80's 90's dump poutch?

[Druid799]

Our CQMS used to carry a bunch of ‘off the books’ mags so if you did drop one (there were a few losses every exercise) you could still sign in your full compliment of mags so you didn’t get charged for the loss.

BUT important question is how many beers did said ‘Buckshee’ magazines cost you in the Naffi ?????

 

[Tommikka]

You’d have the draw string tied and tucked up any way , gota look ally as fook on the range ! 

Ally-ness saves lives

 

[Tommikka]

Mags were originally designed to be C (maybe L?) class so they were originally meant to be dropped and nothing said. However some bean counter realised that they were worth about 50 pence and decided we couldn't have people dropping 50 pences all over the place.

So when you got issued a rifle and 8 mags then you had to hand in a rifle and 8 mags. SOP was to put a spent mag back into the 58 pattern webbing but since getting a 58 pattern webbing pouch open when both you and the pouch are wet and cold is about as easy as opening tins of compo when you don't have a tin opener. Most people dropped them down the front of their smock/jacket as the 58 pattern belt made a good seal around the waist so very little tended to drop out unless you took a tumble which would result in mags and boiled sweets all over the place.

after a section attack or a bit of pepper potting it was practise to lie down in a circle in all round defense (4 or 8 people usually) with you ankle crossed over the guy to the left and right. The IC or 2 IC would do a head count, ammo count and if everyone was low then alternative people in the circle would bomb up and once everyone was mag'd up again the IC or 2 IC would issue a prepare to move just before moving off again.

I never bothered with the upside down mag thing as it was pretty obvious when picking up an SLR 20 round mag or a 30 round L85A1 mag if it was empty or not. Especially the RG 5.56 mags as they seemed to be made of tin foil.

while I'm rambling another stupid thing we used to do was put a 5p on the end of the SA80 barrel, just before the flash hider, and pull the trigger and release without making the 5p drop off. If you could manage that then there was a good change that you shot would be accurate if firing a live round. (obviously this was all done with the weapon clear as keeping a 5p on a live rifle would be stupid and probably make the SA80 stop working for some unknown reason).

C/L class don’t necessarily mean it’s use & dump.

A C class is a consumable - use until it’s used up (consume), don’t repair it or assess it at end of life, etc and there are no other special accounting & storage rules such as all the nice stealable kit.

So you could be expected to hang onto your C class for some time, but shouldn’t be on a charge for dropping (an empty) one in Salisbury Plain

Theres the other matter of resupply.  No big problem on the Plain, and also no big problem to pick them up on the Plain

Bring back empty magazines and you can reload them, don’t and you need a constant supply of them
Out in the sunny places patrolling, if you just dump them then go back to the FOB someone has to keep sending in more magazines.  Using up space, weight etc and making the RLC, AAC etc do more trips at risk of being shot at.

 

[Stratton Oakmont]

Do you really think you would get a magazine resupply if you dropped all your magazines?????

You would have been blasted in raf cadets for losing a magazine, outside of Hollywood and PUBG I don’t think anybody really  drops magazines

 

[Cyberlawyer]

BUT important question is how many beers did said ‘Buckshee’ magazines cost you in the Naffi ?????

Let's just say if your CQMS is good at his job he will be owed enough favours that he will rarely be buying his own drinks. Definitely a case of looking after the troops and they will look after you.

Bring back empty magazines and you can reload them, don’t and you need a constant supply of them

Originally the idea was that magazines would be shipped preloaded and disposed off after use, so every ammo resupply would also replace the mags. The yanks did this in Vietnam where the ammo was supplied in preloaded mags in the bandoleers and the mags were considered disposable. The bean counters did away with this and we instead got stripper clips in bandoleers and plastic speed loaders. The biggest problem with this was that the build quality of the magazines was not significantly improved when it was decided they were going to be reused, hence the cheap springs that were originally going to be a single use item would loose tension following repeated reuse and cause stoppages. This resulted in the fairly common practice of only loading 28 rounds in each mag (or wherever possible stealing colt mags when on joint exercises with the US as they were far superior).

 

[Keithlag]

i always put my ones down the front of my smock if not back in a ammo pouch the right way up.

 

[Tommikka]

Let's just say if your CQMS is good at his job he will be owed enough favours that he will rarely be buying his own drinks. Definitely a case of looking after the troops and they will look after you.

