Fifth episode of 'Time To Kill', a series devoted to the inner workings and mechanics of Call of Duty's multiplayer. No matter how large your magazine - sooner or later, you're gonna run dry. In this episode, we're covering reloads. Reloading is an unfortunate but necessary interruption in your firepower - it's a nod to realism, where guns don't have an unending pool of lead to spew - but also to weapon balance, where magazine size and reload time can be a differentiating factor between weapons. Every gun has slightly different characteristics, but can be broadly categorised into two types : magazine reloads, and per-round ones. Most weapons fall into the former category, having detachable magazines that are switched out during the reload process. These weapons replenish their entire supply in one action, so no matter how many rounds you've expended, you'll have a full supply upon reloading, total supply permitting. Per-round or per-shell reloads work a little differently - these weapons generally have internal magazines that are replenished one round at a time. These weapons can take considerably longer to reload if you need to fully replenish your supply, but do have the advantage in that they can be 'topped-up' at any time, and normally fairly rapidly. In Modern Warfare 3, only the shotguns have this trait - specifically the KSG-12, the SPAS-12, Striker and Model 1887. In previous games some of the sniper rifles exhibited similar behaviour - notably the M40A3 from COD4. For the most part, the main distinguising feature of each weapon's reload is the time it takes - with some weapons reloading in an instant, and others taking a painfully long time. It's the USP .45 that takes first place in the reload time stakes - at a sprightly 1.625 seconds. In fact, most of the secondary handguns and machine pistols are relatively quick to reload, with most semi-auto pistols reloading in under 2 seconds, and the automatic machine pistols within 3. The revol