my belt with a clip on carrier. Cool do that. Again battle belt, chest rig, carrier whatever it is you're going to be reloading from. Make sure you're getting as much practice as possible always reloading from that place. Because you're downloading your mags, you might wanna have more mags on your person than you normally would carry. So think about the way you're setting your magazines up. Make sure you don't game it too much. If you're doing counter ambush training, defensive training, you wanna be caught off guard as much as possible. And those tips are gonna help you to be able to do that.