Originally the idea was that magazines would be shipped preloaded and disposed off after use, so every ammo resupply would also replace the mags. The yanks did this in Vietnam where the ammo was supplied in preloaded mags in the bandoleers and the mags were considered disposable. The bean counters did away with this and we instead got stripper clips in bandoleers and plastic speed loaders. The biggest problem with this was that the build quality of the magazines was not significantly improved when it was decided they were going to be reused, hence the cheap springs that were originally going to be a single use item would loose tension following repeated reuse and cause stoppages. This resulted in the fairly common practice of only loading 28 rounds in each mag (or wherever possible stealing colt mags when on joint exercises with the US as they were far superior).

‘Originally originally’, further back in time, magazines were fixed giving greater capacity than one shot, and there were some rifles that had a single removable magazine on a wire to avoid soldiers losing them.

Today they are relatively a lot cheaper, but still need a fair bit of work to produce a magazine making them much more expensive than stripper clips etc, but logistics remains a key issue as well as the cost of disposable magazines.

 

[Adolf Hamster]

there were some rifles that had a single removable magazine on a wire to avoid soldiers losing them.

you mean the early lee rifles? iirc werent they 2 magazines- one chained to the gun and 1 spare.

idea being you single loaded it unless you needed the magazine for a cavalry charge or such.

 

[Cyberlawyer]

Originally originally’, further back in time, magazines were fixed giving greater capacity than one shot, and there were some rifles that had a single removable magazine on a wire to avoid soldiers losing them.

True, the Lee Enfield 303 (British Number 4 rifle) had a magazine that was intended to be fixed in normal use and ammunition was loaded through the breach on stripper clips with the feed for the stripper built into the receiver,

but that was a design choice that was common at the time and the magazines were made with this in mind to the appropriate quality.

Ironically today’s AR style magazines (Magpul and the like) are relatively expensive compared to the cheep aluminium shells with a couple of moulded bits of plastic and the worlds cheapest spring that were standard British fare in the 80s and 90s and both economically and from a build quality perspective are totally appropriate for reuse. This wasn’t the case with the early SA80 mags that were originally specified to be disposable and then weren’t properly re-specified and re-engineered when this changed.

Not sure the logistics are that much different between stripper clips and disposable mags. Obviously the ammo boxes would be larger and heavier (or carry fewer rounds), but I have never heard of any reported concerns about this, although the only actual conflict I am aware of where disposable magazines were standard issue is Vietnam (although I am happy to be corrected on this point if anyone is aware of any others).

 

[Danno46]

Like the others have said the ‘Brecon pouch ‘ was the way I was taught straight down the front of your jacket until you get to ‘re~org’ and you could sort your kit out 

 

[TheFull9]

Is your gun empty and the bad guy pretty damn close?  F**k retaining the mag, drop it like it's hot, get the gun fed and do your best to live, think about picking the mag up if and when you have the chance.  As distance and available cover increases you've got more time and opportunity to retain the empty during the reload process.  With an exception to be noted momentarily, dropping empties has never been official UK doctrine afaik whether with rifle or pistol, even doing CQM for deployments (not that I've seen every service/unit's range SOPs by a long shot), but the fact is it's fast so do what you gotta do if that time comes is my stance - which for me it almost certainly never will but I sure hope I come through if it does.

I don't know the details during the SLR days, but basic evolution of british ammo feeding the last 100 years (primary rifles only) has been Lee-Enfield 5rnd clips -> FAL 20 round mags -> RG 'disposable' paper thin aluminium 30 rounders -> HK Steel very-much-not-disposable 30 rounders -> Magpul 30rnd EMAGs.  As mentioned we tried to copy the US in the 80s but bureaucracy caused an issue with the L85A1 and those cheap, weak mags were a large factor amongst the many problems that rifle had.  The magazine is one of the most vital links in the chain of reliability for a firearm.

Dump pouches have never really been the most popular thing for stashing empties for militaries anyway if you take a holistic look at things.  I've never personally seen one that was standard issue for us, the yanks, canada or anyone in Europe, I'm sure they exist but I've never seen one on anyone on ex, in theatre or in a deployed picture anywhere.  I'm quite sure there's various exceptions, but it's not the norm.  They're pretty good for airsoft, they're good for just stashing 'stuff' you need to shove somewhere right that second, saw a good bit of use for 'SSE' in the middle east for some cooler blokes than me, but they have a lot of drawbacks and aren't all that necessary.  I'd call them more a result of the 2000's explosion in more modernised and high-speed shooting courses available for civilians in the US and the gigantic growth in the tactical gear industry that was going on at that same time.