I don’t know where some of you are trained or by whom. But I know it was an engrained part of my training.
Once you dropped the target (if safe) you dropped partial mag and replaced it with a full one. You had no control over whether you were going to be reengaged or not. Then put partial on your rig to reload when you were really safe.
I guess my biggest problem with a proactive or tactical reload is that more often than not we jam our mags full. If you take a jammed mag and stuff it in a weapon with a closed bolt/slide there is a fair chance that after the next round is fired the magazine falls out the bottom of the gun. It’s totally random when it happens and now you are stuck in the middle of a gun fight conducting a failure drill for real. There is a school of thought that teaches ANY time you put in a new magazine you rack the slide/bolt just to mitigate this problem, it follows along with the idea that you don’t use the slide/bolt release.
In all the craziness that I have experienced over the years I cannot remember a time where I actually ran out of ammo except on a range. That said my Dad has stories from a particular hill in Vietnam where he ended up using an E Tool and M-16E Club to good effect before taking someone else’s gun. IMHO in the civilian world if you are in a gunfight and conserving ammo enters into your mind it’s long past time to break contact.
Cheers,
Craig6
That’s a good point.
I was did som dry fire with my AR before going to the range a few weeks back. At the range I thought there was something wrong with my AR because I had a tough time getting a mag in with a round chambered. I actually talked with the gunsmith because I thought something was wrong. (I keep my mags at 29-28 and was still struggling).
Turns out putting a mag in with a round chambered required a lot of force that wasn’t necessary while training with an empty chamber and 1 snap cap in the mag 
.
I personally haven’t had this issue with my handguns, the mag is harder to seat, but I smack it in. I think Clint smith trains to push pull the mag to ensure it’s been properly seated, but I’d you’re in a fight, there may not be time for that’s. I could see having this issue under stress.
Situational.
I never thought about it. Thanks. Interesting. Convinced me to cary three full “loads” (the loaded firearm, plus two full spare mags or two “sets” of full round capacity if using revolver, whether it be speed-loader, strips or loose rounds)…
@Craig6 With a pistol, I have emptied a 7 rd mag and reloaded once. I didn’t fire a single round of the reload.
“If you’re not shootin’, you should be loadin’. If you’re not loadin’, you should be movin’. If you’re not movin’, someone’s gonna cut your head off and put it on a stick.” ~ Clint Smith
My ECD was a Ruger LC9S which holds 7+1 and I always carried an extra mag. I upgraded to a Springfield Arms Hellcat which is nearly identical in size but holds 13+1. I feel confident enough with that, that if I forget my extra mag its no worry. If I’m in a situation where I think more than 14 rounds are needed I’d be looking to extract myself from that situation post haste. There’s a time to stand and fight and a time to turn and run! You need to be able to differentiate between these two scenarios. YMMV.
There are times when running may not be an option. There are also times when guns jam and mags need to be swapped to clear them. And other times when you may need to send a bunch of rounds down range to convince attackers to break off contact or to seek cover long enough to let you run away.
I spent an awful lot of years running to the fight to break contact by breaking the bad guy, now I’m thinking while there may have been merit to the idea of bold and aggressive on the battle field, break contact and evade may be my new mantra. Of course, if break contact means a hail of copper and lead, I can be good with that.
Cheers,
Craig6
See this is what happens when you let a couple of perfectly good Navy Corpsman hang out with Marines too much. We start eating Crayons, and the only acceptable way through an ambush is shooting everything in front of you. 
I DO NOT eat crayons. A perfectly respectable snake eater taught me that by combining crayons and … umm oh wait this is an open forum. Never mind, nothing to see here, napalm cannot be improved upon, carry on.
Ambushes on the other hand can be handled in several ways one of which is breaking contact and sucking the enemy into his own fatal funnel and defeating him with overwhelming firepower and violence of action.
Yeah, Corpsmen should not be left alone with Jar Heads, Frogs, PJ’s and Green beanies for any length of time as we begin to apply medical annalysis to to knuckle dragger theory and it just goes off the rails from there.
Cheers,
Craig6
Medics and Corpsmen have been the secret to SOCOM’s success ever since they found out you guys can cure hangovers. 
It’s amazing what a bottle of Visine and a quick bag of lactated wringers will do for a hangover. Especially when reveille is in 20 minutes. Oh and mouthwash.
I’m just saying, I carry for protection of me and mine. If I somehow stumbled into a situ where my 13 +1 ain’t enough, while returning fire I’m looking for a exit. Any exit!
I’ve never been taught to drop a partial magazine. You were trained in the military right, @Zavier_D? I wonder if that’s the difference? 
Only time I drop a partial magazine is on a misfire or misfeed.
The military doesn’t train to drop partial mags in a firefight, but Infantrymen (Marines and Army) are taught to exchange a partial for a full mag during any significant lull in the action or before moving out from cover. That’s how I read @Zavier_D 's post.
@Ken38 has it right. Though I was in the Navy, the nature of my ratings had me spend significant TDY with the Marines.
Has anyone ever been in a shooting and wished they had less ammo with them at the end of it?