Baselines #4 Reload Drills
If you are following this series, you have seen that I lay out some baselines then some drills on how to gauge or establish that baseline. In the last article, I wrote about reloads so this one is some thoughts on how to learn or test reloads.
First, let me tell you all I am not a fan of the shot reload shot drill for live fire. This drill is an Instagram staple and while it is awesome to watch, it is completely staged. If you set up for this drill, you KNOW its time to reload. Action is always faster than reaction and when you know its going to happen it gives you a false indicator of reload time. Also, the training scar created by firing immediately after the reload can be detrimental. Any time we take our attention away from the target, we must reacquire and access the situation. I also don’t subscribe to the live fire version of burning through all you mags doing the speed loads.
Reality Check
Unless you are counting rounds, the indicator to reload will be either tactical decision, seeing the slide lock, feeling the bolt lock or a dead trigger. A dead trigger forces you to look to see the problem. If it’s a malfunction and you hammer a fresh mag in you just made it worse. You can see rapidly if it’s just need more ammo or something worse.
Now, as I talked about before, in real life an empty gun is a failure on your part. I can’t stress that enough. Creating your own personal emergency in the middle of a much bigger emergency doesn’t make sense. Yet I see people running their stuff dry all the time.
Practice
Reload practice for speed is a dry fire intensive task. Making the reload efficient can be done without firing a round in the comfort of your dryfire area. I highly, highly recommend a Mantis X for this type of training. You will get a time and know the quality of the follow-up shot.
My practice sessions for reloads look like this. ( I always have music playing in the background.)
Using the Mantis on Open training, I will conduct a magazine change when the song changes or at magazine capacity. I have a couple of magazines without followers to keep the bolt or slide from locking. Since my reloads match, I practice in both types of reloads this way. Occasionally, I put in an unmodified magazine, which at some point during reset will lock back. This forces an emergency reload with slide or bolt release.
Live
There are a few ways to do realistic live mag changes. The most important part is keeping your firearm topped off. You know the drills you are running and the round counts so this should be easy without gaming it.
If you don’t empty the magazine, you will end up with several magazines that are not full. The first part of your day should be changing magazines when you want to. Continuing with these magazines on you will force emergency reloads. You may or may not know how many are really in the magazine and they will at some point run out causing you to diagnose and reload.
Action is always faster than reaction. Change the mag when you want to not when you need to. This is a sign of a seasoned shooter vs a novice.
Until next time…
Ash
I agree. even if you only shot one round and you are not actively shooting, and you are not currently getting shot at…reload! One bullet is nothing till it’s the one that saves someones life. I am an infantry veteran and have been thinking of getting into 2 gun / run and gun matches. I really enjoyed your articles. I have a couple of questions though.
DRY FIRE – “My practice sessions for reloads look like this. ( I always have music playing in the background.)
Using the Mantis on Open training, I will conduct a magazine change when the song changes or at magazine capacity.”
I get the song change but what do you mean by at capacity? are you just counting while manually cycling the action? or am i missing something?
also could you elaborate a bit on “Since my reloads match, I practice in both types of reloads this way.”
as well as “Occasionally, I put in an unmodified magazine, which at some point during reset will lock back.”
if I am dry firing wouldn’t the normal mag lock the bolt the 1st time I cycle the action?
again I feel like I’m missing a piece of the puzzle
Thank you
The Mantis shows a round count. So at 15 -17 I do a reload. My mag changes are the exact same for “tactical” and emergency minus either picking up the magazine or dropping bolt/slide.
You can reset a Glock or an AR without getting the magazine to lock if you are careful. Without a doubt at some point you will get froggy and go back far enough to get a lock.