Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Magazine Pouches


I've never really had a holster fetish - I started shooting with a non-Serpa Blackhawk! paddle holster and I still loan it out on occasion. I moved on to a Safariland ALS holster for IDPA on a whim, then settled in the Safariland 5187/5188 holster. All that stuff worked fine until I got the Beretta... The older Brigadier slide (it is wider than a standard Beretta 92) limits the holster options. Comp-Tac just discontinued theirs leaving Blade-Tech the only real manufacturer of Brig holsters around (which is fine since they make nice gear...). I guess I've been lucky in that regard, as I hear a lot about people who have drawers full of holsters.

So, let's talk about the other end of the equation: production magazine holders... (I avoid Limited/Open pouches, because these are far less constrained - magnets, etc...)

I started off with simple Uncle Mike's double pouches. While these will work, after a while I found myself too cramped by the spacing to reload from them effectively. I started searching for a better system, and, unlike my experience with holsters, I've had to switch things around a fair bit: I jumped from Blade-Tech pouches to Ghost holders to the Safariland ELS system.


Safariland

Unless you're getting into 3-gun, I don't recommend the Safariland ELS system as much anymore - you can see my older review and what I used for the first 5 years of competition. 

The ELS system is great for 3-gun, and it does work, but if you find other equipment that you want


mounted, you're SOL - I guess that is my biggest beef with it. (Other than the belt "nubs" that you have to align to the holes on the belt)  I moved from the Ghost pouches to the 773 pouches because I couldn't reliably mount the holders on the belt and still leave a configuration for rifle pouches, etc.

Regarding the Safariland 773 and 771 pouches - you still see 'em a lot out there, but I think that there are better holders since the retention screws tend to back out and leave magazines flopping a bit. They are angle adjustable, but that's about it.


Ghost pouches

These are pretty awesome, especially since you can flip the magazines sideways. The spring clip really keeps the magazines in there - see the video. They can mount "easy-on/easy-off" to a belt and are angle adjustable. For ~$25.00 a pouch, you can't really go wrong.




ReadyTac

For the simplest setup, check out ReadyTac's pouches: The design is self-tensioning, which means there are no screws, clips, etc. They aren't adjustable, but for CCW or IDPA, that's ok. Don't bother with the pro-grade stuff - the simple design is easy-on/easy-off and works just fine. Bonus: You won't need a race belt to keep this together...







This, can by no means, be a comprehensive list of products; there are just too many makers out there! Don't be afraid to experiment and see what works well, but learn the proper setup:

The biggest issue with magazine carriers is placement - once carriers start to get forward of pant seam, I feel like it becomes more important to begin sweep back the angle - i.e. the top of the first magazine should be behind the bottom of the magazine. I think too many people try to align the pouches vertically, which leads to an uncomfortable wrist angle and improper grip which impedes magazines indexing.