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Thread: 1911 use by LE agencies...

  1. #61
    Quote Originally Posted by awp_101 View Post
    I had a friendly reason to chat with a couple of Hurst PD officers last year and I asked about the 1911s in their holsters as soon as it was polite to do so. I assumed they were private purchase, I never thought to ask if they were issued.
    They just switched to glocks with aimpoint acro and a tlr1

  2. #62
    Site Supporter Tamara's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BigD View Post
    While I trust the FBI and big fed agencies to do proper testing before adopting something (and even then there have been some questionable decisions or issues that testing didn't reveal, I sure), I can't say the same for every PD.
    Almost no municipal (and damned few state) LE agencies have the resources or wherewithal to actually *test* gear, whether guns or cruisers or whatever. They all either piggyback off testing done by teh feds or one of a handful of large agencies, or else they buy whatever the chief thinks is cool or saw on the cover of Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement in the checkout line at the Piggly Wiggly.
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  3. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tamara View Post
    Almost no municipal (and damned few state) LE agencies have the resources or wherewithal to actually *test* gear, whether guns or cruisers or whatever. They all either piggyback off testing done by teh feds or one of a handful of large agencies, or else they buy whatever the chief thinks is cool or saw on the cover of Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement in the checkout line at the Piggly Wiggly.
    Local Sheriff is guilty of just that..While shopping for M4’s for the dept. a few years back, ends up buying Bushmasters, ignoring a super deal for Colts that was made by a local shop, for just very slightly more.. Deputy I know told me this, he carries his personal M4 on the job (BCM) turned down the Bushmaster.. Not surprisingly, the Bushmasters turned out to be problematic...

  4. #64
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    Quote Originally Posted by ralph View Post
    Local Sheriff is guilty of just that..While shopping for M4’s for the dept. a few years back, ends up buying Bushmasters, ignoring a super deal for Colts that was made by a local shop, for just very slightly more.. Deputy I know told me this, he carries his personal M4 on the job (BCM) turned down the Bushmaster.. Not surprisingly, the Bushmasters turned out to be problematic...
    There's a member on the forum whose agency made them turn in their Colts in exchange for Windham...
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  5. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by Tamara View Post
    Almost no municipal (and damned few state) LE agencies have the resources or wherewithal to actually *test* gear, whether guns or cruisers or whatever. They all either piggyback off testing done by teh feds or one of a handful of large agencies, or else they buy whatever the chief thinks is cool or saw on the cover of Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement in the checkout line at the Piggly Wiggly.
    Exactly, but I thought he bought it at the Big Star.

    (I didn't mean that local PDs do much if any testing. But if you didn't know better, you'd think they'd have some 'gun guys' that have heard about plastic sights and can look to what the big PDs and feds are doing.)

    My understanding was that my own agency was about to pay a consultant $1 million to pick between the Glock and M&P. Before the red tape could be cut and the bureaucracy could get the contract signed, the FBI had chosen the Glock and in the end we just piggybacked off that, fortunately. Use that $1 million somewhere else.

  6. #66
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    Quote Originally Posted by TGS View Post
    There's a member on the forum whose agency made them turn in their Colts in exchange for Windham...
    Wow..kinda hard to understand the mental gymnastics involved in that decision, but, I guess if you don’t know what you don’t know....

  7. #67
    Site Supporter JRV's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tamara View Post
    Almost no municipal (and damned few state) LE agencies have the resources or wherewithal to actually *test* gear, whether guns or cruisers or whatever. They all either piggyback off testing done by teh feds or one of a handful of large agencies, or else they buy whatever the chief thinks is cool or saw on the cover of Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement in the checkout line at the Piggly Wiggly.
    I have a sister at a large local LE agency in the South. Her agency’s patrol rifle T&E process was “the agency armorer wrote a white paper based on Internet forums and limited personal experience.”

    They ended up buying troublesome piston ARs from a company that went bankrupt in a couple years.

    They replaced their piston guns with over-gassed 16” Rock Rivers with short, chunky quadrails, because brass bought a time machine to get rifles from 2004.

    It’s like they’re trying to buy sub-optimal equipment on purpose.
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  8. #68
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    I don't know what they "issued", but when I was a kid in Coconino County AZ, a lot of Sheriff's deputes carried 1911's. In the late 70's.
    In the early 80's to early 90's, again not knowing what they issued or even if they did issue a handgun, I know several Yavapai County AZ deputies who carried 1911's,(the 10mm Delta Elite when it came out was BIG), the 1st (and 2nd, 3rd) Delta Elite I ever saw was on a Yavapai Co. deputy, bought at J&G in Prescott.
    All with several extra mags and most with a J or K or L frame backup.
    One guy who was a good friend of my Dad (RIP Carmen), carried a .45 acp 1911 and 4 spare mags on the belt in Coconino County and probably a couple more mags in pockets, plus a couple revolvers.
    Usually in a Bianchi thumb break basket weave black holster if I'm recalling correctly and I think I am.

