Negative. They had Beretta 96D Brigadiers (.40 cal). They were one of only a few large agencies to use them, the others being U.S. INS/USBP and Shelby County TN sheriff’s office.Originally Posted by stinx
If I recall correctly they then went to Glock 37s in .45 GAP followed by Glock 21st in .45 ACP then the P227s.
I suspect they just got a bad batch of strikers. It was not a wide spread issue, nothing I would be concerned about some decade later.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
For general issue purposes (read that as Departments buying guns for their officers) only plastic striker-fired guns make sense in 2024 with a strong preference for Glock and S&W with the SIG P320 coming in a distant third. Anything else doesn't really make any sense.
S&W ended "normal" 3rd Gen production in 1998 with the limited TSW line introduced a few years later. There were special runs made in their Houlton, Maine plant after that (CHP 4006TSW, NYPD 5946, Mexican 5906, LAPD Academy 4506-1's, etc), but you had to order a whole bucket of guns for them to spin up production. S&W is since done with that and has essentially ended all support for the 3rd Gen (and earlier 2nd Gen for that matter) guns. The whole CHP 4006TSW thing was a fiasco caused by some old farts in the armory and admin that wanted them. CHP (God bless them) is always stuck about 10 years behind everyone else.
SIG spins up P229 and P226 production when it needs to, but availability is spotty. They'll produce the guns for a department if they order them, but try extremely hard to steer folks to the P320.
In 2024 a Department would have to be nuts (or majorly stuck in the past) to buy DA/SA guns for general issue. Why?
- The LE "players" (Glock, S&W, and SIG) aren't interested in producing SA/DA guns. Only SIG still makes one and just barely only in limited runs.
- Striker fired guns are easier to teach (only one type of trigger pull)
- Plastic striker-fired guns cost less and weigh less
- Holsters and nearly all other LE support gear tailor to the Glock and M&P
Gen2 and early Gen3 Glock 21's might experience light strikes with hard primers. This was rectified by changing the trigger bar to the 4256-1 trigger bar (it's marked and easily identifiable) after LAPD bitched. Glock is currently on 4256-3 I believe for Gen3/Gen4 Glock 21's. I'm sure the new Gen5 G21 is just fine.
This was deformation of the tip of the striker, hence 'mushrooming' as the descriptor. I don't know enough about how the parts are made to know what would cause the metal to be too soft, but that was apparently the issue.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
Houston PD, in Texas, restored 1911 pistols to the list of authorized duty pistols in December 2015. Mandated 8-hour transition classes started in early 2016.
Houston PD did not, up to the time of my retirement in early 2018, buy or issue duty handguns. Buying, or otherwise acquiring our duty firearms, was on us. (Any changes since early 2018 are unknown, to me.)
1911 duty pistols had been popular, among HPD officers, until the September 1997 firearms policy revision, which started the .40 S&W duty ammo era, with three hammer-fired de-cocker pistols being the original authorized primary duty handgun choices. The G22 started a gradual acceptance of several striker-fired duty pistols, a few years later. (Duty pistols already in use, before September 1997, remained grandfathered. No officer was ever required to buy a new, different duty pistol. I reluctantly transitioned to the G22, in 2002, due to the then-mandated duty holster being a poor design for my 1911 duty pistols. I soon transitioned to P229 DAK*, in 2004, a better fit, in my hands, than Gen3 Glocks. I was glad to be able to resume carrying a 1911 duty pistol, in 2016.)
*DAK was my personal choice. De-cocker DA/SA was the norm for officers choosing SIG.
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
I should have specified that only those officers choosing to carry 1911 pistols were required to attend and complete the transition course. I cannot say how many officers opted in, but a number of classes were scheduled, and well-attended.
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
My Glock 21 SF has the -1 trigger bar while my Glock 30 Gen 4 has the -3 trigger bar. Both operate within normal parameters, which means, they've been 100%.
Curious where they got their course of instruction for the 8 hr course? Was it developed in house or did they dust off an old one?
Maryland Park Service also issued the 96D with NP3 finish for several years before switching to the Vertec model in a warranty exchange. They carried these until just before the merger of enforcement duties and personnel into the Natural Resources Police when both agencies went to the M&P40.
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