2 less than max in an AR mag. Do you?

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I pretty much follow Larry Vickers' advice regarding magazines (and pretty much everything else) and have had zero issues since I started following it.

https://www.vickerstactical.com/magazines.html

Tip #2:
"2.) On tough to seat mags, download at least 1 round. If a fully loaded mag is difficult to seat with the slide or bolt assembly in battery, then download the mag by at least 1 round as a matter of habit. USGI aluminum M16 magazines are a good example of this as they are really only properly designed to take 28 rounds, not 30 as advertised. Glock pistol mags as a general rule should always be downloaded 1 round as a fully loaded mag is difficult to seat with the slide forward."
 
daniel craig said:
Is that the idea behind teaching slapping the mag in after insertion?
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Slapping a mag after inserting it... particularly a full loaded (30/30) mag, will do nothing to insure it's fully seated... you have to ram in on a closed bolt. I download my AR mags 1 round, and my M1a mags 1 round... for the same reasons.

Who here remembers SPORTS? Slap, Pull, Observe, Release, Tap, Shoot...
 
BigBore44 said:
No. Because I don’t think own any 30 round mags. If I do, I don’t use them. My AR’s are used for hunting. 5 and 10 rounds. So I load them full and cycle one in the chamber.
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Mine were/are used the same way mostly.
Full mag bolt open, drop bolt.
one in the pipe, -1 in the mag.
Round comes out of pipe, back in mag bolt open.

Most of my rounds were larger than 556 also.
 
Like @FL-NC, 29 was what I was taught as an employee of the government once upon a time ago.

I still download by one in any AR chambering if the mag is over 20 in total capacity.
 
Magpuls seem to work with full capacity. So just now have a gun that takes LR/SR mags, having to remind myself to load 20. Same for the SIG 55x.

But for most anything old school, like ARs with metal mags (all I own for 5.56) I download 2.

1 is enough for function, 2 is for process. Crosschecks then are the same in case you have to borrow someone's loaded-to-capacity mags. Sure you should CROSS check, and feel before then after, but having it always be the same reduces cognitive load, and there's often plenty to be thinking about already so it's probably worth it.

Plus I like being able to say cognitive load in front of you guys, not just at work or when writing articles/books.
 
I load my M1 Carbine 30 round magazines with ten rounds because the local military match rifle targets are scored by ten shots per target.
If there are more than ten holes in the target, the scorer deducts the highest value.hole(s) until there's ten holes counting toward score.
 
I've had issues some fully loaded pistol mags, but never with any rifle. With the pistols, I often load less then a full load, but that's non-competitive target shooting at the range, and how many consecutive shots you're capable of delivering isn't really much of a factor.
 
I've got at least a half dozen each of surplus M4 mags, Magpul, MFT, and Hexmag. I load them all full and give them a firm hit from the bottom if the bolt is closed. Someone else posted that "slap" does nothing: If you slap it on the side, probably not, but a good firm tap on the bottom will usually seat the mag into the catch.
 
daniel craig said:
Back when I had to use an M4 for a living, We always loaded a full 30 rounds in our mags and rarely/never had issues. I’ve seen a lot of people today sticking with the advice that you should only load up to two less than max (8 in a 10 or 28 in a 30) under the apparent assumption that a fully loaded mag will cause issues.

Does anyone do this, have you had issues with fully loaded mags?
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If a fully loaded mag causes problems you have bad mags or something wrong with your gun. I think they are not loading all the way because they think it will hurt the springs. LOL
If being fully loaded damaged the springs you would have to jack your car up when you get home to keep from hurting the springs. That never happens. Good springs are designed to take compression & decompression. What hurts springs is fast compressions over & over or fast decompressions with out a stopping point. Constant weight of compression won't hurt good springs.
 
I download one, for the reasons stated above regarding seating a mag on a closed bolt. A little bit of give with one short seems to make it a bit easier for me to seat. Others may load 30 (or 20) and have no issues, it’s all personal preference as to how you load your stuff.

I do give mags a slight tug downward after seating rather than a slap to the bottom of the mag. If I didn’t fully seat the new mag it will pull out and I can re-seat it rather than have it fall out while running or shooting.

