Originally Posted by BB57

Normally, I'll carry a 686+, and a speed strip. The odds are overwhelming that I'll never need it, but it's flat, light and easy to carry. It makes me feel better - and it's my version of a fidget spinner.

I also practice with a speed loader, and carry one on rare occasions, just for fun. However, speed loaders tend to be bulky, even small ones like the HKS, and even when carried in a slip over carrier that reduces the profile. I practice with one large because I enjoy the challenge of maxing out pistol qualification courses with a revolver. It makes the hi cap pistol guys grumpy when you beat them with a revolver, and that's called "fun".

Reloads in the real world.

In terms of real world self defense, it's hard to overlook the reality that 95% of all self defense shoots involve 5 rounds or less in 5 seconds or less. In fact the FBI found based on 12 years of agent involved shoots that 75% of all shoots occurred at 3 yards or less with 3 rounds or less fired in 3 seconds or less.

The truth is unless you are incredibly unlucky, you just are not going to need a reload, even with a 5 shot revolver. The probability of even being in a self defense shoot is very low (and even lower if you're using common sense and good situational awareness), and in the event that low probability occurs the odds are only 1 in 20 that you'd need more than 5 rounds.

I know... you're probably not buying this argument because all the tacti-cool-done-time-downrange instructors talk about the need for high capacity pistols, reloads, multiple magazines, etc - including the recent NRA self defense programs.

Let's look at the numbers....

Based on FBI data, in any given year there are only around 300 justifiable homicides involving armed citizens. That sounds low, but it compares to about 400 each year by law enforcement officers, which actually makes the armed citizen total pretty significant - they are facing and shooting threats at fully 3/4 the the rate of police officers.

Bear in mind however that it's estimated that roughly 40% of law abiding adults in the US own a firearm (which would be around 96 million gun owners), compared to about 120,000 federal and 680,000 state and local full time police officers in the US (800,000 total). That 96 million is very rough as it is very hard to get accurate numbers on gun ownership, since we don't require registration (thank God) and many people, particularly women, won't disclose that they own a gun in a poll or survey. We do know there were 11.1 million people with concealed carry permits in 2014, and while we don't know how many of those actively conceal carry, it's safe to say they own a gun.

The number of assailants killed however is a very misleading as the number of times an armed citizen uses a handgun in self defense is estimated at between 65,000 and 80,000 times per year - with a significant number of these probably never being reported to the police.

That suggests the assailant is shot and killed only about .5% of the time when a gun is used in self defense. That's not all that surprising however as even bad guys don't like to get shot, and producing a gun ha s profound psychological effect on an assailant, particularly when they were not expecting the potential victim to be armed.

Estimates vary, but it's believed that producing a gun is sufficient to stop an assailant in about 70% to 95% of instances where a gun is brandished in self defense.

If you carry a high capacity semi-auto and a pair of spare magazines, you're probably not going to like this...

Based on the most conservative numbers up above, you have only a .00083% probability of drawing your handgun in self defense in any given year. If you have to draw it in self defense the probability you will have to shoot it only .30, and if you fire, the probability is only .05 that you'll need more than 5 rounds in the engagement.

In summary, this year the probabilities for us average armed citizens are:

0.00083 (0.083%) that we'll need to draw your gun in self defense;
0.000249 (0.0249%)that we'll need to fire; and
.00001245 (0.002145%) that we'll need to reload.

In other words, the need for a reload in an armed citizen self defense shoot exists in just 1 in approximately 80,000 self defense shoots.

Even if we only consider the 11.1 million concealed carry permit holders, the numbers look like this:

0.0072 (0.72%) that we'll need to draw your gun in self defense;
0.00216 (0.216%)that we'll need to fire; and
.000108 (0.0108%) that we'll need to reload.

That's a reload needed in just 1 in 10,000 armed citizen self defense shoots.

Training and EDC implications

If you want to train for that incredibly low probability event, and carry a high capacity semi-auto with 2 spare magazine to be ready for that extremely low probability event - by all means knock yourself out.

But be realistic and honest enough to admit that you're prepping for some sort of post apocalyptic zombie scenario or maybe a mall ninja terrorist scenario, rather than a real world need.

There are more productive areas to spend your training time and dollars. I'd much rather see shooters shooting often, and working on:

- developing a consistent grip that facilitates automatic alignment of the rear sight with the front sight as you draw and present the weapon;
- developing an ingrained habit of verifying the rear sight alignment in slow fire, and at speed, verifying the placement of the front blade on target and relying on the grip o take care of rear sight alignment (the whole process becomes incredibly fast once the grip is properly developed and makes accurate self defense shooting and decent bullet placement possible);
- drawing and shooting from concealment; and
-developing the footwork needed to draw and shoot while moving laterally, or to the rear, toward cover.

All of the above will make you far more effective in a gun fight than practicing a reload you'll (for all practical purposes) never need.

Besides, rather than wasting training dollars on this in a class, you can practice a reload by doing a tactical reload every time you load your handgun, rather than doing an administrative reload. What do I mean? If you feel you want to carry a speed strip or speed loader, use the speed strip or speed loader, every time you load your revolver. Over weeks, months and years, doing this under time pressure, you'll develop the muscle memory to load pretty effectively under fire if the need ever arises.

You can also do it at the range and find what works best for you and your particular revolver - the FBI reload, the Universal Reload, or the Stress Fire reload. A google search will educate you on the differences, and the pros and cons of each.

If you carry a semi-auto pistol, there's some justification for carrying a spare magazine even if you'll never need the extra rounds. In the event you get a mis-feed, any jam that is not resolved with a quick tap-rack-bang immediate action is probably best addressed by dropping the magazining, clearing the weapon and inserting your spare magazine.

However, the idea that you might get a misfeed is based largely on what happens in a practical pistol match or range session where you're shooting maybe 300 rounds of cast bullet reloads cranked off you progressive press without cleaning your pistol. A failure to feed is a lot more likely in that scenario than it is with your recently cleaned self defense pistols shooting high quality self defense rounds that you've tested for reliability (at least 200 rounds down range without a failure).

If you're expecting a failure to feed with your self defense pistol and ammunition, you're clearly carrying the wrong pistol and/or ammunition.