I just finished reading an article on tactical reloads by a gun writer in which the author proved that whatever he may know about guns, his logical thinking skills are somewhat wanting. Within the last few days, I also read an article by Louis Awerbuck with some common sense advice about reloading during a gunfight.
Ok, let's start with the "authority" on tactical reloads (who shall remain unnamed).
The author states that the only reason one would need to reload in a gunfight is because the situation has escalated beyond your control AND you've been missing too much. He supports his theory that reloading during a gunfight means the shooter is inept by citing the prevalence of high-capacity magazines and this is where the wheels start to come off.
1. While there are a lot of high-capacity firearms on the market and in gun-owners' hands, most carry guns are quite capacity limited. I own a number of pistols with double-column magazines, but my two carry guns are both equipped with single-column mags.
2. The author clearly hasn't tried to run the numbers to determine the probability of hitting two attackers with a couple of solid hits each given the reality of gunfighting accuracy. One can say that if you need to reload you've been missing too much, but the reality of gunfights is that people miss a lot when they're being shot at while they're trying to hit moving targets.
3. The author simultaneously tries to argue that you shouldn't need to reload while arguing that you need to retain every last round possible when you do reload. I understand why he's taking this approach, but he needs to pick one stance or the other--switching back and forth when it suits him to try to support his hypothesis isn't reasonable.
Then the author attempts to justify the tactical reload by saying that it should only be done after the assailants are down ("there are no targets and thus no emergency" is the direct quote). Fine. Except that the author tries to justify the tactical reload by saying that it's faster than doing a speed reload and then retrieving the magazine from the ground.
He continues his argument by trying to make the points that retaining the rounds is critical since they "might be sorely needed", and that keeping eyes on the target is critical.
Again, the logic is lacking.
1. If there's no emergency then speed is irrelevant so you can't logically use time as a discriminant between the two methods.
2. If speed IS relevant then it's
pure nonsense to include the retrieval of the magazine from the ground into the speed reload figure. Who's going to bend over and pick up a partially empty magazine if speed is critical? NO ONE.
3. He's also switched to arguing that additional rounds are important when he started by arguing that high-capacity magazines and not "missing too much" made speed reloads virtually unnecessary in the first place.
He then goes on to say that "additional targets might well appear at any moment" as if that is evidence that the tactical reload is a better idea. If additional targets could appear at any moment, it makes no sense to undertake an 8 step process (per the author's numbered steps) that requires about triple the time necessary to reload your gun.
In short, the author, in a single article, argues that extra ammunition is superfluous AND potentially critical, that tactical reloads should be done when there's no time criticality BUT that time is an important factor and finally tries to bias the time required for a speed reload by implying that a defender would try to retrieve a magazine from the ground when time was of the essence.
SOME of the points made sense, but it's hard to take them seriously when the author immediately contradicts his basic premise in the next breath in his attempt to "prove" his next point.
Louis Awerbuck's common sense comments from the May 2012 issue of SWAT's Training and Tactics Column stand in stark contrast.
"...
The <speed reload> means you need more fodder in the weapon right now, whereas the tactical reload is supposedly performed when the mythical Lull puts in his royal appearance in the middle of a confrontation.
...
Get the damn weapon reloaded as the priority. You can always salvage the previously utilized half-empty magazine or remaining cartridges as a secondary objective."
He also makes the point that
"...in a gunfight, unless you’re using a single-shot firearm, you don’t know in advance when you’re going to be reloading ... you will lose track of rounds fired. For a variety of reasons...the ability to count fired rounds goes out the proverbial window."
That makes a lot of sense.
I've always been troubled by the idea that we should take ourselves and our firearm out of the fight during the "mythical lull" to reload a gun that doesn't really need to be reloaded and then, on top of that, to reload in a way that takes about 3 times longer than actually required.
The bottom line is that time can't be both critical and unimportant at the same time. If you
need to reload in a gunfight then time is critical and you need to do it as fast as possible. If you don't need to reload, then don't. It makes zero sense to spend time juggling two magazines simultaneously to do something you don't really need to do in the first place.