Mag Appropriation

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Good Ol' Boy

Good Ol' Boy

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If this needs to be moved have at it mods.

So I watched a video the other day from John at ASP where he said basically once a mag hits the ground its dedicated to range use only and he wont use it for EDC.

I'm wondering if theres anyone else here that feels the same way?

As a competitive action shooter all my mags get dropped on a regular basis and I've never thought twice. I rotate everything but it all gets used. Never an issue.

Obviously I check them regularly and if anything were out of whack it would either get fixed or tossed.

I mostly shoot Glocks and I realize theres a difference in poly mags versus all metal so theres that.

But still, to designate a mag that's been dropped to range only work seems silly to me. Maybe I'm missing something.
 
I would not worry about an empty hitting the ground in a match. I have never seen one where they are one concrete. If the empty is falling in dirt? Hard to bend the lips. Now if I accidentally stepped on one I would want to make sure it was not damaged but just falling on the ground, no. Guess a LOT would come down to what kind of pistol it was. Some mags are or at least used to be cheap enough you could have some for carry I guess. If it's a pistol where the mags are pricey, or you are trying to find more at a time like this, where everything is hard to find? May make a difference.
 
Alex Clayton said:
I would not worry about an empty hitting the ground in a match. I have never seen one where they are one concrete. If the empty is falling in dirt? Hard to bend the lips. Now if I accidentally stepped on one I would want to make sure it was not damaged but just falling on the ground, no. Guess a LOT would come down to what kind of pistol it was. Some mags are or at least used to be cheap enough you could have some for carry I guess. If it's a pistol where the mags are pricey, or you are trying to find more at a time like this, where everything is hard to find? May make a difference.
Click to expand...



Never been to an indoor match I take it? Most indoor ranges I've been to have concrete floors.

Still, it's not something that bothers me personally.

Obviously outdoors your just hitting dirt, gravel, etc.

Them being stepped on regardless of surface is also something worthwhile to be aware of.
 
That is silly in my opinion. Most OEM mags and those made by reputable manufacturers such as Mec-Gar will run just fine regardless of how many times they’ve been dropped and regardless of whether they were dropped on concrete, grass, gravel, etc. To say that a dropped mag is only worthy of range use is hogwash. I would be amazed if greater than 0.5% of mags used by the military and police haven’t been dropped before.
 
Well, sounds like he has more money than sense. I am retired now but was LE for decades. Our mags hit the ground numerous times every quarter (or more) and they went right back in the duty weapon. It was easy to get replacements if an issue came up though. We never had a shooting where a magazine failed.
 
Several points:
  • mark you mags - know what performs, what does not, and why
  • I shot inside for years on concrete floors, the mags still worked...these were not my carry mags...
  • A shooter I respect put his my mags into three piles - new, carry, practice....new became carry after proven, carry became practice, practice were renewed or scrapped...
  • A member of an organization I respect, put carpet samples down where the mags would drop on concrete...
  • My key take away...mags are tougher than you think, take care - but not baby - your carry mags, make sure your carry mags work...lose confidence, they are now practice mags....
 
Good Ol' Boy said:
Never been to an indoor match I take it? Most indoor ranges I've been to have concrete floors.

Still, it's not something that bothers me personally.

Obviously outdoors your just hitting dirt, gravel, etc.

Them being stepped on regardless of surface is also something worthwhile to be aware of.
Click to expand...

No never have seen a "run and gun" thing indoors, did not know any of them did that. They do some kind of practice where I go but everyone is standing at the benches to no where for mags to go. I guess if I was running around on concrete dropping my empties I would want to at least take a look at them before using them again. Still hard for me to imagine being able to drop and empty hard enough on the lips to deform them. When I have had mags that needed tweaking of the lips they were quite hard to move.
 
One of the reasons I prefer Glocks is that MagPul makes cheap aftermarket magazines for them. I have about 15 MagPul Glock 19/26 magazines that I use for practice and training My OEM get just enough use that I know they don't have issues then they get used for carry.
 
I do check all my equipment on a regular basis, but I don't have a rule like the one in the OP. I guess I could if I wanted without going to much trouble.

It wouldn't be hard to designate a few mags as carry/SD only and never let them hit the ground and use the others for practice only and make sure they never go on carry/SD duty. Realistically, most people probably only carry one mag and a spare for SD. Even if you only had 3 or 4 mags, you could make a strategy like that work.

I guess in one sense, maybe I do something like that. I still have a batch of old AWB mags that I keep for hard use. They will never be used for SD since they are limited capacity, so I don't worry much about what kind of abuse they take.
 
Good Ol' Boy said:
So I watched a video the other day from John at ASP where he said basically once a mag hits the ground its dedicated to range use only and he wont use it for EDC.
Click to expand...
I seem to recall one of John's ASP videos in which he says there are almost no cases of civilian SD shooters needing to reload with a fresh magazine during a real world incident. He acknowledged that for LEOs it is a different situation. My take away was that it is not as essential to use spare mags for EDC as many believe. That said, the advice you cite would indicate advice to segregate EDC mags from those used at IDPA and other competition or training events.
 
After years of USPSA/IDPA dropping magazines on concrete, gravel, dirt, mud etc; kicking them during running reloads or having the RO or scorer accidentally step on them I don't worry to much about magazines. I clean and inspect especially after a particular muddy match or if the get kicked out stepped on but if I trust the magazine in a match I would trust the same magazine for CCW.
 
Trunk Monkey said:
One of the reasons I prefer Glocks is that MagPul makes cheap aftermarket magazines for them. I have about 15 MagPul Glock 19/26 magazines that I use for practice and training My OEM get just enough use that I know they don't have issues then they get used for carry.
Click to expand...

This is a good practice for sure. I largely do the same, at least in 9MM. Wish Magpul would come out with other calibers...

But my favorite G26 carry mag is my Magpul 12 round PMAG, and I do train with them also.

All that said, I have never worn out or damaged a Glock OEM mag from range use, carrying, or training. And I never clean them any more than wiping down and maybe compressed air. I have some G19/23 mags that have easily seen 7-8K rounds and are still feeding fine.

I have a bunch of Wolff replacement springs for my Glock mags that patiently wait in my gun bench to be called into duty...

Ultimately, magazines are not forever accessories...use them, take reasonable care of them, and if they don’t work right, trash them.
 
-Some of my 1911 mags were probably dropped around a century ago.
I found them when I was tearing down a shed in Gadsden, Alabama that belonged to a 91-year-old man. He said that his Daddy probably left them there.

That doesn't stop me from carrying them now.
 
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