Whats a "reloadable" magazine?

[Storz]

New to the sport and learning as much as I can, when researching extended baseplates I often see the magazines referred to as being reloadable or not? What does this mean?

Thanks

Edited November 5, 2012 by Storz

[PKT1106]

"Reloadable" generally means you don't have to use excessive force to seat the magazine during a COF. On the fly, the mag will seat in the gun with normal force of reloading. Lots of people use "non-reloadable" mags to start a stage, but stay away from them during the COF if they need to reload. USing excessive force costs time.

[EkuJustice]

exactly. On the ones that are reloadable you dont have to hit it in hard to seat it. On the ones that they say are say 20 rounds not reloadable you could reload it and 20 but will have to seat it very firm. Drop it down to 19 and it would load easy and fast.

[Storz]

Thanks

[Poppa Bear]

I have two that will reload easily with 20 rounds. I have two that will not reload with 20 rounds because I cannot get them into the magwell with enough certainty to guarantee that they will stay in once the gun fires so I download them to 19. All 4 will seat easily when the slide is locked to the rear though.

I will load either a 19 round or 20 round at the start depending on when I need to reload. It is nice having a 20 round in reserve if there is a point where I might be approaching 18 rounds needed to complete the course because it gives me 21 rounds to finish it off.

[kevin c]

"Reloadable" generally means you don't have to use excessive force to seat the magazine during a COF. On the fly, the mag will seat in the gun with normal force of reloading. Lots of people use "non-reloadable" mags to start a stage, but stay away from them during the COF if they need to reload. USing excessive force costs time.

Besides problems just seating the magazine, there can be malfunction issues.

I have had the top round in "tight" ten round magazines drag on the stripper rail of the slide enought to cause misfeeding on the first shot post reloading. I have also slammed such magazines into the gun so hard that it pushed the slide out of battery and had failure to fires (fortunately, no out of battery KB's). Both scenarios happened with mags where the tenth round just barely went in, and with light recoil springs in the gun.

eta: specifically ten round 40 mags

Edited November 6, 2012 by kevin c

[Tim/GA]

Especially with light loads. I have to really watch it when shooting 40 minor in 3-gun with lighter recoil springs and loading the mags up to full. Same thing can be said for AR mags. You want the top round in the mag when loaded full to have some "give" when you push down on it.