Absolutely; 100% correct.Originally Posted by HCM
And 99% correct regarding my BUG. There could possibly be a situation where it was necessary to give someone my BUG... maybe. But 99 times out of 100, somebody (who COULD carry, and knew how to shoot) didn't have any iron because:
1) They were too lazy to carry one
2) Didn't carry one because it would mess up their dress/appearance
3) Any other bonehead reason
.
I am. Washington Navy Yard active shooter response. Several responders from the same agency had different issued pistols which do NOT share magazines (P229s and P239s). At least one shooter had to thumb loose rounds into an empty P239 during a "lull."
Not saying that should completely drive the train, but it has happened.
Off topic, but are you able to which organizations those would be for a civilian? I get the impression that outside of special force groups, training and equipment often run into budget limitations.
I didn't really mean to start the argument as to whether there's much actual value in the commonality. The FBI is switching to a 9mm, which specific one remains to be seen. So they will begin issuing that new weapon to new agents. I'm curious if the existing agents in the field will get the new guns too, or be left to continue with their currently assigned weapons (which, relevant or not, would lack commonality with the new guns being issued).
The FBI is a very large LE organization. Almost throughout its entire history, it has fielded multiple guns and calibers. Commonality is a desireable thing, but unless I missed something, it is not a prominent goal of the FBI.
Every agency does this differently but the logistics of ammo and armorer support are usually what drive the train. Based on past practice, the agents will be initially give the opportunity to exchange their issue weapon for the new weapon and eventually they will be forced to, likely when their national armory stops supporting the Glock 40 or when .40 ammo is phased out. The last FBI J frame BUG revolvers supposedly went away when the last revolver armorer retired. There were FBI agents carrying SIG 226 and 228 DA/SA 9mm through the early 2000's. Not sure how they are handling approved personally owned weapons. They have gone back and forth over the years regarding POWs.
My Agency's transition from HK USP Compacts and Glock 19's to SIG 229R DAKs took about 4 years. However, we allow a variety of personally owned SIG 40s, HK LEM 40s, Glock 9mm and J frame 38s as BUGs. We have about 17k sworn LEOs.
Many other large agencies, NYPD, LAPD, LASO, Chicago PD, DEA etc allow a variety of duty weapons from an approved list. If commonality of mags was a significant issue it would have manifested itself with these agencies.
Two questions:
1) Did the agent in question carry any spare mags for their P-239?
2) Did the agent in question carry a P239 because they have small hands and shot it significantly better than a 229 or did they carry a 239 because it didn't ruin the " lines"of their suit ?
That's one of the things about us humans. We can mess about just about anything, and for the silliest of reasons. No matter how good the plans and intentions are, we can mess it up.
If it actually shoots sub-2" groups with a factory barrel, I will be in line early on.
Let us know! I hope they bring back the RTF1 stippling as an option. I always loved the RTF1 guns and wish I had bought one years ago when they were inexpensive.
Last edited by RevolverRob; 06-02-2016 at 02:29 PM.
They will do both - new guns for new agent trainees and begin issuing to the agents in the field. Expect them to start with older guns that have been in the field a long time. They aren't buying 13,000 new pistols, so it will be phased in over time. As for the schedule you'd have to ask someone involved in the program management.
Commonality is IMO (as others have opined), crap for CONUS LE. They already have G17, G19, G22, G23, G21, G26, G27, Sig 229, Sig 226, Sig 220, and 1911's in the field. The Sigs are personally owned and were grandfathered, but I'm told will be pulled from authorized service in the not too distant future. As mentioned a couple pages ago they stopped letting agents buy new G21's and 1911's for use on duty last year or so.
Even after the new pistol is chosen and sent out to the field, you'll have agents with personally owned Glocks who will keep them until they are forced to remove them from service. That could easily be several years. To give you an idea of how long it could take - I worked with an agent in 2007 who was being give his first G22 and they took away his agency issued P226. That was fully 10 years after they adopted the G22 as their replacement for the Sigs.
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