More Fancy Guns For Armed Government Employees

[LockedBreech]

Not my first choice but clean Glock mags with brass cased ammo work fine.

Especially if you work for an organization that treats mags like the disposable/ expendable items they are.

I've seen a brand new one removed from the package, watched it loaded with Federal American Eagle 115-grain, then watched a Glock 17 Gen 4 with a perfect record have 2-3 stoppages in 200 rounds. Really eliminated my interest for them when OEM ones are what, like $5 more?

That was a few years ago (late 2019) so they may be better since then.

[John Hearne]

A long time ago, I was at Thunder Ranch for Handgun 2. Half the class were DOE guys and their issue pistol was plain Jane P220. I was running a first gen P220ST that had a trigger job by Teddy Jacobson. When we did the battlefield pickup drill, none of them believed that my gun was P220. I guess their standards have come up over the years.

[jtcarm]

I'm a bit of a broken record saying this again after the new Polish armed forces pistol thread, but...

The U.S. government and federal agencies have spent so, so much money proving as definitively as possible that the Sig and Glock 9mm pistols are workable, flexible pistol platforms suitable to large agency issue, shootable to a high degree of proficiency by most people, and reasonably terminally effective.

I would have no issue with DOE couriers purchasing high-end PDWs (MP7, P90, etc.) or high end rifles to meet objectives versus armored targets, etc.

But for a 9mm pistol I'm baffled why you wouldn't choose what the armed forces (Sig) or FBI and CBP (Glock) just EXHAUSTIVELY evaluated when both are available for peanuts to federal agencies. I see no benefit and many many detriments to the Zev choice.

Because the brass of every agency has an empire to defend and a budget to spend.

My question isn’t whether the selection process was exhaustive, but has their training been? Are these people so proficient that they’ve reached a true performance limit with the Sig? Or, is it in fact, the other way around, and they’re throwing money at the weapon rather than teaching the warrior?

[HCM]

Because the brass of every agency has an empire to defend and a budget to spend.

My question isn’t whether the selection process was exhaustive, but has their training been? Are these people so proficient that they’ve reached a true performance limit with the Sig? Or, is it in fact, the other way around, and they’re throwing money at the weapon rather than teaching the warrior?

These people are the 1% of institutional shooters.

They are also a group for whom pistols are tertiary weapons.

[Grouse870]

Im wondering if the p mag thing has more to do with the fact that no “Glock” clone is sent with actual Glock mags. The carry mags will most likely be actual Glock mags and the pmags will be tossed in the practice mag bucket (if I had to guess) I wouldn’t be surprised if they just have a glock mag contract with a govt distributor. I could be wrong but I am an armed government employee (not one of these guys though)

[UNM1136]

I have trained some with those guys. About 10 years ago G22 and G23s were in their holsters. The last one I trained with was on my right, APD SWAT sergeant was on my left, and for most of the day I was leading the courier by about 2-4% on scored targets, and the Sgt was leading me by about the same amount. I was well placed: someone to stay ahead of, and someone to chase.

Anyone remember Bennie Coolie's TRS videos? I used to have a second hand copy and would like to watch it again, if I can ever find it. And a working VHS machine. He was running a .40 in those vids, too.

ETA: thanks for the video @HCM, I hadn't seen it. I do recognize a couple of those training sites and background shots....

pat

[TGS]

Because the brass of every agency has an empire to defend and a budget to spend.

My question isn’t whether the selection process was exhaustive, but has their training been? Are these people so proficient that they’ve reached a true performance limit with the Sig? Or, is it in fact, the other way around, and they’re throwing money at the weapon rather than teaching the warrior?

They shoot a lot but I'm personally going to refrain from contributing to them some mythical status. I've only had one coworker that came from OST where I had close/recurring contact through training and operations, so caveat emptor. He was technically and tactically proficient, well above average, and in particular was a specimen of physical human perfection.....but the way he had his kit and Mk18s set up did not convey being tuned-in on weapons systems at all.

