Brother, I feel your pain. The most important element of your planned response is contacting the FBI Ballistics Research Facility. Like everyone else, the Bureau has its strengths and weaknesses, but two of it strengths are its ability to perform reliable and valid ballistic testing and the respect that it has among police executives. I had to deal with the whole myth that 5.56 rounds shoot through walls while pistol ammunition doesn't back in the day. FBI BRF is your friend.
Anyone able to PM me some good contact info?Originally Posted by jnc36rcpd
From 1994 to 2013 I was a mechanic for a northern NJ police department.
Somewhere around 9/11, they dumped ALL of their 870's and went to Colt Carbines in 9mm, with 11" barrels.....essentially short 9mm M4's.
These guns were a knee jerk purchase, and no one[aka the CHIEF] thoroughly researched or vetted a single carbine. They jumped in feet first.
They were select fire, well, at least 3 of them were.
They absolutely would not feed their duty ammo, Hyrda-shock 124's, no matter what they tried.
Every carbine went back to Colt at least 3x, trying to make them run properly. At this point, there was so much money and time spent in these carbines, they could not get out of them.
Colt's answer was run different ammo, which the Chief didn't want to hear.
Eventually, because of the FTFs, they loaded them with Pow'r Ball from CorBon, and this solved some issues.
As a civilian in draconian NJ, I could not own a Colt, so instead I purchased a DDLES proprietary lower for 9mm, that's fed by Colt stick mags, and built my own 16 inch gun. It fed everything, and still does.
The department armorer, who I was close friends with, tried out my lower on their Colt uppers, and whaddya know, it fed their pistol duty ammo. Chief tried to trade in the Colts, and Colt offered them pennies on what they paid.
After leaving NJ, I don't know what happened to their spotty reliable carbines, but the DDLES continues to run like a sewing machine. Might be a candidate for an SBR, if for no other reason than fun.
Last edited by CSW; 03-21-2023 at 05:42 AM.
"... And miles to go before I sleep".
Unless things have changed, you can get FBI ballistics and armor testing with a letterhead request to :
Ballistics Research Facility
FBI Academy
Quantico, VA 22556
The request needs to be signed by a sergeant or above and to specify that the information is for internal use only.
I’m glad to hear the idea isn’t to replace the 5.56 rifles. I’m not keen on seeing shotguns replaced either, but I understand it these days. They’re harder to get proficient with and operate completely differently than your other weapon systems. Not allowing dedicated higher capacity magazines for the PCCs so you’re forced to use your regular duty handgun ammo kills the idea for me, though. The guns wouldn’t even have a stick mag in them? Would you have to initially load the thing with one of the handgun magazines on your belt? The long gun should have separate ammunition so that if you run out or your long gun goes down, you can continue the fight with your complete duty pistol load out. Any situation in which your long gun goes down, is already pretty bad. If your long gun goes down and you’ve also used a substantial amount of your handgun ammo, that’s REALLY bad.
I like the idea that the gun being considered isn’t a 16”, full length carbine. I don’t like the idea that it’s a +$2k blowback gun. For that kind of money you could probably find something that at least has less recoil like a Sig MPX or a B&T APC9 or SPC9. I’ve never shot a Wilson PCC but most direct blowback designs that don’t have some kind of additional recoil mitigation system seem to recoil more severely than 5.56 guns. With these, the only thing you’d be getting over the rifle with these is the compact size. I don’t know if you’re in a position where your suggestions would be listened to, but a much better use of the money might be to upgrade the 5.56 patrol rifles. Put red dot sights on all of them and maybe get shorter barrels and hand guards and you’d still come out ahead cost wise.
My posts only represent my personal opinion and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or official policies of any employer, past or present. Obvious spelling errors are likely the result of an iPhone keyboard.
My thoughts exactly.
I'm no one but they did ask for feedback so eventually I'll organize my thoughts and fire off an email. We will see how this shakes out.
You mentioned in the OP that the patrol rifles are issued and folks can purchase optics off an approved list. What are the rifles equipped with as the officers are issued them? Do they have optics already? Lights and slings? If the rifles are lacking those basics, I’d suggest using the money to just properly outfit the current rifles. If they’re already set up, I’d suggest using the money to bring in one of the good carbine trainers for a couple of two day classes to train up as many people as can make it.
My posts only represent my personal opinion and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or official policies of any employer, past or present. Obvious spelling errors are likely the result of an iPhone keyboard.
Didn't the BRF prove this more than 10-20 years ago?
"It's surprising how often you start wondering just how featureless a desert some people's inner landscapes must be."
-Maple Syrup Actual
Hijack question for the group….
Let’s assume that the use of Glock mags, the +10in barrel length, and ~$2k price are fixed requirements.
What *would* a good option be that would give this dept an out of the box reliable issue gun?
Does the above offend? If you have paid to be here, you can click here to put it in context.
Of course they did. Unfortunately, some people and organizations cling desperately to whatever doctrine they first learned to the exclusion of new developments.
I wrote the proposal for my former department to transition from the PCC to rifles in 2002. As you would expect, the penetration potential of 5.56 ammunition was addressed.
Some weeks later, I stopped by a rifle training class to drop off supplies. While there I observed teams of rifle-armed officers approach a huge, largely empty auditorium. Each team dropped their rifles to the sling, drew their "finger guns", and cleared the structure. (The loaded real guns on their hips is perhaps an issue for another discussion.) I expressed my befuddlement to one of the military-trained rifle instructors. I was informed that one could not use a rifle inside a building because the rounds would go through walls and kill everybody.
To keep peace in the firearms training group, back I went to the computer to propose switching our rifle rounds to a "new", supposedly recently developed round that the FBI BRF said did not over-penetrate and would allow rifles to be deployed inside buildings. I don't remember which specific load we were using and what we switched to, but there wasn't much difference between them. The "new" round had, of course, been already on the market. An hour on the computer was a lot less time and effort than I would have spent trying to change closed minds.
Reply With Quote