EDC CCW GLOCK 19 G19 Everyday Carry

Do you number your magazines? Brian Galante does and it’s a pretty good idea. It helps you identify when you have a potential problem. The cause for the majority of misfeeds — Brian has a GLOCK 19, so that’s never a problem for him — can be traced to the magazine. If all of your mags look alike, it can be hard to tell if one’s at fault. But if you number them, you can trace a problem down to a particular mag.

31 COMMENTS

    • Number them? Not necessarily. But identify them individually? Well duh! Of course. Anyone who is anyone knows which mag is which. Well, unless you are a gomer with only one or two mags. In that case you don’t matter.

    • Yep. If I’m having trouble I carve a notch in the base plate. If there’s already a notch there I spray it with orange target paint to use in some hypothetical failure drill later. Numbering is just too dang fiddly.

  1. A good idea. I’m going to start doing just that. I recently bought 6 promag’s 9mm luger. 4 of them fit fine , 2 do not. You would think a brand new mag would work perfectly , not so. 10 rounders that only fit magwell with 9 rounds , not cool.

  2. Been doing that for years. Use a paint marker and add a letter, caliber, capacity, then mag#. So. Glock 19 9th magazine is “G9-15-9” on both sides and base plate. That way I always know exactly what I am grabbing from the belt, range bag, etc… Use colors of marker for other info. Like Glock 9mm is Green. Glock .40 is white. Etc… So you never put a G23 mag into a G19 and vice versa. Or 5.56 into 300 Blackout.

    If it hiccups it gets a red dash. So it can go back and test later.

    • Use a similar method. Use silver marker for black magazines, and black for silver. And if we are talking coloring base plates, Lone Wolf has them available in multiple colors. In my case, I use the colors to distinguish what I have loaded in carry magazines. This has the advantage of keeping me from mistakenly shooting a magazine of much more expensive self defense or solid cast ammo at the range, which means that I long ago paid off the cost of colored baseplates.

      I like the idea of putting marks on flaky magazines to identify the bad ones. I really don’t mind misfeeds or the like at the range. It gives me a chance to practice clearing it, and I think that it is esp good if you aren’t expecting it. The only misfeeds I have ever had with a G17 have been with a set of after market magazines. Not sure who made them, but not MagPul, whose magazines have yet to misfeed with me. I know that the misfeeds are in a set of 3, and suspect that it is one in particular, but it would be helpful to know which in particular. Esp since I have spares – tend to have about 10 magazines for each handgun, with the best 3 used for carry, 5 at a time at the range (5×10=50), and a couple left over.

  3. I have 10 mags for my G19, all numbered. I rotate them every six months so it’s easy to keep track.I carry 2 at a time

  4. I prefer the numbers on the baseplate, but yeah I’ve done that for going on two decades now.

  5. My 20 round Colt magazines for my AR15 were numbered 1-4. 1 and 2 were used in most matches. 3 and 4 in matches with more than two stages which happened occasionally. Never had a problem with any of them.

  6. Havan’t had problems since I went to only quality USA mags. I do mark my rifle mags as tactical and the target mags are unmarked.

  7. I’d be interested to hear what others use to mark their mags. I’ve used sliver sharpies, but while I like sharpies, the silver ones go south pretty quickly.

    • Git yerself a bottle of white nail polish (or borrow some when the wife isn’t looking). You don’t need to write actual numbers, just make little white dots.

      I don’t think numbering magazines is all that important but they probably should be marked in a way that you can identify them as yours, especially if you’re using them around other people with the same gun.

    • Ironicatbest used model car paint. He got a dark blue that was almost but not quite the same color of the clip(haha) , he did this so he could keep track of his rotation order. Which was switched out monthly to prolong the springs.

  8. “But if you number them, you can trace a problem down to a particular mag.”

    Here’s a tip, Dan. If you’re having a magazine-related problem, the particular mag that’s causing the issue is probably the one that’s in the gun when the problem occurs. This stuff really isn’t that hard.

  9. As I have 4 1911s different sizes and calibers. Minimum 5 mags per gun. They are all marked by caliber and numbered.

  10. I use magazines that work and throw the others away or change the spring. No need for numbers. If there is a mag problem at the range I separate it right then. KISS

  11. I name them. In an induction ceremony when they join. “Your BA name is … ‘flounder’.”

    Numbers are so impersonal.

    • Please give us the text of the induction ceremony. More of us might want to do something like that, to motivate them to be a better part of the team, to strive for zero failures…
      Is the ceremony under moonlight, candlelight, the sun? Do you burn incense or the blood of America’s enemy’s?
      Just curious.

  12. I use a white crayon to color in one of the numbers on my mags that have a round count. They usually start with 3 and go up to 15. It’s simple and it lasts. Something I learned in my youth with a certain types of dice.

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