While they shoot a lot, I've heard their range sessions fall into the "Spend-Ex" category rather than focused skill development. Most of these guys come from line infantry, MP SRTs, or USMC Security Forces (Nuke Guards and FAST) and are well trained for the mission they perform. Choosing ZEV's is pure masturbation, though, nor would I place them in the same league as agents from the pre-9/11 legacy Air Marshal program. I could see them getting away with the Staccato as a cool-guy gun, but truth be told there's no reason that the P320 or Glock isn't suitable for their role.

[DDTSGM]

I don't want to drift too far off-topic, but that's a gross oversimplification. And having spent the last 12 years as a contract employee on the commercial side of nuclear security, like every other career field, there are good contractors and bad contractors.

True, you will find good and bad in every field. In that particular incident I think the contracting company was at fault for equipment lapses, but their employees were also complicit:

According to a criminal complaint filed by the Energy Department inspector general’s office, Sister Rice, 82, and her companions, Michael R. Walli, 63, of Washington, and Gregory I. Boertje-Obed, 57, of Duluth, Minn., “activated numerous alarms and sensors” in a network of tall fences built in the late 1980s. But despite what appears to have been a slow crawl through the defenses (the three had bolt cutters, hammers, flashlights and cans of spray paint, and went under the fences), they did not draw a prompt response. In the past, security officers at the site have complained that alarms go off frequently, triggered by raccoons and deer.

I spent most of my adult career trying to impress on new officers that officers must treat every alarm, and every call no matter how minor or how many times they've been to the area, or on similar calls as the real deal - honor the potential threat. By my metrics, not checking out every alarm was a fail on the part of the individual security officers. YMMV.

The activists, who got past fences and security sensors before dawn on July 28, apparently spent several hours in the Y-12 National Security Complex before they were stopped — by a lone guard, they told friends — as they used a Bible and candles in a Christian peace ritual. In a telephone interview, Sister Megan Gillespie Rice, of Las Vegas, said she was not sure exactly how long they were there. “It was dark; we couldn’t see our watches,” she said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/u...-in-court.html

I'm sure you are very competent at your job, so please don't take my statement as an attack on you or your performance; I am a proponent of 'if it's the government's the governemt should take care of it' including prisons, nuclear facilities, general base security, overseas protection, etc.

[HCM]

They shoot a lot but I'm personally going to refrain from contributing to them some mythical status. I've only had one coworker that came from OST where I had close/recurring contact through training and operations, so caveat emptor. He was technically and tactically proficient, well above average, and in particular was a specimen of physical human perfection.....but the way he had his kit and Mk18s set up did not convey being tuned-in on weapons systems at all.

While they shoot a lot, I've heard their range sessions fall into the "Spend-Ex" category rather than focused skill development. Most of these guys come from line infantry, MP SRTs, or USMC Security Forces (Nuke Guards and FAST) and are well trained for the mission they perform. Choosing ZEV's is pure masturbation, though, nor would I place them in the same league as agents from the pre-9/11 legacy Air Marshal program. I could see them getting away with the Staccato as a cool-guy gun, but truth be told there's no reason that the P320 or Glock isn't suitable for their role.

The Zev is really nothing but an offbrand Glock.

It is interesting that the Zev scored the highest out of six guns tested.


When you do real testing and run things hard you sometimes get results you don’t expect.

I know I was surprised when the M model Glocks were withdrawn from my agencies testing process and even more surprised when the early GEN five Glocks failed our POW testing process due to broken trigger springs. At that point I had several thousand rounds on personal GEN five Glock’s without any issues But I was not running them particularly hard.

[TGS]

The Zev is really nothing but an offbrand Glock.

...with a bad reputation for reliability. The OZ9 has substantive mechanical differences from a Glock.

When you do real testing and run things hard you sometimes get results you don’t expect.

That's assuming they were run hard.

For all we know it was a bunch of dudes having a BBQ and range day.

Until I see some hard data or some credible anecdotes from someone involved in the testing, ToddG's maxim applies; uncommon guns are uncommon for a reason.