By Keith Coniglio
Gun writer & activist Keith Coniglio makes the case for why you can not have too many spare gun magazines. Of course, we think you will agree.
Whether it’s because of the inconvenience of yet another item to carry (and conceal), or the old saw, “if I can’t get it done in [insert an arbitrary number of rounds here], more probably won’t help,” many gun owners who carry a defensive firearm “just in case” deride fellow CCW holders who choose to carry one or even two spare magazines … “just in case.”
The pragmatic focus is usually on how many rounds you may “need” in a defensive shooting.
Spare Gun Magazines
An FBI statistical figure of 3.7 rounds is often cited.
Confusing a calculated average with an ironclad guarantee that you won’t be the statistical outlier, however, could be a fatal error.
Just ask Sergeant Timothy Gramins, formerly of the Skokie, IL police department.
In 2009, he was in pursuit of a suspected bank robber, who slammed his vehicle to a halt and bailed out, firing at Sergeant Gramins. Gramins, a “master firearms instructor and a sniper on his department’s Tactical Intervention Unit,” immediately returned fire. In an exchange that lasted less than a minute, the robber fired twenty-one rounds, and Gramins fired thirty-three, striking his assailant fourteen times – including six wounds in supposedly “fight-stopping” locations.
Except they failed to stop the fight. He was down to four rounds remaining when he was able to make a fatal headshot, ending the gunfight.
There is another, sometimes overlooked reason for carrying spare magazines: mechanical failure. I am a quality assurance engineer – a tester – by trade. It’s my job to not only make sure things work as they should under ideal circumstances, but to probe for weaknesses and envision ways something could fail. And trust me – magazines do fail.
A detachable box magazine is simply that – a box, usually with a removable floorplate, containing a spring under a good amount of pressure. They are simple devices with few parts, but they aren’t impervious to wear. A weakening of the spring or split in the feed lips can cause feed failures. Floorplate failures, while rare (I’ve witnessed only one in the last three decades), will unload your entire magazine in the blink of an eye, scattering loose rounds across the ground.
In a defensive encounter, having the ability to immediately eject the now-empty magazine body and replace it with a functioning unit could be the determining factor in the outcome.
Given that you will never know if fate is about to deal you a “Gramins moment” or a mechanical failure, carrying at least one spare magazine is a small choice that can offer major advantages. You know – just in case.
Did we change your mind on extra mags? We recommend you get new gun magazines online here at Brownell’s. ~ AmmoLand
About the Author:
Keith Coniglio is a father, software tester, NRA-certified pistol instructor, and devoted Second Amendment advocate. He is also the editor-in-chief of Descendants of Liberty Press, a site dedicated to rekindling Americans’ passion for – and defense of – their Constitutional rights and personal liberty. Keith writes more at Descendants of Liberty Press.
About Second Call Defense:
Second Call Defense the first insurance-backed membership organization in America to offers immediate, comprehensive, nationwide, 24-hour support for gun owners who are forced to defend themselves or their family with a firearm. www.secondcalldefense.org
I may never need extra ammo, but I will never be without it.
Question: How many spare mags do you need?
Answer: At least two more…
Don’t be the next Reginald Denny ! Always carry spare magazines. In the Bad neighborhoods aka Democrat strongholds its safe to assume that everyone is armed (with a Stolen Gun) and no one is calling the cops. So now if you’re attacked you must defend yourself against multiple attackers think of cockroaches going after crumbs all of them your enemy. You must call the cops yourself, and you better have enough ammo.
In my way if thinking, the best rational for at last one spare reload is that one should want to reload after any hostile encounter… unless that one would be so foolish as to stand around with a partially loaded weapon, in territory that just proved itself to be hostile.
When I buy a new handgun, I will always insure I have 5 magazines for it to start with, more if that pistol becomes a favorite.
I cannot remember the person who wrote it, but it stuck in my mind, “I don’t know anyone that went into a gunfight saying I want less ammo”.
A spare magazine or two is the only way to carry! For proof I refer to mr. Massad ayoobs excellent articles on actual gunfights . It’s riveting thought provoking reading!All true not some pseudo experts theory. When it’s my life I always aim to stack the odds in my favor. A miss or two me and nothing as you always have more rounds at the ready; forget trying to count rounds -won’t happen ,just keep firing on target until you stop it from doing what made you fire on it to begin with! Sure ammo is heavy but so are… Read more »
One is none and two is one. If you only carry one gun or no spare mags you may risk your life or others on it working correctly. Should you have a malfunction in either the gun or mag you will be screwed. Thus carrying two guns increases the chance of having a working firearm, also you can arm another person to further increase the odds in your favor.
Having just one gun is better than none, weighs less, and is easier to conceal. Pros vs Cons… you decide.
The fudds that say “you don’t need more than one mag” are only parroting the rhetoric of anti-gunners that would limit magazine size. And overestimating their skill in a gunfight they’ve never actually experienced.
The answer depends upon your purpose. If you are an active shooter and shoot USPSA/IPSC style matches you will be asked to show up with a half dozen magazines for a match. And then you stop on one, so you need to replace it pending repair. And then your gun biomes a collectible. Trust me, when your gun falls out of production and OEM magazines fall out of production the value of your collectible goes up substantially when you have functioning and correct magazines. Go to antique and curio shows and look at the prices on magazines for 70 year… Read more »