One reason I've actually heard people give for carrying larger capacity pistols is that they don't need to carry a second mag.
Folks, the second mag isn't there so you can have a shootout with hordes of pirates or ninjas, it's there because the magazine is the single most fragile and failure-prone part of any self-loading handgun. Thankfully, it's also cheap and compact and replaceable and you can keep scads of them at home and one or two on hand.
"What are the odds of it breaking in action?" you may say, but I posit in return that if you are actively busting caps at a bad guy, your day has already taken a pretty statistically unlikely turn and probably isn't going to get any more normal from there.
The picture above was taken at Eagle Creek range, where Shootin' Buddy was one round into a weak-hand drill when the tack welds securing the baseplate of his Metalform magazine to the mag tube suddenly suffered a spontaneous existence failure, causing the gun to vomit the contents of the magazine at his feet; spring, follower, and all.
If the magazine had been inspected beforehand, odds are that it would have been seen to have cracked two or three of the welds already. Inspect your magazines regularly. Keep them numbered so that you can tell which is which. Don't fall in love with them; if the floorplates are loose or the feed lips are spread or they show any other signs of becoming sub-optimal, discard and replace them.
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I once owned a Beretta 70S in .380 (don't ask...). Magazines for it were hard to come by, and I found some off-brand aftermarket ones. One day at the range, I loaded one up, put it into the well and slingshotted the slide. First round felt fine chambering, and then I moved the trigger back.
I'd never had the experience of having the bottom of a magazine puke itself out of a pistol, followed in immediate order by all of the rounds, and then the follower. "Well, that's not normal", was the only comment from the guy in the slot next to me.
It was the only lesson I needed to buy only high-quality mags, and to look them over carefully after every range session.
P.S.: I followed what is now my standard procedure for defective magazines...use a boot-heel and concrete floor to stomp them into utter uselessness, so that you never, ever confuse them with good ones.
jtc,
"such heresy; you can just hear the tacticool hearts breaking."
This isn't to say that it wouldn't come mighty handy in an encounter with pirates or ninjas or the occasional stubborn mofo who just doesn't want to go down.
I had one of the mags for my CZ-52 disassemble itself once at the range. Nothing like hearing BANG. SPROING. Oh sh*t!
I know I'll pay for this, but... carry wheelgun, better than nothing. But autos carry flatter and more comfortably, and, even with the occasional mag failure, are easily and quickly fixable.
Get an extra hot load in a semi-auto, the slide comes back with a bigger bang than usual. Get the same thing in a revolver, the wheel doesn't turn. In the revolver, if a bullet works loose from a bad crimp, the wheel doesn't turn. In an auto, there's not anywhere for it to go.
Add in troubles with pawls and hands and the many small, hand fitted springs that function them, and there are so many more things that can go wrong with a revolver, simply because there are more things to break.
The average wheelgunner is now thinking "Oh come on now". "What are the odds old Tick-Licker won't go bang if I pick it up right now"?
That's what we're talking about, odds. They're lower with a well designed auto, and, the important part, malfs with a semiauto handgun rarely jam the weapon. Malfs with a revolver ofter do.
There's a miraculous model 10 I'm sorry I ever let go, and I'm sure that with decent ammo it would have done me well, but if push came to shoot, I'd be a lot more comfortable with my 1911 and a couple of Chip McCormick stainless mags.
And, sadly, I shared a parking lot and quite a bit of chatter with the folks from Metalform for eight plus years.
They're next door to my former employer Continental Machine, home of StagArms, and primary parts manufacturers for Rock River, Bushmaster, Armalite's 5.56 weapons, and most of the M-16 for Colt's.
The Metalform folks are nice people, but I was never too impressed with the reliability of the product. Their quality seemed as good as it had to be, but only as good as it had to be.
Ultimate QC seemed to be a question left up to the customer. If someone like Colt''s wanted perfect mags, they got perfect mags. If someone wanted something a bit cheaper, well, there were a few tweaks that could be made here and there to cut costs.
Blackwing1 your standard procedure is what I recommend as well.
When you go to the range, take a sharpie. Mark the floorplate of the magazine every time you have a malfunction. If you notice a problem child, stomp it flat and use it for target practice.
Just last week I culled a couple of mags. The first was when I went to reload my 1911. I emptied a mag, slide locks back, eject empty mag, slap loaded mag into weapon, ammo and follower erupt from the ejection port onto the ground while the spring waves like a flag in the breeze. The second mag was having failure to feed malfs on the first two rounds in the mag. There was a small dent in the mag that was causing a slight drag. Hint: if you have to crawl under your truck for any thing, TAKE OFF YOUR MAG POUCH as well as your pistol. Both mags were used for .22 practice.
I've never seen a Glock magazine spontaneously disassemble. Have seen several 1911 style mags do so -- presumably poor welding on the floorplate.
Also watched the early M&P designs disassemble while being slapped home. The first-gen M&P mags had a floorplate that would burst open every time if you hit it at a particular angle. Oops.
pax,
"I've never seen a Glock magazine spontaneously disassemble."
I've seen a LOT more Glock magazines do so than any other single type, but then I've seen a lot more Glocks being shot than any other single gun. Kinda like GM cars are in more DUI crashes because there are more GM cars out there. srsly, if I had a dollar for every Austrian mag I'd seen blow its guts out the floorplate I could... well, not buy a used Glock, but at least put a serious down payment on one.
1st Gen Glock mags were absolutely notorious for it, especially if dropped, but you don't see many of them around any more.
