A new post is up at the Shooter’s Log on why it’s important to number your magazines for your carry and competition guns. Like I say on the post, I number all my mags regardless of whether it’s a “serious” carry gun or a competition gun. I don’t want to lose track of which piece of gear failed during practice and have that gear die during a major match.
Why you should number your magazines
I used to number my mags, but then I had to keep track of mag failures on a separate piece of paper and correlate the two. Not a lot of book keeping, but still more than I wanted.
Now I just mark the failure info straight onto mag label. If I want more variables than a simple failure count, then I add colors. If the mag gets enough marks to fill a label, it gets chucked. This works well if you don’t have a large number of guns that take the same mag (or guns like 1911s where specific guns like specific magazine types).
Maybe a silly question, but what type of paint/marker do you use to label/number your mags?
I use a silver Sharpie to number my mags
Along these lines you should also number/mark the cylinders on a revolver, to see where each cylinder shoots.
I had a revolver that for some reason had 2 “bad” cylinders, other 4 would group within about 3-4 inches shot at 50 yds off a rest, and the 2 bad ones would consistently go about 2-3 inches up and to the left of the main group.
It was a SAA in 44mag.. I do not recommend anyone try shooting a SAA type gun in 44mag., least of all anyone with carpal tunnel as myself, by 24 rounds you are ready to quit, burn a box of 50 and you may not have use of that hand for a while.
I solved my problem by selling the gun and buying a Dan Wesson 44mag with a 10 inch barrel. I could shoot that gun all day!
It was one of the original DW revolvers with the changeable, sleeved barrels, sadly it was sold because of needing some fast cash.
I marked my mags before I put round through my pistol. To date, all failures have been traced by to the user.