Review of the MagSim Loaded Magazine Simulator

Visit Tactical Intelligence to download the free ebook, “The 5 Most Crucial Components of any Serious Survival Plan

For us preparedness-minded people there are a lot of things we’re expected to acquire. Top on the list are necessities like food, water and energy needs; medical supplies and equipment; fuel and energy reserves; hunting, communication, and survival gear as well as many other things.

However, the acquisition of tangible “stuff” is not the only thing we need — it’s also crucial that we acquire skills.

In our family one of the skills we hold in high regard is firearm related skills. However when it comes to firearms training, the cost of ammunition nowadays makes it somewhat prohibitive for us to practice as much as we would like.

Because of this, I’m always looking for new equipment or gear that can help keep my firearms training as cost effective as possible. As an example, I recently posted a review of the SIRT laser pistol, which I found to be a very effective practice tool.

The only downside I found with the SIRT pistol is that it’s not a good tool to practice malfunctions. There’s no way of racking the slide or mimicking malfunctions because there is no working action.

Well, a friend of mine had recently developed a tool that fills the malfunction-practice gap. And best of all, it allows you to use your own firearm (currently any 9mm, 40 S&W, 45, 223/5.56).

It’s called the MagSim Loaded Magazine Simulator (LMS).

Reviewing the MagSim LMS

To practice my malfunction drills, up until this point I’ve typically used snap caps. The problem with snap caps is that you’re constantly having to pick them up, reload your magazines, and then set up the malfunctions again. For me, I would get quickly bored of this monotonous process and it would impact my training cycles. Worst of all, if I was training outside and the snap caps fell into the dirt, I would often times transfer dirt into my magazine and pistol action if I wasn’t careful (definitely not a good thing).

The benefit of the MagSim LMS is that it does not require you to continually reload your magazines with snap caps. It does this by simulating a live around in the magazine. This allows you to rack the slide and reset the trigger without the slide locking back, and at the same time you don’t have to worry about the extractor grabbing the LMS “round” and getting ejected when the action breaks open — requiring you to never have to reload a bunch of snap caps again.

In a nutshell, the MagSim LMS allows you to safely dry fire with your magazine in place just as you would with a normal loaded magazine (hence the “Loaded Magazine Simulator” nomenclature). Again, this is especially effective with malfunction practice because you never have to waste time picking up and reloading a bunch of snap caps (and it’s safer because there is no live-round lookalike going into your magazine).

For the last few weeks now, I’ve been practicing my malfunction drills with both my AR-15 and Glock pistol using the LMS. In both cases I’ve seen some nice improvements around my speed and automation with the malfunction drills – not because the LMS gives me any special abilities, but due to the fact that I can now put in a whole bunch more cycles in the same amount of time as before.

The MagSim LMS in Action

If you’re interested in checking out how the LMS works, my friend put together some nice LMS demonstration videos that you can watch here:

MagSim LMS Demo

MagSim AR15 Malfunction Clearing

Conclusion

The MagSim LMS has definitely found a place in my training regimen and I highly recommend it.

If you’re interested in learning more about or purchasing the MagSim, be sure to visit the website here: MagSim LMS.

Again, it’s available in .40 S&W, .45, 9mm as well as .223/556mm for the AR-style rifles.

Stay safe guys and happy training.