The worst years for exploding mags with "Hi Cap" autoloaders were '94 to '04. Folks had spent so much on their precious >10rd mags that they would keep them in service long after they'd shown signs of incipient failure.
One particular mag failure you won't see with Glocks or any other pistol with a double-column/single-feed mag is a volcano through the ejection port, since the follower can't exit the top of the mag no matter how abused the feed lips become.
I bought a dozen 45-ACP mags for my Kimber Officer's 1911, from different makers: Wilson, Novak, Mec-Gar, Baer, Tripp, Springfield, Pro-Mag and McCormick. These were (almost) all excellent magazines and I particularly liked the Tripp, Baer and Novak mags. I settled on the Wilson 47-OX and 47-OXC. But even with these excellent magazines there were problems: the baseplate on one was not quite fully seated, and it would not seat until a teeny bit of metal was ground off (thank you, Carteach!). Then a week later another Wilson mag that I bought from a different vendor (Brownell's) showed the same problem! There was just a little bit too much material at the lower rear of the magazine tube, less than one millimeter, and the baseplate would not fully slide into place and engage the retaining pin. Possibly a problem with that manufacturing lot, or with QC or final inspection; even with a high-quality mag with premium materials it's possible. Anyway, those mags looked solid but were ready to spontaneously disassemble during recoil. Once I had repaired them, I decided to keep the Wilson mags, however, because as Reagan used to say, "Trust, but verify!"
"Don't fall in love with them; if the floorplates are loose or the feed lips are spread or they show any other signs of becoming sub-optimal, discard and replace them." Or fire up the MIG welder in the garage and tack or braze that floorplate right back on there.
(A recession-friendly tip from your survivalist Uncle G-98!)
Word Verification: Enessess - aka, multiple Dukes of Hazzard deputies.
I've never seen a Glock magazine spontaneously disassemble.I have! I have! You significantly increase your chances of these with those stupid little +2 basepads. A pox upon them!
I bought a new Kahr P45 a couple of years ago. On my first trip to the range, the mag acquired a severe case of diarrhea on the 2nd round and dumped its innards and remaining rounds on the ground.
Kahr replaced the mag free but I never fully trusted it again.
"the magazine is the single most fragile and failure-prone part of any self-loading handgun"
Thank you Tam. I hear much of that no spare mag bs...
"spontaneous existence failure"
Heh, I'll use that, If I may...
In the interest of accuracy of information, I felt inclined to comment.
Ed Foster said...
"Get an extra hot load in a semi-auto, the slide comes back with a bigger bang than usual. Get the same thing in a revolver, the wheel doesn't turn."
The only history of this I've heard of is the early 586 Smiths that were recalled and corrected.
"In the revolver, if a bullet works loose from a bad crimp, the wheel doesn't turn."
Bad crimps are generally in reloads poorly done. Could happen in factory, but it should be apparent if looked at. Bullets jumping crimp can happen in the ultra-light Smiths with very hot loads. Otherwise it seems to be extrememly rare to nonexistant as far as I know. I may live a sheltered life tho.
"In an auto, there's not anywhere for it to go."
Not exacly correct, the bullet can be pushed back in the case on feeding and cause very high pressure, possibly resulting in a KB.
"Add in troubles with pawls and hands and the many small, hand fitted springs that function them, and there are so many more things that can go wrong with a revolver, simply because there are more things to break."
Pawls AND hands? It's a different name for the same part. One per gun. They can wear over time, but don't tend to make the gun suddently stop. Hand fitted springs? I'm not aware of any in Smiths. The trigger to hammer engagement is fitted, but I've had pretty good results trading hammers and triggers in Smiths after they had been fitted into a gun at the factory. Seems to be a good lattitude of interchangablity as far as that goes.
Each(revo vs auto) has its strong and weak points, but let's please be accurate and correct in our assesment and description.
My experience has been that autos (1911's, Glocks, and earlier gen Smith auto's) can fail to function without notice at any time, clean or no, revos seem to function more reliably unless abused or neglected, particularly cleaning under the extractor star. Failure tends to happen after such treatment, not just "out of the blue". I tend not to carry enough ammo with me even in my vehicle (usually only a couple hundred rounds on hand at any time)to get a Smith dirty enough to start to fail to work properly. I've gone 6 months or more between cleanings with Smiths and been fine function wise, living out in the hills, carrying every day, camping every nite. One broken mainspring in 300K+ rounds and 35 years of hard use of Smiths. 2 loose extractor rods. They now all get torqued good and been fine for many many years. YMMV
Malamute
I had one of the mags for my CZ-52 disassemble itself once at the range. Nothing like hearing BANG. SPROING. Oh sh*t!Ugh, tell me about it. It doesn't help that a lot of sources (like, say, the manual) recommend field-stripping the barrel from the slide with the baseplate of the magazine. Use that handy hole and a pin punch/screwdriver/something instead. Plus, the Triple-K magazine followers can jump the slide lock catch and lock the gun up hard until you take the grips off, so only genuine Czech ones really work. Pity, because the gun itself gets 'er done.
That's one small advantage to a wheelgun: you're not stuck with Triple-K or ProMag if the manufacture goes Tango Uniform, and thus can rely on the gun. Hell, that's a reason to get a Glock/1911: there's mountains of magazines for them, and they'll never go out of style.
"What are the odds of it breaking in action?" you may say. . .Odds? Murphy don't need no stinking odds. Remember, Murphy hates Y-O-U personally.
Late to the party, as usual, but I hate it when that happens. Had it happen to me once. Fortunately, it was at the range.
PolyKahr
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