Do you carry your CCW with +1?

[Johannes_Paulsen]

It isn't the opportunity to carry one more round, it is the ability to have a gun ready to fire as soon as you put your hand on it.

If you have to draw your gun and your opponent grabs you and fights you the entire way, and you finally manage to get your gun out, are you telling me you still have to rack it to load it?

People don't get mugged from 30 feet away, they get mugged from 2 feet away.

I don't think he was carrying Israeli-style....I think he said that he typically loaded the mag then chambered one round, but didn't go back and put an extra round in the mag after chambering.

[338winmag]

17+1 and 17 on my belt

[TcRoc]

+1 always,,

[Brown-Bear]

Sure do. The mag on my Bersa only holds so many, so why not add one more. You never, know? One last Zombie could poke its undead head around the corner, and then you'll wish you had that last round. But then again, if there another 12 zombies around the corner, I'd be wishing I was carrying my full size piece or another mag....You know what? Fuck it, from now on, I'm rocking the AR, Molle gear and 12 mags, you just can't be too prepared.

Dave

[ScaredOnce]

if you mean you manually place the round into the chamber and then close the slide on it, just be aware that doing that is hard on the extractor in many semi-auto pistols.

the extractor then has to move way out to get around the rim of the case...whereas when loaded from a magazine, the round slides up under the extractor rather than the extractor having to go around it.

so, it is a better idea with many guns to insert a magazine witht he slide locked back, drop the slide to strip a round off the mag, drop the mag, put another round in it, and then reinsert the full mag.

The above is very true. Doing this every so often, such as with a hunting weapon, "shouldn't" cause damage. But YMMV. Or maybe, your ejector may vary...

Another good consideration is to occasionally exchange that "+1" round and load it elsewhere in the mag. Repeatedly "slamming" the same round into the chamber can begin to increase headspace by increasing the bullet's seating. So, some recommend to exchange that round for another in the mag from time to time. I'd assume that also being quietly gentle while racking the slide should prolong the time before any bullet seating issues occurred. I'm sure there's others on this forum with better opinions on this.

[jmiro]

I didn't. now i always do.

[ThoughtCriminal]

Absolutely. With a spare 15rd mag, sometimes I have the 29 rd mag close by.

[Bersa45]

Actually, that is what they mean when you say 17+1. full mag to capacity with one in chamber. So my SR9 has 18 available when needed.

[Tony Fly]

Mag is always filled... always!

[jpavoncello]

I'm going to go against the grain and suggest not doing the +1.
I always start with a fully loaded mag which I tap against my hand to set the rounds tight against the rear, slide locked back and hand rack the slide for the gun to load the first round and go into battery. I don't use the slide stop to load the gun, just the way I learned.
I never refill the missing round and I'll explain why. After loading the first round, take out the mag and look closely at the top round. It should be moved forward in the mag lips just a tiny bit. I believe that the top round being in that position enable more reliable feeding. I haven't had a failure to feed in any of my handguns since I started shooting 20 years ago and I attribute that to not adding an additional round after loading the gun.
That's just the way I was taught and it works for me, my only suggestion would be that if you do use the +1, make sure you practice the same when you are on the range. I'd bet that when at the range most just load off the top of the mag and keep going instead of stopping and adding the extra round. It can make a difference in the way your firearm performs, I have seen it happen and have helped more than a few new shooters that were experiencing failure to load problems because of the +1.
Besides that, I almost always have a spare mag for tactical reloads (reloading on a partially shot mag instead of empty) and if I've fired 12 rounds out of my USP and the fight is not over, I should have brought the rifle.
Just my $.02