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@Geardo passed along a video showing a Police shootout using ARs. At about the 25 sec mark, one Officer performed what appears to be a Tac-Load. Officer re-engages, fires one round, the rifle stops…Officer racks the charging handle and the magazine falls out.
In my Run The Gun Rifle course, we specifically address this problem. Those of you that have been through it…feel free to chime in with your experience.
The Tac-Load…a load where you've fired some rounds, unknown of the round count, and now you either need to move to another location, or cover someone who needs to do the same. Either way, you don't want the rifle to run dry in the middle of yourself moving, or you trying to cover someone. Worst case scenario…your team mate dies while moving to a location because you didn't perform the Tac-Load correctly by checking your equipment function prior to the deployment.
Tac-Load equipment check…make sure each and every magazine you have in your loadout will easily insert and click into place in your chosen rifle, and it should be mandatory, and that includes any and all teammates.
During Run The Gun Rifle class, I have each student take 2-3 or more magazines, fully loaded (30 Rounds), and with the bolt forward on the rifle, insert the magazine and make sure it will seat without a lot of force. The force needed to seat a magazine in this situation should be not much more than seating a magazine with the bolt locked back.
The student usually finds 1 or more magazines that won't seat at all, or with a lot of fighting involved. With such magazines, we down load by one until we achieve the desired goal…easy seating of the magazine under any environmental condition…meaning day or night, in any weather, and in any shooting position. I find a lot of magazines will need to be down loaded by more than 2-3.
In my team we had to do two things; 1 - We had to pass around every magazine we were going to use in our load out to first make sure that every magazine used would seat in all teammate's rifles. 2- We had to pass around loaded (30 Round) magazines to make sure all would seat all teammates rifles with the bolts forward. If at any time during the first phase, one would not seat…it was discarded from load out. In the second phase, if any would not seat with 30 rounds, we all down loaded every magazine 1 round and passed them around again. If that didn't work, we'd keep at it until we had every loaded magazine seating in every teammate rifle. The magic number seemed to be 25.
I have seen some magazines seat overloaded with 31, and some couldn't seat with 23 rounds.
Many years later I'm reading Clint Smith's book Urban Rifle, and in that book, he stated that 25 seemed to be the magic number as well…interesting.
I'm not advocating that you down load your magazines to 25 rounds, but two thoughts. 1 – Make sure every magazine you have will seat in your rifle, and will also seat fully loaded with the bolt forward, and 2 – If you work in a team environment, make sure your magazines are fully interchangeable with your teammates.
Do your due diligence to yourself and your team by doing your equipment homework prior to any deployment…whatever that may be.
In my Run The Gun Rifle course, we specifically address this problem. Those of you that have been through it…feel free to chime in with your experience.
The Tac-Load…a load where you've fired some rounds, unknown of the round count, and now you either need to move to another location, or cover someone who needs to do the same. Either way, you don't want the rifle to run dry in the middle of yourself moving, or you trying to cover someone. Worst case scenario…your team mate dies while moving to a location because you didn't perform the Tac-Load correctly by checking your equipment function prior to the deployment.
Tac-Load equipment check…make sure each and every magazine you have in your loadout will easily insert and click into place in your chosen rifle, and it should be mandatory, and that includes any and all teammates.
During Run The Gun Rifle class, I have each student take 2-3 or more magazines, fully loaded (30 Rounds), and with the bolt forward on the rifle, insert the magazine and make sure it will seat without a lot of force. The force needed to seat a magazine in this situation should be not much more than seating a magazine with the bolt locked back.
The student usually finds 1 or more magazines that won't seat at all, or with a lot of fighting involved. With such magazines, we down load by one until we achieve the desired goal…easy seating of the magazine under any environmental condition…meaning day or night, in any weather, and in any shooting position. I find a lot of magazines will need to be down loaded by more than 2-3.
In my team we had to do two things; 1 - We had to pass around every magazine we were going to use in our load out to first make sure that every magazine used would seat in all teammate's rifles. 2- We had to pass around loaded (30 Round) magazines to make sure all would seat all teammates rifles with the bolts forward. If at any time during the first phase, one would not seat…it was discarded from load out. In the second phase, if any would not seat with 30 rounds, we all down loaded every magazine 1 round and passed them around again. If that didn't work, we'd keep at it until we had every loaded magazine seating in every teammate rifle. The magic number seemed to be 25.
I have seen some magazines seat overloaded with 31, and some couldn't seat with 23 rounds.
Many years later I'm reading Clint Smith's book Urban Rifle, and in that book, he stated that 25 seemed to be the magic number as well…interesting.
I'm not advocating that you down load your magazines to 25 rounds, but two thoughts. 1 – Make sure every magazine you have will seat in your rifle, and will also seat fully loaded with the bolt forward, and 2 – If you work in a team environment, make sure your magazines are fully interchangeable with your teammates.
Do your due diligence to yourself and your team by doing your equipment homework prior to any deployment…whatever that may be.
