DB has mentioned in various posts that he and many guys on his dept carried .45 Colt duty revolvers in the 1980s-1990s, before the switch to semi auto pistols.
I have a couple of questions for DB, and any other officers who may have carried these back in the day:
1) How did you source pistols? It's my understanding that Smith only made the 25-5 in .45 Colt on an infrequent basis.
2) Were these (pretty much) all in 4 inch guns, or did guys carry 5 or 6 inch guns?
3) How many guys actually carried these vs. .357 or .38 revolvers? Was this a specialist, or "elite" gun, or standard issue?
4) Did your dept provide ammo? It seems like 220 gr Silvertip was the go-to round.
5) Was this mostly a rural Sheriff's Dept sort of pistol, or an urban police concept? The reason I ask is that these were apparently a Sheriff's Dept thing in my area. The city cops carried .41 or .44 magnums for the "elite" shooters, and the pedestrian officers carried .357 or .38s.
6) Why the .45 Colt and not the .41 mag or .44 mag?
7) Did guys carry .45 ACP revolvers, instead of .45 Colt? The .45 Colt silvertip was 225 gr at 920 fps for 423 ft/lbs. The .45 ACP silvertip is 185 gr at 1000 fps for 411 ft/lbs.
When I started in '96, there were still old timers who carried the .44 magnum with dept supplied ammo. They were evenly split between 4 and 6 inch guns. The dept stopped supplying .41 mag ammo a couple of years before, likely for cost reasons.