I went to my bi-annual qualification day, pistol, rifle and shotgun and here are some observations/revelations:
The majority of officers (and these are specially trained officers for rifle/shotgun as not everyone is allowed to carry/deploy them) really suck with a pistol. I'd say most would run a high 9 second FAST, inaccurately and a 14 second FAST if they were required to be 100% accurate. (Being generous)
Two officer's in the qual class had to be re-taught how to use the iron sights on the rifles as they were using the wings on the FSB instead of the actual front sight.
One officer is probably legally blind, and could not hit a 12x24 target at 50y with irons sights on his rifle, or his full sized target at 25y.
I was the only one who actually scanned between strings of fire. I know this because two out of the 6 instructors told me I was, same two asked me if I was in the military, as well as a few of the other officers. Preconceived idea that people in the military know how to shoot better than the average person?
I was asked why I running the shotgun and rifle high port, after explaining movement in an urban environment in a few sentences the instructors looked at me as though I wasn't speaking English - though I am pretty sure I was. I asked them what they recommended and they said they weren't taught any specific way other than having the stock on the shoulder during movement.
Turns out what they are teaching us and what we are actually having to do on the street are two different things - whodathunk it?
A guy ND'd a shotgun (00 buck) into the dirt in front of us during a forward movement drill. Thankfully he had enough mind to point it forward enough it didn't hit anyone. No one seemed to care. *facepalm*
Now to some meaty stuff:
We no longer us Federal HST 147gr 9mm duty loads. We switched to RA9T. I asked the sgt down there and he said "it's a QC issue of some kind." .40 and .357/.38 switched as well, but .45 is staying with 230gr HST. I don't understand this at all. Our rifle and shotgun ammo is still federal. Anyone have info on this? Anything out there on HST 9mm duty load QC issues?
We were told that Gen4 Glock 21's shit the bed hardcore over the last few recruit classes who came through the range qual weeks during their academy. The instructor said something like 20 out of 30 firing pins would break during this three to four week range period. This repeated itself four of five times until the brass decided everyone was getting a mix of recycled Gen3 Glock 17's and new Gen4's, no such issues with them (duh).
This precipitated an issue with Glock not giving them the answers they wanted to hear and S&W jumped in with the 2.0 in 9mm, showing them a whole range day thing trying to win the contract. S&W said they'd pay for complete replacement of all guns with new ones, spare mags, even holsters and mag pouches. That is a lot of money to get this contract and it is up in the air right now.
The issue the PD will have is that in our contract it says we do not have to switch pistols if we do not want to, hence why we still have people walking around with wheel guns old enough to be my parents age. They are now allowed to make us switch, so I don't think I would even if it is the new PD rule. That said, the instructor perpetuating the rumor mill stated that this was all up in the air and that they didn't know if it was going through or not. I brought up the known accuracy issues with the original M&P pistols and he looked at me as though I had six heads.
Overall an interesting day.