If you carry a semi-automatic handgun for self-defense, it makes a lot of sense to carry a spare magazine. The reasons why aren’t a surprise to most. Often times, when a gun malfunctions, the magazine is the culprit. When you add the idea that the additional ammunition supply, it becomes a no brainer.
Sometimes, as smart as it may be, carrying a spare magazine is easier said than done. Over the years I have carried spare mags in several different ways.
I started out carrying a pair of mags in a standard outside the waist band vertical magazine pouch. Often, I carried two spares in two single pouches behind my left hip.
The pouches carried well in this location, but printing was an issue when I needed to bend at the waist. When I actually needed to reload, behind the hip wasn’t the best position as my fresh mag was a long ways away from my dry handgun.
When I transitioned to a double stack handgun and began to carry appendix inside the waistband, I began to understand that the same challenges that applied to carrying my gun behind my hip applied to carrying my reloads behind my off hip.
Like most shooters in search of greater efficiency and faster reloads and malfunction clearances, I began to look for solutions.
It didn’t take me too long to find horizontal mag pouches. There were several brands available and they all had their pros and cons, but they all shared some serious advantages over vertical pouches.
Horizontal pouches are easily concealed when they are worn in front of the hip. When the pouches are parallel with the belt, it makes bending easy and they don’t protrude from under your cover garment regardless of how you twist or turn.
Wearing a mag in front of the hip also helps to reduce the distance that the hand needs to travel from the gun to the reload and back to the gun and it also helps to orient the magazine so that it is ready to be inserted into the magazine in a more efficient manner.
Since switching to a single magazine carried horizontally, I haven’t looked back. I’ve carried consistently in that position regardless of the gun I was carrying. I started out carrying a GLOCK 17 magazine in my Magholder mag pouch, and when I made a quick switch to the SIG P320, Magholder sent me a horizontal carrier for the P20 mags. It performed just asI needed it to.
I’m now carrying a Smith & Wesson M&P M2.0 Full-size and of course my 17 round M&P mag rests securely in my horizontal carrier from Magholder.
If you are carrying a semi-auto handgun you should be carrying a spare mag whenever possible. If you find it difficult to carry a spare mag, consider giving a horizontal carrier a try.
