FBI firearms article in latest issue of American Rifleman

M

Mike Irwin

Staff
Interesting article going over the history of agent firearms carry at FBI.

This is the first article I've seen that attempts to survey the sidearms in anything approaching a comprehensive fashion.

That subject has come up numerous times here at TFL over the years.

Two things are clear from the article...

1. FBI has had a LOT of 'standard' firearms over the years.

2. An agent could, for most of the agency's history, carry just about anything he or she wanted.

The article itself is a bit hard to follow at times because it jumps around, and the illustration that is used for part of it is interesting in that they laid a smoking error on one of the IDs...

The graphic shows an S&W Regulation Police 4" 5-shot in .38 Smith & Wesson, but identifies it as being chambered in .38 Special.

Sigh.

It also shows J. Edgar Hoover's personal .32 Colt Police Positive with a bobbed hammer.
 
"Can you post a link?"

It's in my print copy. I don't know if it's online or not, I don't generally go to NRA's website.

"Did the article explain why they have changed standard arms so many times?"

No, not really. But, throughout most of its history (up through the 1990s), agents always had the choice to carry any handgun that they wanted, or carry one issued to them (generally a revolver).

Apparently today agents have SOME leeway in what they can carry in the way of personal arms, including the fullsize Glock .45.
 
I believe the article is available online only if you have an online subscription to that particular magazine. I also have the print copy.
 
I tried to find it on the American Rifleman website to no avail.

Could it be that they changed their tactics because the bad guys were always changing their tactics?

Seems like all throughout their history they were playing catch up to the criminals because they were undergunned.

I like the discussion that was on here about the 1986 Miami Shootout. Very entertaining. BTW

Plus I don't think the guy sitting at the desk all day doing old fashioned boring police work like looking at files would need the hardware like the guys kicking doors on the street. Probably a .38spl revolver would work instead of a high cap semi.
 
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All agencies change guns from time to time, as they do wear out, or policies change. I know, I was a Fed for 27 years. Every so often we got a new boss, and whoever got to him first as a "gun guru" made the changes.
We carried revolvers for years - personally owned OK, then Nickle 2.5" M19's only, then personal OK, then personal semi-autos OK, then the S&W 6906, then we became 'retroactively incompetent' to carry SA semi-autos, and just after I retired, they went to Glocks.

Even in Federal agencies, much of it was personally driven by the bosses. This guy liked S&W, that guy likes Glocks, this other guy wants to let everyone carry their own gun.
Then the lawyers get involved - can't let the guys on the sharp end carry what they want, they don't all have law degrees!

BTW, the FBI S&W 1070 is not the same as the commercial model. Seems someone at the FBI designed the trigger, S&W said this will not work, FBI said "MAKE IT SO!" and signed a release. The guns would lock up, live round in the chamber could not be extracted or fired.
When this went public, S&W said "We told you so", FBI said shut up or you will never sell the FBI another gun. S&W folded.

They also glossed over the reason the 1070 was dropped. Besdies the fact that most agents found the gun too big (and carried them in their briefcases), the FBI lost a lawsuit when smaller statured applicants (of both genders) failed to qualify. A group of applicants hired instructors who let them shoot other guns, and they all qualified. They sued The Bureau, and won.
One size does not fit all!
The Federal Government is a very tangled weave.
 
Another issue with The Bureau - after the President of S&W gave J.E. Hoover an S&W .357Magnum with a 1 digit serial number, suddenly that became the issue gun for the Bureau. And in those days lots of PD's followed the FBI, and S&W sold lots of guns.

I'm not picking on the Bureau, all agencies have a past they would rather have forgotten.

I can think of one with a present they wish they could hide.
 
IIRC back in the "Good Old Days" Federal agents usually purchased their own firearms. I recall reading the 38 Super was touted for its ability to puncture automobile bodies, I know Charlie Askins said Border Patrol agents purchased their own firearms because he complained all Uncle Sam would provide was the M1917 rifle. Charlie said the Border Patrol only adopted the Colt New Service in 1936 or so.
 
Mike Irwin said, :It also shows J. Edgar Hoover's personal .32 Colt Police Positive with a bobbed hammer.

A decade or so back, I played golf with a retired FBI SAC. The course was Bonita, CA. Where he ran an office before retiring, I don't recall. What I do recall is that his personal weapon was a .32 Colt Police Positive with a bobbed hammer. Hmmm.

Cordially, Jack
 
"after the President of S&W gave J.E. Hoover an S&W .357Magnum with a 1 digit serial number, suddenly that became the issue gun for the Bureau."

Well, no. Not really.

The .357 Magnum became an OPTIONAL issue gun for the FBI at that time. But it certainly was not a blanket issue.

Oddly enough, the Colt 1911 in .38 Super was also an optional issue gun at the same time...

The reason for that was the same reason the .38-44 HD and the .38 Super were developed in the first place -- the auto burglar.

Police needed guns firing hotter ammunition to deal with the heavy car bodies of the day, as well as some of the early body armor (steel plate flak jackets) that some of the crooks were wearing.

The guns were in inventory and would be issued on an as-needed basis.

The standard .38 Special was still the standard issues for FBI during that time.
 
after the President of S&W gave J.E. Hoover an S&W .357Magnum with a 1 digit serial number, suddenly that became the issue gun for the Bureau
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IIRC, that particular gun has never been found.

