I knew a guy who was a Fed that died recently. he was old, and I guess it was his time to go. Good guy. You've all probably seen a movie that was based on a case he took part in.
This man, up until about a year before he died, was still phenomenally accurate with a pistol. He musta had some special 25+ yard handguns made up for him
Anyhoo, I know that there's more to this whole story in the link than just what I read, but I'm sure that WPD knew a long time ago that rifles offered more firepower in general than a handgun
And I never knew that .40 was so powerful it destroyed the guns as they were shot.
No surprises there, but I think you have to qualify the accuracy with speed to truly paint the picture.
I know I can place 2 accurate shots with my 9s in the time it takes to get one off with a .40 and recover my sight picture for a second shot... I shoot with a couple guys with .40s, so we've tried this before.
I would think that recovery time would be a serious consideration, especially in LE.
So they're saying that .40 S&W has too much recoil for many of the officers to handle... out of a service sized weapon???
I dunno. I shoot 9mm alot. It's cheap to shoot and the perfect round for concealed carry pieces. If I'm chucking lead from a service sized weapon, though, I want a little more than 9mm. There is less felt recoil out of a .45 than .40, maybe they should go that route.
I have a couple of problems with that article. For instance, the author seems to be claiming that the 40S&W round itself is the problem: "But the .40 caliber does have a hard recoil. The jolt is so hard that it also tears up gun mechanisms, causing firing malfunctions, requiring costly repairs.", which pure baloney.
I suspect that the real problem is that the officers are not practicing enough... which interestingly is literally revealed just before the above claiming that the 40 is too hard on the guns: "Part of the reason involves practice, Allen said. Many officers don't use up the 600 bullets allocated to each officer every year for practice. Chief Norman Williams should make the 600 round a year allotment a requirement...not an option.
Seriously guys, this is the very definition of beating a dead horse.
There are departments switching FROM the 40. There are still departments switching TO the 40. There are departments that issue 9mm, 357sig, 40SW, 45acp, probably 10mm, and there are departments that allow each officer to choose virtually anything they want.
Really? Because that article seemed more to me to be an attempt to take advantage of the John and June Q. Public's lack of knowledge about firearms to justify the expenditure to those same taxpayers.
I think that the reporter is simply repeating all of the justifications that he was given by the PD. Most of them don't make much sense, but for the money they're spending they need to have some reason for buying all those new guns.
From the comments, it appears that they'd gotten a federal grant for the firearms, which is why the cost to the PD is so low - it's being subsidized.