Dropped Magazines

[Ray C]

During the shooting qualification for a CCW permit, I was at an outdoor range for the first time with my P380 and had to drop my empty magazines onto dirt during reloading. Does anyone have any experience on how well Kahr's magazines hold up to this practice?

Prior to the qual, I've only shot it at indoor ranges with magazines dropped onto the bench.

[CM9]

probably as good as any mag------I would think that the real issue would be to make sure dirt is kept out of any mag dropped into the dirt.

[wyntrout]

The P380 mags have a shallow dimple and the retention plate is easily displaced. I've dropped my holstered P380 and it struck mag base down and the base plate flew off, and those parts plus the cartridges and the spring flew everywhere. They aren't made to withstand repeated drops and especially not onto concrete or other hard surfaces. Any mag needs some kind of bumper or pad added for that kind of abuse.

[Ray C]

Thanks for the feedback. I did a search, and was not able to find any pre-made bumpers or pads for the 380 magazines. I did find some simple DIY's for other magazines, which was basically shaping a 1/4 inch rubber or foam pad to the base plate and securing it with adhesive. They are also referred to as slam pads.

[wyntrout]

Thick felt or rubber bumper pads that you can cut to size, with adhesive on one side, are cheap... anything to stop the metal or plastic bases from striking the concrete or other hard surface.

[340pd]

I really have an aversion to dumping any mags directly on the ground, If It were me I would just apply the female part of velcro onto the baseplate and get done with the qualification.

[wyntrout]

In the heat of real battle, you tend to do things as you've practiced... "muscle memory". Removing an empty magazine and carefully placing it in a pocket or ANY place, instead of releasing it to fall as you insert a full mag, could be a fatal delay. I can certainly understand training as you would fight, but the mags probably won't stand up to repeated drops. C'est la guerre!

[kenemoore]

I routinely drop 1911 mags on the ground, a mixture of dirt and grass,mostly dirt, without base pads, and they scratch but don't stop working. That being said they have welded base plates too.

One of the local self defense trainers is a retired cop. He tells a story about back in the day, whenever they had training. The instructors would always make them police their brass after each round of qualification, would yell at them liked raped apes if they forgot. Per the story a cop was in a fire fight, and after emptying his mag, his training took over and he stooped down to police his brass, without thinking. This allowed the bad guy to shoot, but not kill him. After that they stopped the brass pickup until the end of the day.

[Bawanna]

I heard from a deputy over eastern part of the state about another deputy in a gun fight back when they carried revolvers. To avoid picking up brass they dumped the cylinder into their off hand and put the brass in their pocket.
Officer was killed along with the bad guy but they found 12 empty cases in his coat pocket.

Our SWAT guys just had training last week at Shaw's in Idaho (excellent by the way). They said there was lots of brass on the ground when they got there and they were told not to pick up any. They didn't come to training to pick up brass. They hire high school kids to come pickup brass now and then.
The said that was the best part, nobody likes policing brass.

[jeepster09]

If ya carry a big gun ya don't worry about no stikin mags droppin....

[Barth]

Kahr MK40 Elite has never dropped a mag during live fire for me (+3K rounds)
That's with 135, 155, 165, 180 gr practice and hot stuff (Corbon, Federal, Speer).
Final answer - Nope