That night I couldn't sleep. Around 2 AM I started searching: "arthritis magazine loading," "can't load pistol magazines."
And that's when I found them. Hundreds of posts. Maybe thousands.
Cops. Veterans. Competitive shooters. All saying the same thing:
"Can't load the magazines anymore. Hands hurt too much. Thinking about quitting."
One guy described spending 20 minutes trying to load the last 3 rounds of his Shield Plus magazine. Finally gave up and just loaded 10.
Another talked about his hands being sore for three days after a range session.
But here's what shocked me: Almost all mentioned trying the UpLULA—the "gold standard" everyone recommends.
And it still wasn't enough.
Even with the UpLULA, they couldn't get those last rounds in. One guy said he was 200 pounds and had to use full body weight to load round 13.
The "solution" everyone recommended wasn't solving the problem for people who needed it most.