Reload

The **reload** is the act of replacing a partially or completely empty magazine mid-course-of-fire. The two canonical types are the **emergency reload** (slide locked back, insert fresh magazine, release slide) and the **tactical reload** (retain partially-used magazine, load fresh magazine without going empty). For defensive civilian use the emergency reload is what matters. Tactical reloads are competition and professional-use techniques that most carriers will never perform under stress. Good reloads are fast and unconscious. They are built in dry fire — magazine changes, not ammunition changes — and validated at the range with a shot timer. The benchmark most serious handgun shooters work toward is a sub-2.5-second emergency reload from a holster-carried pistol with a belt-carried spare magazine, hit-to-hit on target.