I just read the USCCA blog about adding 1 more round after chambering a round. I have always done that. Thoughts??
“Note that a lot of people “top off” their carry magazines (chamber a round, then add one more to the magazine). I generally discourage it. The stress of that last round has caused failures in at least two police shootings of which I’m aware. Besides, let’s face it, if 14 shots didn’t do it, 15 won’t likely make a difference. Reliability trumps one extra round.”
Personally, I carry +1. Every round counts and you never know when you’ll need every round. God forbid you’re ever in a situation with multiple attackers or even one very drugged attacker who takes every round to stop.
Be sure to check your equipment for wear and decreased performance - but that’s something you’ll want to do no matter how many rounds you carry.
I believe @KevinM also carries +1 - any input Kevin?
I’m going to chime in here with the same comment I left on the blog post: As much as I admire John Caile’s writing, I’m going to have to disagree with the idea of not topping off the magazine. I do it with both my duty gun and my CCW gun. I would ask you to consider this option: My Glock 22 has a 15-round magazine. I load 15 rounds in the primary magazine and 15 rounds in each of my spare magazines. Then, before I start my duty shift I run the slide to charge the pistol, reholster, remove the magazine and insert one round to replace the round that went into the chamber. Thus I have 16 rounds in the gun while on patrol. If the concern is that having 15 rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber could potentially cause a malfunction, I ask you this: What happens when I perform a tactical reload? You see my training at the police academy instructs me to perform a tactical (in battery) reload at the first opportunity during a gunfight. If I make that in-battery reload I am inserting a magazine loaded with 15 rounds into a pistol that already has a round in the chamber which is “topping off”… carrying “plus 1” or whatever you want to call it. The only way I am not doing so is if I shoot to slide lock and conduct a speed reload. So does that mean I should load my spare magazines with only 14 rounds? Finally with all the shootings in the world we have two that are believed to have been caused by this loading… that seems like a pretty small sample size upon which to be basing a change in protocol. Could there have been some other element involved? Like all self-defense decisions, this one is personal. But I will say this… if we start saying, “You don’t NEED 15; 14 will do.”… are we starting down the slippery slope of saying, “You don’t need 14; 10 will do.” To me, that sounds like we are giving folks justification for magazine restrictions. That 16th round might be the one that stops the threat. Something to think about.
I always top off. However I also have dedicated carry magazines since it has been proven leaving a magazine loaded doesn’t wear the spring out it’s the cycling of the spring. So I have 3 dedicated carry magazines and the rest are only for training.
I think I’m gonna call bs on that. 2 shootings out of how many? Sounds like an anomaly to me. Anything can fail, I subscribe to Murphy’s law. That’s why I carry extra mags, not so I can shoot more, so I can have a backup. Plus, if I had to, I can shoot more.
With 15 in the magazine or 14 or 2, the top round is held firmly in the same position. It doesn’t seem to me that there would be any extra pressure or interference on the round in the chamber if the magazine is full or not. I may not understand the process perfectly, but “the stress of that last round has caused failures” comment doesn’t compute. It would bother me less to carry 14+1 as opposed to 5+1 when it could be 6+1 in a pocket .380. Having a total of 7 rounds already seems minimal. I would hate to take one away!
Plus one for me. Looking at the Smith and Wesson’s page it lists the guns as magazine +1 capacity. It doesn’t matter if it s 6, 7, 8, 10, 12,15,17 round mag. They all are listed as +1.
I agree with the plus 1. In New Jersey I can’t carry yet but if I did, and others should pay attention to this, I would make sure that if I carried plus 1 that it didn’t put me over the amount that the state says I can carry. If your state says 15 maximum rounds and you have a 15 round clip and you put one in the chamber and then add one to the clip, you will be carrying 16 in which you would be breaking the law. In cases like that, and my state (NJ) limits to 10, I would just carry more clips then like it was also stated above.
Plus one for me. “Better to have and not need than not have and need.” I also carry extra ammo, i.e. magazine or speed loader. Not looking for a “war” and will avoid confrontations when possible. Just trying to be prepared for the unexpected, i.e. mag malfunction, etc.
