I top off for a few reasons:
1) In my issue pistol it is regulation to do so.
2) In my personal pistols it is now well formed habit due to the regs on my issue pistols.
3) It is an additional round, and you never know when it could be the one that saves you. In other words I do not let gun-guruism, machismo, brashness, cockiness, pigheadedness, stupidity overcome the logic of having that one additional round available.
4) For legal reasons should I ever wind up shooting my firearm in a shootout. I can testify that there was absolutely no doubt in my mind how many shots I fired because simple math would figure it out since I am always loaded to capacity (or at least my pistols is that loaded, I only get that way once or twice per year). Sounds more believable to a jury or judge than to say -well this gun I load once less than capacity, this one I load to capacity, so when you found those bullet fragments in that innocent bystanders leg it must have been from the bad guys gun cause I only fired once and I hit the bad guy. But then the police do not find a bad guys gun and no powder residue on his hands, but the did find a fully loaded backup pistol on you; and they found a Glock 19 down 2 rounds from full capacity. Hmm - does not look so good for you. (If you cannot think of the type of situation on which something along these lines could happen, then you do not know much about how gunfights sometimes go down, how fragmentation wounds occur from ricochets and leve virtualy no ballsitics evidence, how bad guys guns disappear because of accomplices, and so forth. I would rather be believable from the get go, and convince them I knew how many shots I fired, and where my shots went.)
All the best,
GB
