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Bullets Forward or Bullets Back?

Reloading the Contentious Kalashnikov

By:  Paul Gomez

 

 

 

Note: The author is Chief Instructor for Options for Personal Security, which is headquartered in Sebring, FL. Additionally, Paul is the Assistant Instructor for the Extreme Close Quarters Concepts material developed by ‘SouthNarc’, an undercover narcotics officer and trainer in the southern US.  Paul is a former law enforcement officer and has served in the U.S. Army in a Light Infantry Division.  With over a decade as an armed professional, he has trained with most of the nationally known instructors and is well versed in the martial arts.  He lives with his family in Baton Rouge, LA.

 

 

 

The majority of trainers advocate carrying spare pistol magazines with bullets oriented forward and drawing same with the index finger along the front face of the magazine. This is done to aid in tactile verification of magazine orientation.

 

In an attempt at commonality of motion between pistol and rifle, the same magazine orientation with rifle magazines is often taught. While this bullets forward orientation may work with the AR15 platform which, essentially, loads like a pistol, it is suboptimal with most other designs.

 

If one were to look at common military small arms around the globe, the ‘rock & lock’ style of magazine retention is vastly more common than the pistol like, push button release of the AR15. The ‘rock & lock’ design is found on the AK, M14 and FAL designs, as well as many others. While this piece focuses directly on the AK platform, the concepts apply to all magazine fed military style rifles.

 

 

 

When the size of rifle magazines is taken into consideration and given the need to insert the leading edge of the magazine into the mag well and then ‘rock’ the magazine rearward to secure it in the gun, rather than insertion straight into the mag well as seen on pistols and AR15s, a more robust method of manipulation is required. The conventional ‘bullets forward, leading index finger’ grip, on an AK magazine offers very little control of the magazine and mandates an awkward manipulation of the wrist to attempt to insert the magazine into the gun. It is, also, very fumble prone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This method is based on carrying rifle magazines with the bullets oriented towards the rear and grasping them in a certain manner to facilitate positive control of the magazine from drawing it from its position of carry until it is securely locked into the weapon.

 

 

 

 

To retrieve the magazine from its carrier, I stage the pinkie under the base of the magazine, curl three fingers around the front edge and wrap the thumb around the spine of the magazine. This grip keeps the hand low on the magazine to prevent interference with insertion from having the hand either too high on the magazine initially or from having the hand ride up the magazine during a forceful insertion. 

 

       

                      

The magazine is raised to the gun and brought back to allow the shooting hand thumb to verify, tactilely, the location of the topmost round.

 

 

From there, the leading edge of the magazine is inserted into the mag well and the knuckles of the offhand are raised until they contact the underside of the forend. This ensures that the magazine is properly indexed and ready to be ‘rocked’ into place.

 

 

 

 

After the magazine is inserted, the bolt is manipulated to chamber a round and then the magazine is removed and brought back to the shooting hand thumb to verify that ‘crossover’ has occurred [the topmost round in the magazine has switched sides due to the previous topmost cartridge having been loaded into the chamber]. Reinsert the magazine as previously described.

 

When the question of ‘commonality of training’ arises, I answer that I do have commonality of training…All pistol magazines are carried bullets forward and all rifle magazines are carried bullets rearward. Quite simple, really.