Never A Victim
Marksman
In addition to what rockhopper said, I also rack the slide whether I shoot till empty or not. Chance of wasting one round at times...but saves me from developing two habits. If I reload, I rack the slide period.
This.
I prefer to do mag changes the same way every time. The problem with using the slide catch/release is that sometimes when you do a reload, you use the slide catch/release, and sometimes you will have to rack the slide. I know this seems easy enough to do, but when someone is shooting at you, this might cause you enough of a delay to get taken out of the fight. As far as counting the number of rounds and doing a reload when you have an empty mag and one in the chamber, I think that sounds great, but I'm not going to bet my life on it. Speed is important, but it is more important to take out as much of the OODA loop as I can.