During my career, I have worked three different agencies and been fortunate enough to meet a lot of liked minds locally and coast to coast. One the things I like to study is ballistics. Of the three cities I worked, two of them contained some of the roughest neighborhoods in my state. I've been to multiple shootings and homicides, talked to trauma doctors and coroners, and have been able to look at x-rays and pictures of autopsies. I have also been able to be part of ballistic shoots through cars, glass, and heavy clothing. When I left my last agency and came to my new home a year and half ago, I was in charge of our firearms program and was the lead instructor on a SWAT team I was on. While I was here I was able to make new friends and be part of our range staff. We have a full time armory that does the testing on weapons, ammunition, and so on.
I came from the area my state calls The Region. When I was raised up as an officer, the king of the hill caliber was the 40. Some agencies allowed the 45 acp and a couple issued them in the area. But just like in other places in the country, the 9mm was making a come back. When I left and went to a suburb next door, they had very beat up 40 caliber Glock 22's. I had a voice and was able to get us switched to 9mm's within six months of being there. During my 4 years there, we used the 127 +P+ Ranger T's until I saw issues with their ammo one of the Top 3 PD's were having. We then switched to the 124 +P Gold Dot due to the luck that Chuck Haggard had with it and NYPD. Being on a tighter budget, the extra $100 a case for it made me look for other options. Right before I left, I ordered 124 +P HST's. The price was the around the same as the Ranger ammo and the round did well in the testing I did.
When I came down here, we were issuing the 147 HST. I would have to say I'm not a fan and neither was the range staff due to some issues in shootings with it. When I helped out at the armory they were ready to look for a duty load. We decided to do some testing with the 127 +P+ Ranger T and the 124 +P Gold Dot. I brought some 124 +P HST's but at first they were not interested in it. After the testing they let me test it and found that it out preformed the other loads in heavy clothing and auto glass. We had Vista Outdoors come out to check our work and found that we were looking a solid performer. Currently we are switching over to the 124 +P HST and will have it fully issued by the middle of this month.