How I keep track of all my magazines

[sturmruger]

This last summer I was starting to develop a real problem. I just had too many magazines. Now I know many of you are thinking "you can never have too many magazines!" While I didn't have so many that I wanted to get rid of some, I was starting to have trouble keeping track of them. I have several of the same gun but in differant calibes(Steyr M9, M40, XD9, and XD40) these were the guns I was having the most trouble with. I had a few trips to the range that were screwed up by me not having the correct magazines.

I decided that something had to be done. I picked up some round orange and green stickers at Walmart. I then cut each circle in half, I assigned green to .40 S&W and orange to 9mm magazines. Then I took my stickers over to my buddies house and convinced him to do the same thing to all of his mags. Since we tend to shoot with eachother I thought it would be better if were both organized. I am sure I am not the first person to think of marking their mags, but it is a good idea that I thought might be helpful to some of the other people here on THR. I will post pics later today.

 

[Rembrandt]

Similar situation with my SA Omega 3 barrel set....all mags are for a 1911 frame, used color coded slam pads with caliber stamped on each.

 

[bnolsen]

So far I just throw all my mags in a big plastic drawer and go through them all before I go shooting. For some reason the smaller ones always end up on the bottom...

 

[sturmruger]

BN you should try my sticker idea. It really makes thing a lot easier.

 

[Black Snowman]

For my Desert Eagle I color matched the barrels and base pads to match when I re-finished it. For my CZs I just sold my 9mm so they'd all be .40s. The rest I can tell apart pretty easily. Pretty hard to confuse a CZ 52 magazine with my Glock 24 and I only have one 1911.

Color-coordinating is the fastest and easiest method I've found. Nail polish works well for this too and can be removed later if desired.

 

[rbernie]

Blued with stainless flat followers => 7rd 45ACP for the 1911 (steel framed)
Stainless with round-top followers = 7rd 45ACP for the 1911 (alloy framed)
Blued with blue flat followers => 9rd 9mm for the 1911 (steel framed)

The Buckmark and BUL/Kimber PC10-II magazines are pretty distinctive, so I don't worry about mixing them up too much. When I finally get my 10mm 1911-pattern, I'll probably start using Alumahyde and painting the magazine bodies different colors.