Which Maglula loader do you actually need?

Everyone who has loaded the last three rounds into a double-stack magazine with a bare thumb understands why these tools sell. What trips people up is that Maglula does not make one loader. It makes a family of them, they are not interchangeable, and the box on the peg that says LULA may be the wrong one for your gun.

Here is which is which.

The universal pistol loader. Maglula lists it for 9mm Luger, .357 SIG, 10mm, .40 and .45 ACP, plus most .380 ACP single- and double-stack magazines and 1911 magazines. It self-adjusts between single and double stack, and it unloads as well as loads — which is the half of the job people forget they need.

Maglula is unusually honest about what it will not do, and the exclusions are worth reading before you buy:

Any round longer than 33mm, which is why .357 Magnum and .45 Colt are out

That last pair is the one that catches people. The UpLULA is a pistol-magazine tool. Long revolver cartridges loaded into lever guns and single-stack carbines are a different problem.

Rimfire magazines are thin, the rims stack awkwardly, and one tool does not cover them. There are two.

22UpLULA is for widebody .22LR pistol magazines over half an inch — 1911 .22 conversion magazines and similar. With the optional 1911 aligner insert it handles single stacks up to 14.5mm wide: Advantage Arms, GSG-1911, Kimber, SIG 220 and P938-22, Tactical Solutions 2211, Wilson Combat. It explicitly will not load Glock 44 or Kel-Tec P17 magazines, and it does not touch .380 through .45.

X12-LULA and T12-LULA are for the other kind of .22 magazine — single-stack, with a projecting side button. That covers Ruger SR22, Walther P22, G22 and PPQ .22, S&W M&P .22 and M&P .22 Compact, Beretta M9-22 and Colt 1911 .22. The T12 also handles the Walther PPK/S .22; the X12 needs a small tab filed off for a few of them, which Maglula describes as about five minutes of work. If you would rather not file anything, buy the T12.

Both say AR-15 on the package. They are not alternatives to each other.

The AR-15/M4 LULA is the full loader and unloader. It takes loose rounds and works with all metal and polymer 5.56x45 / .223 magazines — USGI, PMAG, Lancer, Hexmag, H&K, Beretta AR 70-90, SIG — in 10, 20, 30, 40 and 100 round capacities. It may load 6.8 SPC and 6.5 Grendel magazines, but Maglula says try before you buy on those, and drums are hit or miss. Buy this one if you ever need to strip a magazine, not just fill it.

The StripLULA is the flat spoon. It loads from 10-round stripper clips, or ten loose rounds at a time, into the same range of magazines. It is roughly a third the size of the alternatives and disappears into a range bag. It ships without stripper clips — buy those separately or you will be standing at the bench wondering what you missed. It does not unload.

Sold as a two-piece set: a loader and a separate unloader. It fits the Ruger factory magazines — BX-1, the 5- and 10-round rotaries, BX-15 and BX-25 — plus TandemKross Double Kross and the S&W T/CR22 10-round, which runs tight. It will not work with left-side magazines or with magazines coupled together with TriMag or DuoMag hardware.

If you have a 10/22 and a brick of .22, this is the single best twenty-five dollars you will spend on the rifle.

Fitment is decided by the magazine, not by the gun. Two pistols in the same caliber can take magazines with different feed-lip geometry, and that is the dimension the loader cares about. Aftermarket and conversion magazines are the usual surprise.

So bring the magazine. Not the gun — the magazine. We will fit it at the counter in about ten seconds, and you will leave with the right one.

Questions on a magazine we have not listed here? Call the shop or stop in. Long Island Gun Source, Medford, NY.Any round longer than 33mm — which is why .357 Magnum and .45 Colt are outAny round longer than 33mm — which is why .357 Magnum and .45 Colt are out