Let’s talk about reloads!
Becoming effective and efficient in reloading is difficult and takes constant training. If you haven’t realized at this point, becoming and staying proficient with your firearm is a difficult process; it takes time and training! But I can’t stress enough how important it is to train with all of your gear, and often! Every aspect with handling your firearm must receive attention or you will start to lose those skills!
Now let’s talk about reloads! There are two reasons that you would reload your firearm. One being that your mag is empty, and your gun is in slide lock. Two being a “tactical reload”. That is when you have time or cover to replace a partially empty magazine with a fully loaded magazine. Whether you shoot for fun, competition, defense, or all of the above, it is important you know the difference between the two and their applications.
Slide Lock Magazine Reload:
This one is pretty simple. When your magazine runs dry, your slide will stay locked to the rear. You are out of ammunition, and you need more. So, drop that mag and get a loaded one in!
Slide Lock Mag Change
Tactical Magazine Reload:
Now this one is especially important in tactical or competitive shooting situations. The chances of you finding yourself in a gun fight may be very slim, but we prepare and train for the worst. If you are actively engaging a target/threat, and then you find yourself with a position of cover, top of that gun! Get a new magazine in that mag well. We want to utilize the time/cover that is available to us, it may be the difference in winning the stage or fight!
For a Tactical Magazine Reload, or Tac reload, you will take the partially loaded mag out of the gun and replace it with a full mag. You will then stow away that partially loaded mag where it will be assessable, just in the case you need more ammo and that’s all you’ve got left!
Tactical Mag Change
Performing the reload-
Workspace:
When performing a reload, there are a few things to consider. How you are holding the magazine and where/how you are holding the gun. These things are important not only to maximize efficiency, but also to stay aware of your surroundings.
First, let’s talk about your “workspace”. The term workspace refers to the area in which you manipulate your gun to perform reloads and malfunction clearings. The area in which you hold your gun is very important. If your workspace is too low, you will find yourself looking down towards the ground at your gun, taking your eyes off of the target or threat. But you also don’t want your workspace up too high where it could block your vision completely.
Ideally, your workspace will be up just below your eyesight if you were looking straight forward. You want to stand tall and keep your head up so that you can utilize your peripheral vision to perform the reload or malfunction clearing while still keeping the target or threat in sight. It is much harder to react to something that you can’t see! So, stand tall and keep your head up so that you are aware of your surroundings.
Workspace
Gripping the magazine:
Your body is pretty amazing. It knows where each body part is in time and space in relation to your other body parts. Have you ever tried closing your eyes and while using both of your index fingers, touched them together without looking? That’s called kinesthetics, and there is a science behind it that I’m not going to even try to go into. However, knowing this about our bodies is a hug advantage. By griping our magazine a certain way, we can use this to our advantage while performing our reloads.
When gripping your magazine, you want to index your pointer finger along the front side of the mag and try to tough the bullet with the tip of your finger. This will make it much more natural when inserting the mag into the mag well. Your body will already have a good sense of where it goes because your other hand is griping the handle. When you feel that the tip of the magazine has entered the mag well, you can firmly press the mag all the way in with your palm. You want to do this with some force behind it so that mag gets seated in the gun to prevent a failure to feed malfunction.
Holding the Magazine
Get out there and practice, train, and stay proficient! If you have been following these blog posts, and you find them helpful, please send us an email or direct message!
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Train hard and train often.