I always top off my carry magazines and unload and reload my defensive ammo the first of every month to exercise the spring. I check that the spring is not hung-up each time I clean my gun. I have separate magazines to use at the range with “ball” ammo. My range magazines only get loaded when I’m going to the range that day. I use Federal HST 147gr for my defensive ammo.
Both are either on person or secured in my Vaultek quick access safe, with 15+1 and 7+1. They are always in this state until taken to the range, cleaning, or occasional dry fire training.
The degradation of the mag spring did pose concern when I started experiencing the failure to eject’s. After much digging, I’ve read some police officers rotate their mag’s every 60-90 day’s to avoid this.
I have started doing the same thing. I have yet to experience another failure to eject with over 2000 rounds fired since I have started this practice. Winchester target rounds Could have been the culprit, but I believe it was a combination of both the target rounds and mag springs. And unfortunately my finances do not enable range time with all carry rounds…
Currently I have two mag’s for each, and will obtain a 3rd when possible to enable a 2nd full mag for home storage. One mag is stored full +1 loaded in firearm, one is stored empty - then I rotate approx. every 30 days or so. As finances permit, ideally I will purchase more quick access safe’s and firearms to be placed in multiple areas throughout the home.
This process seem’s to solve the “spring degradation” and still enable +1 storage/carry constantly with as much concern for reliability.
My sample size is small, but bear with me. I have tested 4 handguns at the range loaded with +1. My results are 1 out of 4 had issues. Two were double stack 40 S&W, and two were single stack 9mm. I borrowed a buddy’s double stack 9mm, loaded it +1, and had no issues. So that makes a total tested by me of 5 different guns with a 20% failure to reliably feed loaded to +1. The one with problems was a 10 round single stack 9mm.
To expand further, one of the single stack 9mm holds 7 rounds per magazine, and the other holds 10. The 9mm cartridge case is tapered larger at the primer end and smaller at the bullet end. As you stack more and more of them on top of each other there becomes an ever increasing gap between the top cartridge in the magazine and the one below it on the bullet end – I am guessing that is why AR magazines are curved? Anyway the “gap” seems to become more pronounced after 6 rounds. I have not come up with a mechanical reason why the gap is much less pronounced in double stack magazines but that seems to be the case (no pun intended).
The failure to feed issue on the 10 round single stack 9mm was resolved by tightening the tension on the extractor. This was easy to do because it is an internal extractor 1911. The failures experienced were nose-dive jams of the cartridge into the feed ramp. My thoughts are the tighter extractor grabs the rear of the cartridge making it flatter onto the breach thus raising the front high enough to be guided into the chamber by the feed ramp.
Bottom line is each of us should test our carry guns loaded to +1 with carry ammo to confirm function in this configuration. Better to find out at the range than having a jam after firing 1 round in a dangerous situation. I do not believe this is a common problem …
@Gary_H going to hazard a guess on why the double-stacks have less trouble than the singles. Can’t remember off hand which one of my .22s (which have the mag pull-down button on the follower to make it easy to load), but you can see the primer-end offset in how the rounds sit in the mag… Normally you can’t see into the inside of the mag, but on this one, you can easily see into the mag from both sides. It’s technically a single-stack, but the rounds do not sit lined up in the mag.
What you’ll notice is that the bullet end is nearly lined up all the way down the mag, but the primer end sits offset left/right/left/right all the way up to the top 2 rounds, where the narrowing of the mag aligns the round to near-centered (second round), and then centered (top round). By allowing the thicker part of the cartridge butt-end-offset all rounds sit more parallel to the top round.
In rimless cartridges, any delta between the width of the front- and back-ends of the round would be allowed more adjustment room in a double stack.
I may be telling you stuff you already know, but maybe some folks don’t. On the double stacks, you’ll see this sort of diamond-shaped indent:
That’s there to align the double-width stack into position for single round presentation to the chamber.
In the firearm I’m talking about above, in the front the bullets are nearly lined up, but from the back, the rounds would look more like this double stack arrangement:
