Question on reloading

[sapper36]

When you are changing magazines, which hand do you push the magazine release button with? The reason I ask is that with both my 1911's and Beretta (work gun) I can not push the release with my strong hand unless I change my grip. Because of this and that I dont like dropping magazines I use my weak hand. A friend likes to only use his strong hand because he can start pulling the next magazine out while the spent one is still falling. He is not in the military and not concerned with some of things I am with regaurd to retention, but he does reload faster. So what do you do and why? Thanks.

[ToddG]

Most people use either their strong side thumb (for a button on the thumb side of the gun) or their strong side trigger finger (for a button on the opposite side). It's not at all uncommon for shooters to twist the gun in their grip a bit to reach the button.

Video of using the thumb:
Reload #1

Video of using the trigger finger (watch the shooting hand during the reload, you can see it moving to hit the button ... and sorry about the lousy draw ):
Reload #2

[John_Wayne777]

I just shift my grip slightly and use my strong side thumb. That way my right hand is ejecting the magazine while my weak hand is drawing a fresh mag from my pouch/holder.

This assumes, of course, that I'm at slide lock and I need or reasonably believe I will have to do more shooting in the immediate future.

[Failure2Stop]

I use my strong thumb to release the magazine. I use an extended mag release on my Glocks, and an oversize release on my 1911 to ensure that I do not need to shift my grip for a reload.

Since I can't modify my M9s, I flip the gun in my grip slightly to hit the mag release with my strong thumb, ripping downward with my left to ensure that the mag is removed as the support hand goes to the reload pouch.

I have also been taught another way, but I never really liked it, and honestly I didn't really train it, though it is a sound technique- In this technique, as soon as the slide locks to the rear, rotate the muzzle inward with the support hand and hit the mag release with the left hand thumb. This keeps the right hand in a proper firing grip, no matter how large and unergonomic the pistol may be. One problem is that on just about any IDPA/USPSA range this will cause you to beak the 180 at some point, and anger the Safety Officials. Not that it is any reason to discount the technique in real-life.

I know that it may be hard to understand this technique without visual aid, sorry. If anybody wants more detailed info, let me know.

[sapper36]

At one of our schools we were taught something similar to what I think you are discibing, it was to always have the your eyes muzzle and target in line so to reload we would turn the gun about 90 degrees to the weak side and about 45 degrees up. That helps with watching the magazine go into the gun and still have an idea on what was going on in front of you.