I carry enough +2 extra rounds.
What are we talking about here? Defend/evade/escape to safety or standing and fending off a zombie attack in Times Square?
At home I can understand strategic positining spare mags/ammo for every scenario, but lugging around 50 rounds???
You'd have to stand and defend until your pants are light enough for you to move!
Anyone advocating carrying a lot of ammo, IMHO, needs to bolster their confidence with some moving target practice at the local range. When you can hit 7 or 8 out of 10 targets while moving, you'll realize that the need to carry 30 or 40 rounds is less important than reading the situation and having an egress rout set in their mind for every location. IMHO of course.
Walt629 seems certain he knows what "his" fight will look like. I am not as proficient at predicting the future and I have to prepare in advance for as many situations as possible. The most likely one is multiple opponents and three on one is very difficult to survive while standing around.
I'm not going to stand around. I am going to shoot as I move to cover or an escape route.
If you take Roger Phillips' "Point Shooting Progressions" (or similar), which is a course about movement, you will learn that 15 rounds goes very, very quickly. You will also learn a variety of movement techniques designed to avoid being hit. He also covers the sight continuum and it is used extensively in the course. So, yeah, I'm going to carry three 15 or 17 round magazines for my semi-auto, or three full reloads for my revolver. I'll have an S&W J-Frame with the N-Frame revolver, so that's another five rounds with a spare speed strip.
That's what gets me: Walt's 629 with a couple of reloads weighs more than a
Glock 19 and two spare mags.
Glock 19: 20.99 ounces
3 x empty magazines: 5.84 ounces
46 rounds of Speer Gold Dot 124 grain JHP: 20.44 ounces
Total: 47.27 ounces
S&W 629: 41.5 ounces empty (add more if the gun has wood stocks)
I don't have a 240 grain JHP in 44 Magnum to weigh, but if we just calculate the
bullets alone:
240 grains = 0.548572 oz
18 240 grain bullets: 9.87 ounces
Total: 51.37 ounces
A Glock 19 with three full 15 round magazines and one in the chamber weighs less than a S&W 629 with 4" barrel with 18 rounds total.