This question seems to come up regularly on web forums dealing with carrying concealed weapons. There’s always a large number of responses, as it’s easy to count how many you have with you and there’s your answer. Unfortunately, there’s really no explanation given, it’s just some number, either one or two, rarely it’s none. I’ve never seen anyone list greater than two spare magazines. I am then left with zero, one or two. Since there’s no reasoned approach, I’m attempting to come up with a few guidelines – though I will be first to admit that I do not have the one, correct answer. This is more an exploration of what to consider before you venture out in the world with your gear.

Since pistol magazines can fail, and actually tend to be a major cause of gun malfunctions, I think it’s just good insurance to have one spare magazine. Perhaps the one in the gun has a problem – recently, I read an account where the floorplate (the bottom part of the magazine that holds the spring in) of the magazine in a guy’s gun popped off. These things do happen, and he just removed all the parts and cartridges and inserted his spare magazine in his pistol. Without at least one spare, he’d have had a single shot pistol.

Another reason to carry a spare magazine is, obviously, so the gun can be reloaded quickly. There are additional cartridges available if the problem isn’t solved right away. This is especially true with pistols that do not hold a large amount of cartridges. While I have heard again and again that most gunfights end with only a few rounds fired, or if it can’t be fixed with six (or eight or whatever), then it can’t be fixed at all, or six is “all I need.” Perhaps in the distant past when one bad guy showed up, but these days it seems to be a lot of bad guys rather than just one, so you had better really do some great head shots or have some more ammunition. If your pistol holds eight rounds, a spare magazine will give you 16, which may very well mean you’ll be able to win the fight or at least fight your way out of the situation.

With these pistols that hold seven or eight, it seems to me that carrying two spare magazines would be a better idea yet. You’ll have a total of 24 rounds of ammo and be capable of putting out a lot of fire. Moving to high-capacity pistols, I’ll use the same reasoning that at least one magazine is needed even if just for some kind of malfunction. My carry pistol has 15 round magazines, carrying a spare is prudent just as if the pistol had eight rounds. With mine, that’s 30 rounds total (I’m ignoring the one cartridge already in the chamber just for these examples). Why carry a second spare magazine with a high-capacity pistol? I carry two spares, yet all I can come up with is that, for me, it is just as easy to carry two spares as one, and I’d rather have more ammunition. Actually, I’d rather have all the ammunition I can carry around (concealed and within reason). This gives me 45 rounds, which should keep me in the fight until I win. One pistol and two spare magazines has been my personal choice for a long time.

Is this a wise choice? I am not sure. Some arbitrary guess? Probably more a guess than anything else. I recently attended a class, trying to learn more and more about gunfighting, and as the class started, the instructor (Roger Phillips) said to have three magazines (one in the gun, two spares) and then he said “five is better.” Interesting. As we went through drills which were based on winning a gunfight, I was surprised by just how much ammunition everyone would pour out when in the correct mindset that a fight was on.  Since I had 75 rounds on me – I had grabbed two extra magazines – and knew I’d not ever use that much, I got to be very wrong when fighting from two yards back to thirty yards with multiple “bad guys.”

I haven’t started carrying four spare magazines just yet, but I now realize that when you are relaxing at home and running some ideas through your mind, something to dwell on a bit is what kinds of situations are possible with you as the intended victim. Do you carry enough ammunition to get yourself out of the problem or win the fight? I don’t know how much that is yet, but I’m working on it. Please do the same. It will become very important once a fight is on, and it will also be too late to decide you might have wanted another magazine.