How many mags would be enough

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taliv is right, if you shoot a lot, out in realistic conditions where your magazines are hitting the ground and getting subjected to the elements they are not going to last like a magazine that only sees a bench rest on sunny days.

You use your tools and they will require repairs.. new springs, lubricants etc. magazines are the same way. I'm much rather buy a new one that try to 'rebuild' a dented metal or chipped polymer magazine. How many is enough when you run your gear hard? Too much is never enough--or only those with sponsorships will be able to shoot competitively.
 
I like to have four for each pistol and at least five for each rifle; preferably ten. In the movies, mags are disposable items and we would probably need 1,000 or more if we tossed them aside like empty soda cans.
 
At least eight 30 rders for my AK 47. Too much and its getting too heavy.
Five mags for my Ak 74. I hope i will never gonna use it .
 
I buy mags whenever I can afford them. Like Taliv said, they are consumeable items and aren't going to last forever. Sure, you can replace springs and followers, but once in a while you're going to really do a number on a mag body and have to toss it in the scrap heap.

Having said that, if you've got at least a dozen you're probably good. But because we all have different interests and needs, I consider that number to be just a WAG at an average and by no means a guideline for anyone but myself. If I get down to 12, I'm gonna get serious about acquiring more quickly. My comfort zone is more. But I think I could manage fine with less.
 
I have about five per weapon. I don't baby them, and when they're toast, I get new ones.

Seriously though, if something goes horribly wrong and we're all left surviving for ourselves, you are NOT going to want to get into sustained firefights where you're burning through magazine after magazine. You're going to want to hide, and try to get what you need or want without any confrontation. So I don't see any point in stockpiling mass amounts of them.
 
I like to have five magazines for training classes. For defensive purposes somewhere between three and five per firearm. Should magazines be hard to come by, I would use 10 rounders for training classes and range shooting and keep larger capacity for defensive use.
 
taliv said:
if you train a lot, you will damage a few. when they are $8, you tend not to care too much about damaging them. When they are $40, you will probably be more careful
Click to expand...

More properly, when you can buy a replacement for $8, you tend not to worry.

But when the replacement ISN'T AVAILABLE AT ANY PRICE....
 
I like having extra magazines, especially for semi autos like the AR, S&W M&P 15-22 or pistols like the PX4, Ruger SR22, or other guns I shoot a lot.
I don't like loading mags while shooting.
About dark I practice a lot of low light laser/light shooting, so I like to have at least 10 mags loaded and ready to go.

As a general rule I think you should have about 50 AR mags and at least 10 mags for most semi auto pistols and rifles.
I do have just 2 mags for some guns just because the mags aren't available or way to expensive for what little I use the gun.

Basically I think you can't go wrong having all the mags you can afford.
 
With all this nonsense coming down,how many mags for a particuler rifle would be good to have as a minimum ? My neighbor has 5 for an ar, i have 38;is that overkill?
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In the past, I was comfortable with a half-dozen mags for each of my semiautos, but with the current possibilities of widespread bans I wish I had at least twice that. Right now, I don't think I you can really have too many mags.
 
if you shoot a lot, out in realistic conditions where your magazines are hitting the ground and getting subjected to the elements they are not going to last like a magazine that only sees a bench rest on sunny days.
Click to expand...
Realistically, your magazines need to be retained so they can be reloaded if you survive and be used to fight the next fight.
 
How many magazines you have is really more a matter of what you use the gun for than anything else. Hunting, two magazines are probably plenty, with one of them being more about a spare if the other one breaks than anything else. If its self/home defense figure out what your basic load is going to be. Then I want magazines just for the range so I don't have to unload home defense magazines just to go shooting. I probably want a couple of more magazines to keep in the car. It just really depends on what the gun is for.
 
In the USMC, the standard load is six magazines. We all carry at least that with more not far away. I guess if we all had that, and all had AR-15's in 5.56, we would closely mimic the world's greatest fighting force. And what a good force to mimic!

SSgt Blythe
 
In Vietnam I carried 10-12 twenty rounders plus another 100-150 rounds on a belt in my pack. I don't see Mad Max rolling up the street so yes, 5 should be plenty as a MINIMUM.
 
Isn't this a bit like asking the wife how many pairs of shoes she needs?

(For rifles, it depends on whether they are semi auto or bolt action. For the former, I think a dozen per rifle is a good number. For the latter, like semi-auto handguns, at least two or three per weapon.)
 
Currently, I don't have a rifle that has a detachable magazine. Mine is tube-fed.

However, I do have several pistols which have magazines. My desire is to have enough magazines for any given pistol so that I can load up a full 50 round box of ammunition at one time, or close to it.

For my Colt 1991A1, this means 7 magazines (49 rounds), for my Baretta 92FS, this means 3 magazines, etc.

If I had a rifle with a detachable magazine, likely I would consider the same thing.

This isn't driven because I think I need that many rounds in the field or wherever. It's solely a matter of range convenience for me. When I'm shooting at a range, I want to spend more time actually shooting and less time reloading magazines during the down time.
 
I've realized that I do not have enough for any of my mag fed guns.

My carry gun has 3 mags, but one is a 20 round that will never get carried anywhere except the range. I would like to get a couple more standard capacity mags.

My .22 has 4 mags, but they are limited to 10 rounds. I'd like to get 6 more for an even 10, but would settle for one more for a total of 5.

I only got my AR in October, and currently only have 3 mags. I have 2 on back order, and know folks with mags that they are willing to part with. I'd prefer a minimum of 7, but would like to have 10.

My M-44 has 25 stripped clips ready to go. I don't feel the need for any more.
 
At least 3 per pistol and rifle. that's just for carry, 1 in the gun and 2 spares, with these new sub compact pistols, you only get 7 or 8 rounds each. If it were a glock 19 I would say 1 extra would be enough, I feel better with one 6 rounder in the gun and 2 -7 rounders in my belt, with the shiels, and with the XD, 2 5 rounders, and a 7 as a reload.You need to assume you may miss a few shots if you really do get in a shootout, if there were 2 men, and you were lucky enough to live through it, 10 rounds go real fast.
And the last thing you need to do, is run out of ammo,
By the way I found a new trick, in order to stop my pocket holsters from bouncing or moving around in my pocket, I picked up these small velcro patches "like quarter size", and put one in each pair of pants and one on the holsters I use.
Now the gun stays still. And a whole package is like 3 bucks, enough for 15 pants, and holsters.Think of the possibilitys.
 
1 old 0311-1 said:
In Vietnam I carried 10-12 twenty rounders plus another 100-150 rounds on a belt in my pack. I don't see Mad Max rolling up the street so yes, 5 should be plenty as a MINIMUM.
Click to expand...

You've answered a question that was big asked. ("In Vietnam, how many mags and rounds did you carry?") For battle, the answer is different than how many mags are prudent to own.

The question was: how many mags are enough?

As mentioned, mags are a wear item and can become damaged, lost or stolen. If replacements are available at a reasonable price, what's the answer?

If replacements aren't available, does the answer change?

The same question applies to "how much ammo is enough?"

It's moot either way at this point, since mags have been seen for as much as $225 at last weeks gunshow and .223 seems to be sold out everywhere.
 
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