Should You Carry A Reload for Your Everyday Carry?

I hang out on X (formerly Twitter) and read a lot of posts by entertaining gun people — some knowledgeable, others not so much. However, both types make me think. Recently, posts were flying fast about how there doesn’t seem to be evidence that any private citizen involved in a defensive shooting has ever reloaded their handgun during a fight, so carrying a spare magazine was simply an affectation.

Two days later, Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Some on the internet celebrated his death and advocated for more violence against political opponents. President Donald Trump designated Antifa a domestic terror organization. The spare magazine argument on X disappeared instantly. People have been confronted with an ugly reality.

The odds that a private citizen will need to reload their gun in a fight are the same as someone needing a gun to defend themselves. It’s low, but never zero.

So, let’s talk about carrying a reload for your handgun. We can divide this issue into three parts: Why, What and Where.

The Why

You might think the main reason to carry a reload for your pistol is the obvious one, that it simply provides more ammunition to fight with. While that’s definitely in the top two, I don’t know that it’s the best reason. The best reason to have a reload on your person — specifically a spare magazine if you’re running a semiauto pistol — is because magazines wear and fail. Magazines are consumables that suffer wear simply by existing. Whether loaded or unloaded, they’re under constant spring pressure and springs die. Feed lips also spread apart over time, causing malfunctions. On several occasions, I’ve seen magazine basepads crack while people were shooting, dumping the basepad, spring, and all the remaining rounds onto the ground. It’s annoying at a pistol match but potentially deadly during an a defensive engagement. The solution is simple: Shove a new magazine into the gun, but to do it — stick with me here — you actually need to have a spare magazine on you!

The additional ammunition a reload provides is, of course, pertinent. It may be doubly important depending on the capacity of the gun you’re carrying. If all you’ve got is a five-­ or six-­shot micro-­compact pistol or snubnose revolver, not carrying a reload seems an exercise in optimism.

The “statistically average gunfight,” according to FBI data, is the rule of three: Three shots fired in 3 seconds at a single bad guy 3-yards away. However, with all the cameras everywhere — mounted on buildings, on your phone, in your doorbell, not to mention police bodycams — we’re exposed to more and more footage of actual defensive shootings. Law-­abiding citizens are learning that a lot of bad guys like to do crime with their friends, and it’s rare that the shenanigans stop after the first shot is fired.

It’s not always just one guy kicking down your front door or pulling at your car doors; sometimes it’s two. Or three. In the past few years — on more than one occasion — citizens have aided police officers under attack, too. In Farrell, Pennsylvania, 2024, a police officer was involved in a shootout with a 49-year-old suspect outside of a convenience store after midnight. An armed citizen with a valid concealed carry permit was lauded for backing up law enforcement that night. In a situation such as that, having extra ammunition for suppressive fire might come in handy!

Pistols are poor fight-­stoppers to begin with, and bad guys often need multiple hits to halt their violence. Odds are that you’ll miss at least some of your shots, too. Nobody who has found themselves in a life-­or-­death situation wished they had less ammo in their gun. The joke in the military is that it’s impossible to have too much ammo on you unless you’re underwater or on fire.

The What

Generally, one spare magazine to perform a reload is all you should need. If the magazine in your pistol malfunctions, one spare should fix the problem — but capacity plays a part here as well. Are you carrying a compact semiauto with double-­digit capacity? If so, one spare magazine should be enough to get you through most situations.

Some pertinent personal history here: I hate gunwriters who wax eloquent about carry guns but don’t ever carry one — and there are more than you think! If I’m wearing clothes and not on the wrong side of a metal detector, I’m carrying a full-­size pistol and at least one reload under my sweatshirt or Hawaiian shirt. Always and everywhere but the gym, which is where I downsize my gun. This attitude to carry everday is, in large part, due to my very weird, interesting life. I’ve been an armored car driver, a police officer, and a private investigator, all of it either in or around the Third World ruin called “Detroit.” On the same day the Berlin Wall came down, in 1989, my parents were murdered in a crime that got the FBI involved and had local news crews broadcasting from my front yard. I also wrote “Carnivore,” an autobiography for Iraq War veteran SFC “C.J.” Dillard Johnson. After that book’s publication, ISIS — yeah, that ISIS — made him No. 2 on their kill list behind Robert O’Neill, the U.S. Navy SEAL who shot bin Laden — and my name is on the cover of that book. I figure the odds don’t apply to me.

I used to carry the .45-caliber Government Model 1911, and I did every day for a decade. I always carried two spare eight-­round magazines in a Galco leather double mag carrier, totalling 25 rounds of Federal’s 230-­grain Hydra-­Shok. The 1911’s single-­stack magazines are flat and conceal well. When I switched to 9mm — either a Glock 17 or 34, SIG Sauer P226, or Langdon Tactical Beretta 92, depending on the year or my mood — I carried only one spare magazine for 35-plus rounds on my person. I carry these spare magazines outside my belt as I do my holster, and most of the time an old Blade-­Tech polymer mag pouch opposite of a Safariland 5198 open-top holster. I dress around them.

In case you’re interested, I’ve cycled through various carry ammo through the years, including Speer Gold Dot 124-­grain +P hollowpoint (HP), Hornady 135-­grain +P Critical Duty, Winchester Ranger 127-­grain +P+, and Black Hills 115-­grain TAC-­XP +P. Currently, my lightly customized Gen5 G17 carry gun is loaded with Federal 147-­grain HST rounds. If I can’t solve the problem with 35 HST rounds of 9mm, I’m doing something wrong or I should transition to a rifle.

If you’re a revolver guy, I consider you an old-­fashioned optimist. You won’t have any problems with malfunctioning magazines, but your gun carries so few rounds that everything needs to go right to not find yourself in the middle of an ongoing problem with an empty gun. If you’re carrying a revolver, you should be carrying a reload for it — or a spare revolver.

The Where

When it comes to wheelguns, you can reload them with loose rounds, Speed Strips or speedloaders. These fit nicely into a pocket, just like a snubnose. Speedloaders are the fastest but tend to be bulky. I think Bianchi Speed Strips might be the best choice. They hold five or six rounds in a flat row, and you can stuff them into your cylinder two at a time. Because they are flat, slightly smaller than a deck of cards, they fit nicely into a pocket and don’t bulge like a speedloader. I know a few serious guys who carry snubbies either as a backup or primary, and most of them carry one or even two Speed Strips in their front pocket — usually the front-right pocket, if they’re right ­handed.

If you’re carrying a spare magazine, it should be where it can be easily accessed by your support hand. If you’re a right-­hander, that means where you can grab it with your left hand, probably on the left side of your body, on your belt line, or in your pocket.

Most holster manufacturers offers magazine pouches as well, for inside- (IWB) or outside-the-waistband (OWB). Appendix carry (AIWB) is the rage, and a lot of those holsters sport a spare magazine carrier on the opposite side of your belt buckle. Many people just stick a spare magazine in their front pocket, and that works. Be aware that doing so allows lint to get into the magazine and move around, so it could be upside down when you go to grab it. A few holster companies sell in-­pocket magazine carriers that keep the magazine in place and properly oriented, and with the end of the magazine covered far less lint gets in there.

That reload? Sure, you probably won’t need it. The odds are against it. Just like the odds of you needing that carry gun at any one time are very low. Still, the odds are always greater than zero. 

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