Federal Air Marshal guns/ammo questions...

As noted, the current FAM pistol is the Sig 229 DA/SA, chambered in .357 Sig. Ammunition wise, they are issued whatever the current DHS ammunition contract calls for; nothing "fancy," quite "standard."
 
Last edited:
In addition to at least one James Bond movie, I believe there was an episode of "Millennium" where an aircraft was brought down with several rounds through the hull from a restroom... All hokem - but an excellent example of how totally bogus stuff depicted by Hollywood enters the public consciousness as "fact"...
Click to expand...
Sheesh, I bet the next thing you're going to tell us is that airplanes DON'T instantaneously plunge into a dive and start making a "WAAAAHHHHH...." wailing sound when the pilot releases the control yoke for a few seconds, or when the autopilot fails... :rolleyes:

Gotta go, I've been meaning to make a trip to the range to test my new all-ceramic Glock 7... ;)
 
They might even carry one of these.
0726252130996511796658.share.jpg
 
I'd carry the Sig-not as ugly. Whatever they got must be working. No shots fired and no hijackings lately.
 
One of my sergeants was an FAM (Federal Air Marshal) several years ago. He was issued a Sig 226 or 229 in 357 Sig. I believe he was also frangible ammo. He didn't say what type. He left after about six months. They were poorly run back then according to him.
 
They don't use frangible ammo, there is no reason to. They use quality HP's that have a proven track record. The potential for casualties if you don't stop a hijacker is too great to trust gimmicks.
 
For four years I worked at county range, in South Florida, where the Air Marshalls trained. We would rent the range to them and one of our Range Officers would 'observe' while their training staff would run the qualifications and training course.

They used .357 Sigs loaded with Gold Dot 125-grain hollowpoints. One of my fellow RO's would literally pick up hundreds of live rounds of ammunition off the field after they were done--they did a lot of fail-to-fire drills, and any live ammo that hit the ground was discarded. So my co-worker got literally 200 or so rounds of discarded ammo every time they rented the range from us.


I can't say I was impressed with the training, either. We had a lot of rules that ALL shooters had to follow, Law Enforcement or civilian. One rule (one of the GOLDEN rules) was a 180-degree 'safety' line aka firing line, extending to the left and to the right of the shooter along the firing line. No one allowed FORWARD of this line while the range was hot and people were firing.

Not good enough for the Air Marshalls. They wanted people standing downrange, five yards in front of a target, with SHOOTERS standing twenty yards behind them, firing past the 'forward' shooters at the targets !!!

yes, you heard me right...basically they wanted people, live people, standing downrange, and they would shoot 'around' them at the targets.

Needless to say, we vetoed this, but the head trainer started screaming at us, saying that 'on an airplne full of terrorists there were no rules'.

I wouldn't budge on this, and he started to threaten me with 'arrest' for 'interfering with homeland security'. (!)

Luckily my boss, the rangemaster, backed me to the hilt and refused to let them do this nonsense. They tried it anyway, anytime they thought we weren't watching from the tower, so we started putting a pair of RO's on the field...

Again they started screaming that 'observers' would 'compromise' their 'security'. We told them if our 'security' was a problem, we'd refund their rental fees and they could train in a more 'secure' environment.

Maybe in the last few years they've changed, but in 2005 they seemed like a bunch of a**clowns to me....
 
Last edited:
I know it's been said many times already but if there are those that are not already convinced... I worked as an electrical and envrionmental systems journeyman on B-52's for 6 years. The pressurization system of the aircraft was in my job to fix and test. Now I'm a flight engineer on C-130's and again the pressurization system is my responsibility to operate in flight. Aircraft maintain a differential pressure than the outside atmosphere so no matter what altitude a sudden decompression won't suck out any passengers or cargo. Aircraft are not air tight and there are many holes and leaks, most of them larger than a bullet hole. The bleed air from the engines going into the air conditioning at a higher rate than it is leaking out maintains the pressure, not an air-tight seal. Shoot a hole in a pressurized aircraft at 30,000 feet and you'll just hear a bang, and maybe a loud whistling. A few light objects very close to the hole such as pieces of paper or dust might move around a little. As to what they carried I was also told they carried Sig's in .357 sig, not sure what particular brand of anything, but I'd have to say they made a wise decision going with that round. I'm not a fan of the .357 sig at all, but I do believe it is the best for the situations Air Marshalls are likely to face. It's probably the only good use for that bullet.
 
The original poster didn't even clarify why he was asking what is carried onboard an aircraft. Does anyone know who he really is? Is he a terrorist trying to gather intel so he can come up with some means of defeating the weapons air marshalls and pilots have?

This is security sensitive, need-to-know info, and all this thread is doing is making it easy for Johnny Jihad and the boys to discern what they will be facing should they try something stupid on a plane again. I'd rather see a surprised look on their faces as they carry their corpses off the plane.
 
It is a little security sensitive, but not as much as their training, tactics, and protocol would be. If someone was asking about those I would hope no one would reply.
 
There are no secrets being told here. All of this info is readily available from numerous sources, official and unofficial.
 
Last edited:
EMB135Driver said:
This is security sensitive, need-to-know info, and all this thread is doing is making it easy for Johnny Jihad and the boys to discern what they will be facing should they try something stupid on a plane again. I'd rather see a surprised look on their faces as they carry their corpses off the plane.
Click to expand...

Unless the Air Marshals are carrying something so unique that no one outside of their cadre has seen one, then I suspect it really won't make a big difference in a terrorist's tactics. By the way...if anyone wanted to know what FFDOs carry, they would only have to read a few of your prior posts. :D

Fly
 
Last edited:
The information requested is not exactly a national secret. I would not, however, divulge information regarding the nature and frequency of training.
 
Air Marshalls are issued their weapons, ammunition, and other gear. They don't have a choice in what they get.
 
DHS issue is a 229. i heard it was switched from wood bullets with a range of like 15 ft, to glasers, to regular old hollowpoints.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top