Originally Posted by Snapping Twig
I trained with and own a full size Kimber Custom CDP II (internal extractor as St. John designed it  )
I bought some of Kimber's 8 round stainless mags and I would use those exclusively. As to the extra rounds you may wish to have on your person, one or two of the same 8 round mags works well.
Remember, dependability is almost as important as shot placement. Uber mags of questionable dependability are a non starter as they may fail leaving you with a jam, therefore in a jam, at a bad time.
Our discussions here are theoretical at best, God wiling we will never experience such events. I believe in the Jeff Cooper school of thought of developing the basics and training, training and training some more.
Uber mags lend themselves to the spray and pray method. All the really great gunfighters have said the same thing - hurry up slowly. Aim - fire - done deal. |
Good post. I agree with most of what you say; but I respectfully disagree with some of it.
When you say:
Originally Posted by Snapping Twig
Remember, dependability is almost as important as shot placement...
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I'd have to reverse the order and say that dependability is WAY more important than shot placement. In fact, reliability is THE MOST important thing in any combat firearm. If your weapon fails to function, none of the other factors---accurate shot placement, stopping power---even come into play.
For example, facing three armed attackers at close range: would you rather have a super-accurate .45 'race-gun' that jammed after the first shot---or a reasonably accurate .22LR that fired every time you pulled the trigger?
And I respectfully differ with your take on hi-capacity mags:
Originally Posted by Snapping Twig
Uber mags lend themselves to the spray and pray method. All the really great gunfighters have said the same thing - hurry up slowly. Aim - fire - done deal.
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+1 to the gunfighting advice from the old gunfighters, 'Hurry up slowly'.
I've also heard it said, 'Take your time... quickly'.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Missed shots don't count, however fast you deliver them.
But as far as hi-cap mags lending themselves to spray and pray, that ENTIRELY depends on the shooter. Hi-cap mags don't "lend themselves" to anything: they function in whatever way the shooter does. A hi-cap mag in the hands of a shooter who carefully places every shot just means he'll have more surgically-placed shots he can deliver.
But I agree that there are people out there who think that because they have 15 shots in their pistol, they can get sloppy and send a lot of lead in the general direction of their opponent and hope one will connect. But this is a 'shooter problem', not an equipment problem.
And when you say, 'Aim - fire - done deal', that may be true when you're facing one single opponent in an old-West style showdown. But in modern urban settings, when you may be facing multiple opponents, it's more like 'aim - fire - aim - fire - aim - fire - aim - fire'... You get my drift. In a situation like that, the more rounds the better.
Not to mention the fact that one shot of any pistol caliber can't be relied on to put a man down. Some fall on the first shot; some keep fighting until they're dead on their feet. In the infamous Miami shootout of 1987, the BG's had taken multiple hits from handgun rounds, but kept on shooting and killing people til their blood ran out.
The rule of those who know is, keep shooting at your opponents until they are all on the ground. And for those kinds of situations, the more rounds in your gun, the better.