The Real Reason for the “Tactical” Reload

Monday, July 20th, 2015

Gun-nut Tim explains the real reason for the “tactical” reload:

Dropping magazines, especially partially loaded ones, on the ground is often very hard on the magazine. Apart from dirt, mud, and other detritus that gets inside the magazine, baseplates and feed lips will sometimes crack, and tubes will sometimes bend or dent. This fact is, believe it or not, where the so called “tactical reload” came from.

I actually discussed this with Tom Givens in his Intensive Pistol Skills class a few weeks ago. In the early days of Gunsite the gun that 99.99% of people showed up with was a 1911. In those days there was no Wilson/Rogers 47D magazine and folks didn’t show up to classes with massive piles of magazines for training. Everyone was using GI or factory Colt magazines in their guns. Dropping these magazines on the crushed granite of the range ended up destroying them to the point of students almost put out of commission because they didn’t have any functional magazines left.

If the magazines never hit the granite, then you never have that problem, right? Voilà!! The “tactical reload” as we know it was born. Just think: All that arguing about reloads you see on the internet dates back to a practice adopted to get around the fact that 1911 magazines circa 1977 sucked out loud.

Comments

  1. Lu An Li says:

    Those instances of a carrying concealed shooter defending himself and having to make a tactical reload or a reload period are so very slight except for the military man in a combat environment that you have to ask yourself if the practice is worth the effort. If you cannot get the villain opposite you with the first six or seven shots maybe you ought to turn and run.

    My understanding was the NYC cops for a long time did not even teach reloads; they just told the cops to carry a second back-up gun.

  2. Rumblestrip says:

    Lu An Li says: “Those instances of a carrying concealed shooter defending himself and having to make a tactical reload or a reload period are so very slight…”

    Source(s)?

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