Monday, April 27, 2009

Spare Mag

The thought never really occured to me except maybe at the back of my mind...

You don't carry the second magazine so you'll have spare bullets. You carry the second magazine so you'll have a spare magazine.

I was carrying (on the rare times I actually have permission to) a spare just instinctively. Now I have a concrete, thought-out, reason.

So what's the second most likely thing to fail after the mag baseplate? Extractor? Cracked slide? Slide stop?

Hell, if the mainspring housing pin breaks on me again that would turn my 1911 into an unwieldy cudgel. You kinda need that mainspring housing to stay in place. But no one I've talked to has ever heard of those pins breaking. Just my luck.

4 comments:

Aaron said...

Just like the old saying, "Two is one, one is none."

Hell, I used to carry an extra sling, grip, and barrel for my issue rifle because all broke down at one point or another.

Turk Turon said...

I had exactly the same reaction to Tam's post: palm-to-forehead. So I carry a spare now. Anyway, just another excuse to carry a single-stack!

In my experience, the most likely failure is for the rear sight to come adrift or even fall off, but it still shoots.

Jay G said...

I carry a spare mag both to have a spare mag *and* to have extra ammunition.

No one ever leaves a gunfight thinking "Damn, I have too much ammo left over"... ;)

JB Miller said...

I carry an extra mag in case there is a failure in the primary and for the extra ammo.

I carry a Glock to minimize the chances of failure in ANY component.