As I understand it:
An administrative load is one where I am under no time pressure. This may occur at a range table, or at the firing line of a competition or training.
Common advice and practice seems to be to insert a full magazine and chamber the top round. Then remove the mag and load one more round in it, then reinsert the full mag so the pistol is loaded to the maximum.
Some make this process a little simpler by having a second fully loaded mag ready and inserting it rather than loading another round on top of the first mag. This is especially helpful when you cannot lay the loaded pistol down to work on loading the first mag. It works much better on a firing line when it is advantageous to keep the loaded pistol in hand.
I prefer to load the first round from a prepped mag with only one round. After chambering that round, I remove and stow the prep mag and insert a fully loaded mag. The gun never leaves my firing hand. This is faster and more secure than having to load one more round on top of a formerly full mag while still safely controlling a loaded pistol. It’s the same number of steps, just a little easier and safer, IMO.
Another reason I load just one round first instead of a full mag is the very rare possibility of either a stuck firing pin or a malfunctioning sear hammer/striker interface. The gun can go full auto on chambering the first round. Having loaded only one round, such an improbable occurrence would be much less dangerous.
This works for all magazine fed guns.
Of course, when there is no need to have a chambered round and a full mag, I think we all just load a mag with any number of rounds and chamber the top one.
Other thoughts or practices?
An administrative load is one where I am under no time pressure. This may occur at a range table, or at the firing line of a competition or training.
Common advice and practice seems to be to insert a full magazine and chamber the top round. Then remove the mag and load one more round in it, then reinsert the full mag so the pistol is loaded to the maximum.
Some make this process a little simpler by having a second fully loaded mag ready and inserting it rather than loading another round on top of the first mag. This is especially helpful when you cannot lay the loaded pistol down to work on loading the first mag. It works much better on a firing line when it is advantageous to keep the loaded pistol in hand.
I prefer to load the first round from a prepped mag with only one round. After chambering that round, I remove and stow the prep mag and insert a fully loaded mag. The gun never leaves my firing hand. This is faster and more secure than having to load one more round on top of a formerly full mag while still safely controlling a loaded pistol. It’s the same number of steps, just a little easier and safer, IMO.
Another reason I load just one round first instead of a full mag is the very rare possibility of either a stuck firing pin or a malfunctioning sear hammer/striker interface. The gun can go full auto on chambering the first round. Having loaded only one round, such an improbable occurrence would be much less dangerous.
This works for all magazine fed guns.
Of course, when there is no need to have a chambered round and a full mag, I think we all just load a mag with any number of rounds and chamber the top one.
Other thoughts or practices?
