Rotate your ammo and rotate your mags
There are various stages of CCW experience, those that have made the mistakes, those that have witnessed the mistakes and those that are doomed to see both. Although a gun owner may be observing all of the firearm safetey rules there are still many things to keep in consideration when CCW a firearm. Even though a gun hasn’t been fired, if it is being carried it will fill up lint or the gun can become dry. I have carried guns through out the summer months and found out that I’ve rusted out screws or pitted firearms. Clean your CCW guns for reliability sake, but also for protection.
It is extremely important for you to rotate your carry ammo. Many reloaders know the importance of having the proper bullet crimp to prevent bullet setback, but this is something that is inevitable going to occur if you keep closing the slide on the same bullet. Even if you are not shooting up your ammo, rotate the ammo in your gun magazines to make sure you are not slamming the same first round. Defensive ammo can be expensive and I realize that you aren’t going to want to shoot it all up after a couple times of cleaning your ammo. If you rotate just an 8rd magazine full of defensive ammo, you should be able to dissassemble and clean the gun safetly about 24 times with the same magazine.
I first stepped into the world of tactical carbines after years of toting around an M16A2 for close to 10yrs. We basically had to clean and maintain our firearms daily when deployed and I often wondered what we might have been able to do during the day if we didn’t have such a high maintenance rifle. Looking back, I realized there wasn’t much else to do and this was something that we did to just occupy time. The M16A2 is not a very clean running firearm, but it can go for hundreds if not thousands of rounds without cleaning if it was lubed correctly from the beginning. In all of my years of service with the M16A2, and the years standing next to operators with AR15 rifles, I’d say 90% of malfunctions were bad magazines or improperly loaded, and bad ammo. The next was improper lubrication. It’s been a few years since I’ve been on the range during hunting season, but It was about 5yrs ago that I ran into an AR15 owner that said the key to running an AR15 reliable is to run it dry. Well, if you own an AR15 and you think this is true, I can’t help you.
The Mini 14 was hands down the gun that was hit the hardest by the AWB in the 1990’s. Ruger is now making 20rd and 30rd magazines available to the public and those magazines were going for close to $100 at one point in the later 1990s’. There is nothing wrong with having magazines for firearms that are not the best, sometimes it’s better to rotate through cheap magazines and practice malfunction drills or just toss them when they were out. You don’t want to use your carry mags all the time because if you are shooting through hundreds of rounds of ammo using the same mags that you use for your daily carry, you may find out at the wrong time that the springs need to be replaced. I picked up a good supply of Mil-Spec 1911 7rd magazines that I rotate through my guns and save the Wilsons Combat Magazines for the serious shooting. When the mil-spec mags start jamming too much, I just toss them.
Every time I get asked a question about which firearm or accessory someone needs I follow up with the question “For what?” I have seen plenty of well trained concealed carry owners walk around with a 5 shot j-frame and none of them feel under gunned. The reality is that in some nightmare situation, you’ll never be full prepared, and sometimes we just have to be practical when we are CCW every day. For most practical purposes, I’d recommend keeping a spare magazine in your gun safe in your home, or keep one in your car if you don’t think you can comfortable carry a backup. When most of us are out and about, the ammunition you have on you is all you’re going to be able to fight with, but keeping something near your car and easily accessible in your home is a good idea.
Although I understand that polymer guns are here to stay and they are far more technologically advanced than their early metal counterparts, I still enjoy shooting my 1911 handguns. The 1911s that are being made today are really several generations beyond where the guns that crossed the European continent and fought on the beaches of the Pacific. The best improvements I have seen in the 1911 design compared to the GI guns are #1 the pistol sights, and #2 the gun magazines. The GI 1911 magazines weakness seemed to be the followers. The slide stops were so heavy that many of the times the tabs on the magazine would bend and the slide would close on an empty chamber.