Police Duty pistol firearms T&E procedure, COF

[msstate56]

It should be possible to obtain the DHS Sku guns. When I was pursuing this project I was prevented from doing this by our arcane purchasing requirements, and a very hostile anti Law Enforcement city agency in charge of all large purchases. Just heard from.one of the guys that the whole thing has been cancelled due to some flat out crazy movie level skeezy activity on the part of certain command level personnel.

Sounds about right.

[ST911]

Is there any way another agency can require DHS sku FCUs?

If they'll make it available you can spec it for a buy. Like other limited skus, you may need to give them a reason to.

Reliable others suggest that if considering the 320, the DHS or mil guns will have the most consistency and best potential.

[Gadfly]

Do you guys keep extra FCUs on hand for this reason? As in spare FCUs which aren't already assigned to a chassis. Or, is the problem rare enough that the agent just gets an entire new gun anyways, as if they had a normal pistol like a Glock/HK/P229?

We don't keep any spare FCUs by themselves. As an agency, we have a policy on how many spare guns to keep in the vault, and it is set by the number of agents in that office. if an FCU breaks, we typically just issue a whole new gun and ship the broken one back to the national armory. Locally we deal with things like installing new sights, replacing recoil springs, installing a flat trigger, swapping a mag release from right hand to left hand... pretty basic stuff. I keep some parts on hand... recoil springs, a couple extractors, grip screws (back when we had 229s and berettas), trigger return springs... simple things.

In my office (about 200 agents) we typically have 5-8 unissued pistols in the armory and a couple of M4s. If an agent gets in a shooting, they pull the gun as evidence and we can issue a new gun that same day. If multiple agents are involved in that same shooting, we can cover multiple agents with a replacement. I we need more than what we had on hand, FedEx would have us new guns but the following day. If there is a personally owned weapon going into evidence or broken/stolen etc, we can still issue a gov weapon to hold them over until they get the gun back or buy a replacement. The agent just has to qual with the new weapon before they can carry it. Typically, Our instructors would make a special trip to the range the same day to get that person qual'ed and able to carry as soon as possible.

[jnc36rcpd]

I experienced and/or participated in several weapon transitions at my former employer. I wish they were all stellar examples of sound reasoning and good judgement, but I serve more as a cautionary tale.

You should absolutely use your qualification course in testing. Your Q course is an example of what skills you feel your officers need and a measurement of their marksmanship and weapon-handling skills. It is an objective testing measure for a proposed weapon. Moreover, your cops are going to need to pass the qualification course with whatever weapon you select. If people are going to need remediation, it's better to find out now.

Malfunctions seem to happen much more frequently on the street than the firearms range. I'd include a significant amount of one-handed and compromised shooting positions in the evaluation process.

Ensure an instructor is actually monitoring any testing. The instructor may note weapons-handling or marksmanship issues that the shooter does not. Ths also ensures every completes the required testing.

Decide early on what characteristics you do or do not want on a weapon (manual safety or not, double action only, DA/SA, striker-fired). If you change this down the line, so be it, bu start out with some criteria.

Test the exact weapon in the conditions in which it will be deployed. Don't test a gun in one caliber and then choose another (we did that). Don't test guns straight out of the box when you're going to authorize or mandate weapon-mounted lights (did that, too). Ensure there will be holster availability for your pistol.

While not an issue with most pistols in 2022, ensure the pistol or a similar model can be used by all units in your department. Ensure it fits everyone on the department. Mad props to the chief of Colby, KS years ago who made the first U.S. law enforcement purchase of Glocks, but he was taking a chance Unless there is really a good reason to select a new gun on the market, you're probably better off carrying what a bunch of other agencies carry.

Whatever you do, don't choose a gun just because you don't want to issue what your "rival" agency carries.

[Jeff22]

Whatever you do, have some options to accommodate shooters with smaller hands. I’ve worked with a lot of cops for whom the Glock 17 platform was a little too big in the grip for them to handle.