AN EMPTY GUN IS USELESS

Mastering the administrative, tactical and speed reloads.

- RICHARD MANN

The reloading of a defensive handgun is generally considered a baseline skill. It's something that every defensive handgun training course I've taken spends a good bit of time teaching. This makes sense because an empty gun is mostly useless. Most doctrine separates reloading into three techniques. These include the administrative reload, the tactical reload and the speed reload. Although all three serve the same purpose of keeping your handgun full of ammunition, they have different application.

THE ADMINISTRATIVE RELOAD

Administrative reloading is something that has no tactical value. It's nothing but the administrative steps you take when you're readying your pistol for carry, or when you get range and are readying your pistol for training ... though you do often see it used during handgun training courses when students step off the line to load magazines and take a break. Often, shooters will remove the magazine from a holstered handgun and top it off and reinsert it. Or, they'll be standing on the line and adjusting ammunition within magazines and the magazine within the pistol to prepare for a specific exercise or drill.

With the understanding that sometimes, for specific drills, you need a certain round count in one or more magazines, I'm not a fan of the administrative reload. When you complete an exercise or drill on the range and are going to take a break to rest or load magazines, you should first conduct a tactical reload so that the handgun in your holster is fully loaded. The conduct of an administrative reload should only be done to establish some drill, training or safety requirement.