Could it be that they changed their tactics because the bad guys were always changing their tactics?
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That's one reason. Another is that, for much of its history, the FBI was a shooting culture. More so than much of law enforcement. As such, the Bureau was more likely to try out new technology as it came along.
 
Tom, I thought that at first the FBI didn't even allow the use of guns. They were supposed to be gentleman scholars that just happened to be fighting crime. They were mostly lawyers with no real knowledge of fighting crime. That is why a lot of the heavy work was done by the boys out of the Texas office.

Maybe I just don't remember correctly.
 
Sleuth said it best. It all comes down to what the boss likes and his/her past experience or lack of. Next comes the current trends and what the Manufacturer is pushing, then comes price. Sometimes the last guy on the list to be consulted is the actual instructor. I salute agencies like NYPD and Miami Dade because they stuck with a caliber and didn't swap out because some irrelevant case comes up where some dude takes 15 rounds and won't go down.
 
Tom, I thought that at first the FBI didn't even allow the use of guns. They were supposed to be gentleman scholars that just happened to be fighting crime. They were mostly lawyers with no real knowledge of fighting crime.
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I'm not sure. The first agents of what would become the FBI were actually re-tasked Secret Service agents under Teddy Roosevelt. Interestingly enough, it was Roosevelt who first pushed to arm law enforcement in New York.
 
FBI agents received blanket authorization to carry firearms around 1930-1932, IIRC.

Prior to that, if an agent wanted to carry a gun, he would go to his local sheriff or chief of police to obtain an "authorization" or some such. Legally speaking those probably had zero weight.
 
The history of FBI firearms and training in long and tangled. The pre-Hoover Bureau of Investigation was unarmed, all lawyers & accountants. Hoover got them armed, but hired a number of agents from Texas (internally, "the cowboys"), who were not lawyers or accountants, but hard men who usually had killed in the line of duty.They would be brought in for 'high risk' arrests, and were present at most of the gang arrests of the '30's.

At some point in the late 30's/40's the FBI introduced the Police Pistol Course (PPC), 50 rounds fired from 60 (prone) 50 (sitting, L&R barricade) 25 (Kneeling, L&R barricade) 15 and 7 (FBI crouch) yards. Unlike todays sterile PPC course, it was 5 rounds from each position, in a continuous 2min., 45 seconds. Thus, at the 7 yard line, you had no idea how much time was left. Loading was loose rounds in your pocket.
The down side was some agents would be at the 15 yard line while the next shooter was still at 25. This lead to ranges with the lanes spread like the fingers of you hand. This wasted a lot of space, so the course was broken into segments, the rounds increased to 6 from each position (12 from 15 & 7), and thus the present PPC course.

In recient history, the FBI came up with the 'bottle' target, which I personally don't like, as it does not condition officers to shoot at people. They also had a course of fire where you started with 30 points on the books, so you only needed 45 points to "qualify". I don't know if that course is still in use.

As with any agency, there has been good and bad in their firearms history. My own agency briefly had a course of fire including shotgun slugs prone. I managed to get that changed, pointing out that the recoil of a 18" shotgun is enought to break the collerbone if not held perfectly.
 
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Today's mail brought my Rifleman, with the article. S/A Vanderpool is being a bit modest, as he was at one time the Head of the FBI firearms branch.

By the way, the law is the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (LEOSA), not the 'Police Officer's Protection Act'.

The 10mm had other problems. In my piles of 'stuff' I have a copy of the 'FBI Bulletin' where they announce the adoption of the 10mm. The very same issue has an article by the FBI scientific branch, about ballistic testing. They distance themselves from the Firearms Branch testing, and a close read of the results with the 10mm shows that different loads (different velocities) were used for different tests. In particular I recall that a much lower velocity was used for the rounds in the initial 'depth of penitration' tests. Slower bullets are less likely to expand, and more likely to penitrate.
The 10mm rounds were all handloads, provided by the Firearms branch, who (suprize) we also running the tests.

Hey, we all tend to 'color' the results to favor our desired outcome.
 
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Another surprising fact...

...in the article, was that the FBI issued a .357 Magnum round. For a long time, I believed they had issued the WW 125gr JHP. I was reminded by someone, that the FBI never issued .357 ammunition; they always issued a .38 Special +P SWCHP.

Lo, and behold! On the third page of the article, the writer states that the FBI issued a WW 145gr Silvertip in .357 Magnum. It doesn't mention when it was issued, but I just looked at Midway USA, and they have it on the site, but out of stock, and no back order. WW also doesn't catalogue the round any more.
 
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The guy you are referring to who took 15 rounds it was 12. That was THe 1986 FBI MIAMI SHOOTOUT That man Platt took 9mm's, 38's, and 00 Buck to the feet but kept on trucking. THe 9mm Silvertip was chastized because after passing through his arm, tumbling, and going through the rib cage and right lung it stopped an inch shy of his heart. Imo, the round did a pretty good job for going through his arm. The key is most of these hits on Platt were not fatal and he was able to continue the gunfight with his far superior Mini 14 .223; It took him a while to die when paramedics got there he was still alive. The human body is an amazing machine and anything can happen, the poor felony stop is the fault, not the 9mm.
 
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