Guess I'll be the odd man out and say that I almost never fully load mags to practice reloads. I put a couple of dummy rounds in because that changes the profile on the top of the mag and keeps the feed lips from hanging up on the well if the aim is off a smidge, and saves wear on the feedlips (although I never use my practice mags in match, I have 2 just for dryfire). Doing this has never hurt my match performance, and I've never noticed the weight difference in a match, either for a draw or a reload. Get a good solid grip on the gun/mag and there's no significant difference in handling, imo. Maybe I'm just super strong. The only really good arguement for practicing with a fully loaded mag is if it is hard to seat when fully loaded; but you should never be reloading a crammed full mag in Lim or Open, and if in PD or SS fully loaded is hard to seat, then you need to address the hardware.
I'll also be a little different and say that I do drop a mag almost every time. I've found my timing gets sloppy otherwise and I have screwed myself in a match as a result. Certainly before a match you should start dropping mags again to make sure your timing on the release is correct. I prefer the mag I am dropping be empty so it falls the slowest possible and makes timing the release as critical as possible, but usually each mag has a couple of dummies in it so when I reload I can pick the one up off the ground and put it in my pouch, and be ready for the next beep, and just keep rotating through like that.
I use a sleeping bag to catch the mags... soft and covers a big area.
when practicing "stand and shoot" drills, I load from my front pouch. When practicing movement or field course type drills, I vary which pouch I put my reload in.
-rvb
I'll also be a little different and say that I do drop a mag almost every time. I've found my timing gets sloppy otherwise and I have screwed myself in a match as a result. Certainly before a match you should start dropping mags again to make sure your timing on the release is correct. I prefer the mag I am dropping be empty so it falls the slowest possible and makes timing the release as critical as possible, but usually each mag has a couple of dummies in it so when I reload I can pick the one up off the ground and put it in my pouch, and be ready for the next beep, and just keep rotating through like that.
I use a sleeping bag to catch the mags... soft and covers a big area.
when practicing "stand and shoot" drills, I load from my front pouch. When practicing movement or field course type drills, I vary which pouch I put my reload in.
-rvb
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