"Packing rifle/LMG magazines" Topic

Thursday, I drove up to the gate at work and handed the three striper on duty my ID card. While he scanned it with his UPC scanner (Civil Servant--Price $7.95 USD), I noticed that he had two magazines in the near pouch on his belt. He had several such pouches. Is this the way things were done In WWII and more modern times: more than one magazine per pouch? Was my guy just . . . different? I'd always assumed there was only one in there. Crying two magazines in each storage pouch gives them twice the ammunition I'd have expected.

Grelber

Two or three rifle magazines per pouch is pretty standard. See link for example

See this thread here, too: TMP link

From WW2 until it was withdrawn from service, Bren No.2 had 3 x 30 round mags in each of two pouches, other squad members may have carried one or two magazines in each 'basic' pouch along with other gear such as grenades, spare socks, extra dressings, partly consumed rations.

Most modern (NATO-ish)pouches can carry 3 straight magazines each, may be 20 or 30 round magazines depending on what is issued. If the particular Army is issued with H&K G36's, a designated SAW operator would carry 100 round 'C-Mags' in his ammo pouches instead of 3x30's.

I'm not quite sure what you are asking. Rifle magazine pouches that hold multiple magazines are the norm. During WWII you were more likely to find one stick mag per pocket or cell.

link

But you also had this:

link

and its a leftover myth from the early m16 mags that "they are only loaded to 28 rounds". the modern mags are not weak. i always loaded my 30rd mags with 30rds of ammo. never had one fail to laod, and never heard one man in my unit complain about it, either. and we saw plenty of fighting.
i served with the 173rd in 2007.

jl, did you rotate the rounds, or what was the longest any one magazine spent fully loaded with 30 rds?

Depends on the design of pouch and type of magazine. K98 pouches took two five round clips, and SVT-40 pouch holds one SVT-40 magazine, a triple MP40 pouch takes three MP40 magazines, a G43 mag pouch takes one magazine, a G3 pouch takes two, a 37 pattern pouch can hold….quite a lot (I can fit six Sten magazines into a Mark III). Universal style pouches are supposed to have other stuff in too though (grenades, eating irons etc)

58 pattern pouches were supposed to hold two SLR magazines each plus one in the rifle for 100 rounds, among other stuff (like the bayonet slung off the side of one and a rifle grenade off the other).

we left the rounds in the mags. not that the bullets stayed in them for long(LOL).
paktika was no joke in 2007. believe that.

Regarding rounds "staying in magazines" a long time, when I was with the Marine Detachment on a carrier, we had a buttload of pre-loaded magazines in what we called the "Babylon Box" (actually three boxes.)

These were pre-loaded magazines in addition to the normal loadout each guardsman would have on their person and what was issued at the guardshack.

It was for when s#!t hit the fan.

Every week, once a week, on rotation, one box and it's magazines would all be unloaded, counted and reloaded before being put back into the armory as part of the normal "Reserve Squad" duties.

So… we had magazines that would go two weeks at a pop fully loaded without giving the springs a rest.

On the occasions where we had shoots off the fantail or trucked up to Camp Pendleton for a range fire exercise, all the magazines would rotate around also to ensure everything got *SOME* use. We never had much jamming that I can recall.

So, at least in my experience, loaded magazines can last quiet a while before being fired without jamming up.

If you rotate your loaded magazines weekly, there's very little chance of magazine springs going bad. I've left my CZ75 mags full or nearly so for months to a year without rotating and still haven't had any issues.

The old standard M16 ammo pouch is designed for 2 or 3 magazines and two grenades. Not sure if the MOLLE pouches still hold ammo and grenades.

they don't.

The cartridge belts worn by the WWII GIs were designed to hold two of the 5-round stripper clips used by the 1903 Springfield in each of the ten pouches on the belt. But each pouch could only hold one of the 8-round 'enbloc' clips used by the M-1 Garand. So 80 rounds total for the Garand and 100 for the Springfield. But GIs going into action would usually carry one or two bandoliers each holding 6 of the enblocs for another 48 rounds in each.