I have found the “minus one” and mag tug is especially important with mini 14 mags. Those are really tough to seat full on a closed bolt in 20 or 30 round persuasions and the spring-loaded mag release will hold a poorly seated mag in place long enough to fall out as soon as you rack the bolt.

To each his own...

Stay safe.
 
Spent 28 years in the Army, and I always fully load mine, because that's how I was trained. It's how I trained others too. Now, maybe they're teaching to download one these days... I don't know, been retired since 2009.
It does make the closed bolt tactical reload easier, but if you're doing one of those, it's during a lull anyhow, so you can take your time to do it right.

The real problem with magazines are the feed lips. Can't be too frugal, and not trash a mag when it starts screwing up on you. A magazine is a consumable item. Otherwise it will pop a couple out loose in the action when you seat the mag on an empty chamber with the bolt locked back. Then you hit the bolt release, and you've got yourself a first class double feed jam. I actually had my wife mail me a couple dozen of my personal mags on my last deployment to Iraq so I could fix mag related problems in my section, because the unit was stupid, and mobilized with a crap ton of old training mags. (Left most of them in theater for the next unit. Probably belongings to some local now.)

I never did competitions for time like 3 gun matches, so I don't care how they do it. .
 
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Buzznrose said:
If a magazine is topped off to full with 30 rounds and the springs won’t compress on a closed bolt enough to easily seat the mag, then is the mag defective? I’d say not. But could mag designers add a tad more length to facilitate 30 rounds and still allow spring compression? Sure, but then folks will cram another round in it.

I download by one as needed so I can seat mags easily while under stress without worrying if they will lock in. It’s that simple.
Click to expand...

The answer to your first question question is "yes, the magazine is defective".

If ANY magazine does not function the way it's intended, then it's defective.

There are three ways to deal with this:

1. Repair it.
2. Replace it.
3. Live with it.

Living with a defective magazine is not fixing the problem. It's working around the problem, and the problem therefore persists.

As to people cramming another round into a magazine with a tad more length, that wouldn't be a magazine problem, that would be a personnel problem.

As for down-loading to enable a magazine to seat more easily...that's also a personnel issue. The choice being made here is to either train to load a magazine loaded to design capacity or down-load to make it easier. THIS I can understand as this isn't a claim against the design functionality of the magazine itself.
 
Space Ghost said:
Spent 28 years in the Army, and I always fully load mine, because that's how I was trained. It's how I trained others too. Now, maybe they're teaching to download one these days... I don't know, been retired since 2009.
It does make the closed bolt tactical reload easier, but if you're doing one of those, it's during a lull anyhow, so you can take your time to do it right.

The real problem with magazines are the feed lips. Can't be too frugal, and not trash a mag when it starts screwing up on you. A magazine is a consumable item. Otherwise it will pop a couple out loose in the action when you seat the mag on an empty chamber with the bolt locked back. Then you hit the bolt release, and you've got yourself a first class double feed jam. I actually had my wife mail me a couple dozen of my personal mags on my last deployment to Iraq so I could fix mag related problems in my section, because the unit was stupid, and mobilized with a crap ton of old training mags. (Left most of them in theater for the next unit. Probably belong to some Haji now.)

I never did competitions for time like 3 gun matches, so I don't care how they do it. .
Click to expand...

Well stated.

It amazes me how people will spend big bucks on a firearm and then intentionally live with endless frustrations caused by things totally under their control to fix.

If a magazine isn't functioning properly, repair or replace it.

That's no different to me than knowing your firearm doesn't like a particular type of ammunition and continuing to feed it to their gun "because it SHOULD work". Well, it doesn't work so stop doing that and feed it ammunition it functions reliably with.
 
P5 Guy said:
Hmm? No one does 30 + 1?
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Actually, yes I do. All of mine are fully loaded with a rd chambered. The only time I put a new mag in with open bolt is when I've just emptied a mag. All of them have 30rd mags except my coyote gun and my night vision gun, these usually have 10rd mags.
 
28/30
I missed an opportunity on a Texas hog hunt because I quietly inserted the mag in the pre-dawn darkness. It didn't seat. I got a <click> instead of a bang!
I'm glad it was a hunting trip and not a battlefield like some of you experienced.
 
If it's a 30 round mag, I load 30 in it. If it can't handle the 30, I throw it away. People don't download magazines in their handguns, why should a rifle be any different?
 
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