You learn a lot from competition.

Dealing with pressure, time constraints, performance anxiety and other tensors give an occasional additional experience: choking.

All those are great teachers about preparation in all aspects of life.

Shooting the Metal Madness “Homecoming” rimfire match in Kentucky a couple of weeks ago taught me that what I’d thought was preparedness, wasn’t. Instead, I was “preparing to fail.” Fortunately, I learned the lesson in a non-critical situation. Embarrassment is competition is decidedly better than failing in an emergency.

Stepping to the line with my “always dependable” rimfire magazines, I was totally unprepared for the catastrophic failure to feed issues I encountered.

I was baffled. The mags and ammo had performed flawlessly together before.

That’s why I have always been particular about loading them. Especially when I wasn’t certain when I’d be shooting them again. I always stored competition mags at a max 80 percent capacity. I would top them off as I’m preparing to actually shoot a competition.

In Kentucky, the twenty percent I’d loaded at the line ran great. The pre-loaded ammo had “issues.”

The issue was determined at a post-mortem after an awful stock rifle performance.

I’d pre-loaded the magazines; then completely ignored them- for years. They’d been bumping around in my range bag or laying in the safe for longer than prudent.

Like a bad retailer, I’d neglected to “rotate my stock.” The “old” ammunition- despite working fine after I took it out and reloaded it-had essentially gotten “gunked up” in my magazines.

My less than outstanding performance has caused a mass reorganization of my ammunition and magazines. Pre-loading my magazines, which I thought prudent at the time, was actually my introducing another potential point of failure.

It also pointed out the fact that I’m not nearly so particular about my magazines and ammunition after an event as I am during it. Checking the magazines on my 9mm competition pistol was proof of that.

I keep the guns immaculately clean and assiduously oiled. When I unloaded the magazines, I realized another problem waiting to happen. Instead of being filled with match-grade competition ammunition, I found it loaded with rounds from three different manufacturers -in two different bullet weights. NOT a recipe for consistency.

The ammo in my SIG X-5 was supposed to be exactly the same type and weight. It wasn’t.

That was eye-opening. But my Smith & Wesson Shield stunned me. As the gun I normally take along when traveling, I thought it absolutely ready-to-go right out of the safe.

It wasn’t.

The situation was even worse with my S&W Shield (top) The optic was dead, and the ammo was different types, weights and conditions. The enlarged image (bottom) shows just how badly the hollow point ammo had gotten.

The battery in the optic was dead. The magazine was filled with three different types of bullets -in varying weights. Two of the rounds (hollow points) looked more like the contact posts on a corroded AA battery than pistol rounds. The photos don’t lie, and I’ve including them because I’m likely not the only person to put loaded guns/magazines in the safe and literally forget about them.

This week I’ve spent a considerable amount of time unloading magazines, wiping down ammunition and re-storing them..separately. It’s been a lot less fun that shooting, but better than worrying about a mag/ammo malfunction at some point in the future.

If you ask a group of shooters how often you should rotate the ammunition in your magazines, you’re probably going to begin a spirited debate, if not an outright argument. I’ve never seen a definitive answer, but heard lots of differing opinions.

I can’t give you the answer, but I can tell you that it is possible to create problems even when you believe you’re avoiding them. Don’t know the exact “cycle time” for mags/and ammo, but I definitely know when I’ve waited too-long.

We’ll keep you posted.

— Jim Shepherd