  9. #69
    A couple of years ago, I ran into a local cop in Utah who looked like he was ready to step into a USPSA box. Canted mags, mag at 11 o’clock, the works. I think he had 8 mags on his belt. Was running a 1911 in what looked like a Safariland retention holster.

  10. #70

    LE agencies that issued 1911s

    I know that 1911s were the standard sidearm of Clovis, CA PD, back in the 1970s and, I think, into the 1980s. Their chief firearms instructor was a Jeff Cooper acolyte, and may have worked at Gunsite for a while. During the 1980s (or was it the early 90s?) Bakersfield PD transitioned from some S&W _59 double/single pistols to 1911, and their chief instructor also had trained at Gunsite, under Cooper. During the transition, there were a few unintended discharges-- all with the supposedly safer Smiths, with which the officers initially were more familiar.

    Here, in Georgia, the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department issued .357 revolvers, back then, but 1911s were an (and the only) approved option, and a large percentage of deputies went through the required transition course and, after qualifying, carried them. Their chief firearms instructor was Barry Worrell, a former Border Patrolman and Jefferson County, AL deputy sheriff, who, for a while, worked full-time at Gunsite, helping Cooper with one side of the operation, while the late Chuck Taylor assisted with another. Barry also was a frequent contributor to (and, maybe, associate for) Combat Handguns.

    Don't know about Bakersfield PD, but I do recall that other agencies, including much larger ones, didn't enjoy competing with Clovis PD in combat competitions. Likewise, DeKalb S.O. was known for having the most demanding qualification course in the metro Atlanta area, not only using smaller paper targets and tougher scoring than than what then was the State standard, but also slashing most of the allowed times by as much as 50%. Very few deputy-involved shootings, and the one I remember, specifically, involved an off-duty deputy who tried to quiet down a party, was shot in the back while walking away, and, after falling to the ground, took out the gunman. That deputy was armed with a revolver, which underscores that (human) software ("programmed through training and practice) is more important than hardware.

    Our own department, a campus police department for a private university, issued .38 S&W revolvers during the period in question, but allowed officers who completed a rather demanding transition program to carry any personal .38, .357, 9mm, .40, 10mm, or .45 ACP pistol or revolver of their choice, subject to our firearms team approving it (quality, reliability, and their being sufficiently familiar to properly inspect it). Meanwhile, we doubled (tripled?) down on firearms training, generally, with unanticipated results. First, several officers who'd been eager with switch to high-capacity pistols, became content with their revolvers, once their skills and confidence increased (no transitioning was allowed until the officer had qualified on the new, much more demanding course, with his/her issued revolver). Second, two of our minority officers later took me aside, to tell me (I was the chief) that the firearms program, which both had initially thought ridiculous and ill-advised, had done more to reduce racial tensions within our department than had the lengthy sensitivity/awareness program we'd all gone through. Third, recruiting became less of a challenge, as both the number and quality of applicants increased. And, fourth, we gained greater credibility with other law enforcement agencies-- not that firearms prowess should have much impact in that regard, but, in the law enforcement circles in which we operated, it did.

    BTW, although our campus was quite liberal by Georgia standards, and quite a few of our students came from the Northeast and other regions in which firearms are viewed differently than they generally are in the South, not once did anyone complain or shrink in horror at the sight of a cocked-and-locked 1911 in an officer's holster. The few times anything was said, there was a genuine question (e.g. "Is that safe?" to which the officer responded with detailed answer that satisfied the professor) or a compliment, of sorts (e.g. "They let you guys carry 1911s? Cool!"). So much for the claim (never based on actual data) that, "The public would never stand for it!"

    I continue to believe that a single-action pistol with both a thumb and grip safety is better suited for law enforcement purposes than any other configuration, including, even especially, hybrid actions that rely of trigger-safeties, provided the agency invests in training and practice, so that manipulating the thumb safety becomes second nature. Much less likely to attempt to re-holster in unsafe condition than is the case with double/single pistols, and less likely to unintentionally discharge a round than has been the case with trigger safeties. But, as late as 1994, Colt Firearms refused to believe the 1911 had a future, except among gun buffs, IPSC shooters, and the like. Nor would Colt consider polycarbonate pistols for LE enforcement, as they believed LEO's were too tradition-bound to embrace anything that wasn't metal. They seemed to think Glock was a flash in the pan, even as both they and Smith were losing LE customers to the upstart.

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