How do You Carry Your Emergency Carbine Reload?

[Jay Cunningham]

How do you run your AK mags on your week side?

AK mags are run bullets to the rear on the support side - "beercanning" is the only way to go for an AK mag change. I run the carbine mag behind the pistol mag.

I have always run my AR mags bullets to the rear as well, but I think that I'll try them to the front and see how that goes for me.

[RD62]

Support side bullets to the front. I ran Pat's course with the rifle mag in front of the pistol mags and it worked well, but am still trying to finalize placement.

-RD62

[KevinB]

Hey Kevin- do you have the actual part number for the skeletonized model? do you need to bolt catch extension? I had meant to play with someones at class and it slipped my mind. sorry for the hijack.

After coffee i need to fire you off an email.

No but I hear Grant stocks them

No BCE is needed on that model -- I have the BCE on my RediMag Gen II -- its a little different than the BFG one - and I plan on replacin the one on my work gun here with the skeleonized one very very soon.

[Buck]

Weak side, bullets forward just like a pistol mag.

Same...

[Hoplophile]

I used to use an Eagle FB pouch mounted horizontally on teh front of my belt and to the right of the buckle. Bullets down so I could grab it with the left hand, rotate it a little and "beer can" hold it into the weapon. I now have the mag on the left side, bullets forward just like with pistol mags.

[rob_s]

Bullets to the rear for a "beer can" reload. I may be changing though.

What I've found is that when I'm using the belt mag and the chest rig, the movement to withdraw the belt mag is more similar to the chest rig draw if the bullets are facing to the front (given that the bullets on the chest-rig are facing to the strong side). With Ranger Plates on all the mags the similarity becomes even greater.

[UVvis]

Question for those using chest rigs/vests.

With the bullets facing your strong side, are you beer canning the mags out?

If so, are you putting your palm behind the mag to remove it?

I'm a cross-dresser shooter, left eye dominant, long guns shot left handed, pistols right handed. So my right side belt is for a pistol and that makes putting mags there out of the question. Mags on a chest rig I have bullets facing weak side, and I beer can them out with my palm in front.

[rhino]

Bullets toward the front/belt buckle for me. It's consistent with how I carry and use my pistol magazines.

I've tried with bullets facing to the rear/beer canning, but it didn't go well. The most recent experiment was in a class in October where the instructor wanted us to all have our rifle mags with bullets to the rear. Every time I tried a reload, instead of a proper "beer can," I did the same grab and twist I've always done and ended up with mag at the magwell ... backwards. I could fix that with some practice, but I don't see a good reason to do so, especially since it would be contrary to how I load pistols.

[Robb Jensen]

Question for those using chest rigs/vests.

With the bullets facing your strong side, are you beer canning the mags out?

If so, are you putting your palm behind the mag to remove it?

I'm a cross-dresser shooter, left eye dominant, long guns shot left handed, pistols right handed. So my right side belt is for a pistol and that makes putting mags there out of the question. Mags on a chest rig I have bullets facing weak side, and I beer can them out with my palm in front.

Whoa...! That's a little bit too much information.

[rob_s]

I actually like the fact that it's a different motion to grab the rifle mag than the pistol mag. I usually have one of each on my belt, in matches and in classes, whether or not I'm wearing my chest-rig. It just seems "right" to me that there's a different motion for different mags.

I have seen, several times, where someone in the heat of a stage has drawn a pistol mag when they meant to grab a rifle mag or vice versa. For some reason having them face opposite directions helps alleviate this for me.

YMMV