Though there are tons of mag pouches on the market, and there may be some good ones I am not familiar with, finding a really good mag pouch is not as easy as it should be. We are mostly concerned with concealed carry pouches here, so we will mostly stick to that for today.
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My most used mag pouch is the old basic Mag Carrier (BMC) from Rich at Custom Carry Concepts. Todd Green asked Rich to make it as the original maker of that style of mag pouch had stopped years before. As with most everything else, Rich got it right the first time and to this day, it is still the best concealed carry mag pouch on the market. Unfortunately, I only have them for Glock mags, though my P30 mags happen to fit them very well. The BMC has the smallest footprint, the fastest draw, the correct ride height, and the right tension. Most other pouches can’t even get two of those right.
Safariland used to make the model 71, which in its original form, was designed to carry on the work done by the old Milt Sparks rubber pouches that were so popular with certain groups. The 71 was an improvement, as you could carry almost any magazine in it. Then they “improved” the 71 by making the belt loop a little easier to use, as well as rounding the bottom of the pouch. The gen 2 was a complete fail, and I only use the gen1 versions.
The 71 is not usually my first choice in a concealment pouch, but if you need to accommodate different mags, it is my go to solution. Today I was shooting the P30 as well as an HK45, and switching between mags was seamless with the 71. It carries pretty tight to the body, has just the right tension on it and it allows for a fast draw, whether you are using a single stack 1911, a double stack 9, a Glock, or a USP45. You can even put sub gun mags in there in a pinch.
The 71 was my go to pouch for tactical stuff for most of my tactical career. It takes abuse well, doesn’t lose mags even when hanging upside down from helicopter skids (not a recommended practice), and takes up very little space on my real estate poor gunbelt. When I was using both a G22 and a 1911 for SWAT work, this pouch worked great as I only needed to swap my holster out.
A relative newcomer, but also a modern version of the old Milt Sparks pouch, Tango Down collaborated with Milt Sparks and came up with a very useable double mag pouch. It is flexible and contours well to the body but if you prefer a single pouch, it can be cut into two separate pouches with an exacto knife in about about 5 seconds.
The original Milt Sparks magazine pouch was a favorite of mine and many others, but it was pretty much only for 1911’s. The current version is billed as being for 9 and 40 Glock mags, but it also fits the HK45 mag very well and I imagine it will fit a few others that I haven’t tried yet. A friend at Milt Sparks was kind enough to send one of the new ones to me when they first came out. At the time, I tried it out and then put it away. It worked well enough, but it didn’t do anything that I really needed at the time so it didn’t get much use. With my current use of the P30 and HK45, this pouch has once again become very useful.
It is not the first choice for concealment, but it is very reasonably priced and it works well if you need to sometimes conceal your mags and sometimes open carry them. If you had to outfit a team on a budget, this would be a great choice as it works well for open carry on a tac belt, as well as concealed carry.
As you can see in the photo, the CCC pouch rides a bit higher than the other two, which conceals and draws very well for me. Also seen in the photo, I cut off the shirt guard on the Safariland pouch. It never helped me, and just got in the way so all of my pouches get that treatment.
I have pouches from a few other makers but am mostly less excited about them, even if they generally work and are currently available. If you have a pouch you really like, I would love to hear about it.