It is very common today for people to replace the magazine release on their pistols. An extended magazine release can make it much easier to change the magazine in your firearm. Competitive shooters can win or lose a match based upon how fast they can reload their guns.
Efficiently changing your magazine is very important but adding extensions may not always be the best thing to do with your defensive gun. Consider how the body reacts under extreme stressful situations. Defending your life is the most stressful situation.
Accidentally hitting the extended magazine release
The worst things that can happen is for a defensive firearm malfunction. Reliability is the greatest consideration of any self-defense gun. If you have an extended magazine release and accidentally hit it you have made life very difficult. Most self-defense shootings do not require all of the rounds to be fired. The time saved by an extended magazine release will not benefit someone if they accidentally hit it.
The newer generation Glocks feature an extended magazine release.
You will see one of the shooting competitors dropping a magazine out of their gun. This happens to shooters in competitions occasionally and demonstrates why a defensive gun doesn’t need an extended release, especially one that is very large. Competitive shooters train for fast pistol reloading. However, they still make mistakes during competitions and drop their magazines.
Under stress, the human body reacts in various ways. You will often lose fine muscle control because of the Adrenalin running through your system. The purpose of self-defense training is to build your muscle memory to the point that actions you need to take happen naturally with very little thought going into them.
Practice your grip and magazine changes to make your reloads smoother. If one gun is difficult for you to operate without a lot of customization, you might want to consider another kind as your defensive weapon.