What do people mean when they say "this magazine holds X rounds RE

[Vincerama]

Sorry, I'm a newb. I see people say "Oh, with this baspad, the magazine will hold 20 rounds reloadable". What do they actually mean by that. Does that mean, you can shove 20 rounds in the magazine and it will still go into the magwell OK? Or I could put in 21 if I take the magazine apart and fill it with rounds from the bottom, or ... what?

Thanks!

[Hi-Power Jack]

If you load too many cartridges into a mag, it can "buckle"

the spring and you can't load ANY cartridges into the mag.

"Reloadable" means you can load 20 in, and then another

20, etc You don't ruin the spring.

Some expert shooters will load "too many" in, on purpose,

and change the spring just for the one-shot advantage.

[chaosshooter00]

A "stock" magazine, factory assembled will hold X rounds when purchased, if you change the basepad and spring/follower you can get them to hold more rounds and still be able to do a reload with it. My stock STI would hold 18 rounds reloadable and after I changed the basepad and spring, I could get twenty in there and reload. Tuned STI mags will sometimes go 21. Some stages it's a big advantage to have a couple more rounds available.

[Nimitz]

You cannot load rds into a magazine from the bottom. Take your magazine apart to see how it functions. They are very simple consisting of the tube, spring, follower, baseplate and base pad. There are after market base pads that allow you to put extra rds in te magazine above what you could with only the OEM base pad ...

[kneelingatlas]

Here's how I use the term: reloadable - capable of being loaded into a pistol with a closed slide and a round in the chamber.

You see, if you can just barely cram the 21st round in the mag, it will not seat in the gun with the slide closed, so the only way to use the mag with 21 rounds in it would be to insert it with the slide locked open, then chamber the 21st round, this mag would then be 20 rounds reloadable or 20+1.

[Sarge]

Reloadable means you can do a reload with it and it will lock into place without so much force as to break something. A mag that is 20 reloadable might hold 21 but you could not do a reload with it.

[Vincerama]

Ah OK, I was thinking it might have been what Kneeling Atlas said. But what Hi-power Jack said makes sense too, jeez that's a fine line.

And it seems you only hear this term when speaking about 2011s!

Thanks guys, that makes sense.

[steel1212]

To me reload able means the mag will almost hold 21 or holds 21 but has no give after that. So you load it with 20 so that you can reload to it on the clock.

My CZ limited guns all hold 21 rounds reload able but not 22 so let's say they are 21.5 rounds capacity. I still down load them to 20 for the reload.

[Sandbagger123]

to me its the max amount of rounds that you can put in a mag and still have it lock in place with the slide forward. My brazzo mags can get 21 reloadable with a good bump on the basepad when loading

[teros135]

In my experience too, "reloadable" means the mag can be used to do an active reload while moving through the stage. You might be able to squeeze another round into it, but if you try to insert it in the gun there isn't enough room for the stack of rounds to move downward when the top round presses against the underside of the slide, and it won't go in. It may fall right out or not, but it won't latch and won't feed any rounds. These mags are sometimes termed "20-round capacity, 19 rounds reloadable".

This doesn't just happen to 1911s or STIs (2011s). Glock has been playing with their mag design, and it's getting harder to have a full reloadable capacity. I have some new .40 15-rd mags that you can push 15 into, but they don't reload reliably, and several new .40 10-rd mags that definitely won't reload, even after letting them sit fully loaded for a month. There are several threads here on BE on how to "adjust" the mags, but the bottom line seems to be that they're coming from the factory a lot tighter than they used to.

I once screwed myself totally in a AR-15 stage by using borrowed mags, loading them right to the brim, and then couldn't do a reload at all until I took one round off the top. It simply wouldn't latch into the gun. Embarrassing, but a valuable lesson. If loading to "capacity" I always push down on the top round to see if there's space to compress when it goes into the gun. If I can't compress it, one round comes off.

HTH

[obsessiveshooter]

I realize this thread is dead, but I wanted to say I'm glad I just read this and this may explain why I have been having trouble locking my new mag in while reloading in a match. When I load my glock .40 mags to 20 rounds, there is almost zero room for the top round to compress down. It takes a heavy blow to get it to lock in place, and the pressure has been deforming the plastic notches in the magazines, causing plastic to stick out which then makes them less willing to drop free.

I may still start a COF with 1 in the chamber and 20 in the mag, but from now on it will only be if absolutely necessary. I almost never need 20 in my second mag, so I'm going to start keeping the mags on my belt with 19 rounds in them.

Learn something new every day!

[ron169]

I use a Glock 35. My method is as such. I load one specially marked magazine with 20 rounds and the rest with 19. I then Barney mag to start if needed so I start the stage with 21 and reload with 19s easily. Really came as an advantage at Georgia state with the 20 round course of fire

[pitvpr]

to me its the max amount of rounds that you can put in a mag and still have it lock in place with the slide forward. My brazzo mags can get 21 reloadable with a good bump on the basepad when loading

this...

[wide45]

to me its the max amount of rounds that you can put in a mag and still have it lock in place with the slide forward. My brazzo mags can get 21 reloadable with a good bump on the basepad when loading

this...

Don't be the guy that whacks the bottom of the mag when reloading on the clock. That's the mark of one who has not prepared for competition.

A mag that requires extra force to seat is not "reloadable" It may work for the initial load prior to the start signal, but is not to be used for a reload.

[CMonty]

Ive had 2 mags fall out of the gun during reloads because of an accidental extra round. The extra 1 bullet isnt worth losing the mag during the stage.