>Here is the deal on the S&W P99: There are now four models, P99, P99QA (Quick Action), P990, and the SW99NJ. The "NJ" model was designed exclusively for the NJSP and is not currently available for sale to other customers.
>P99 lexicon:
The original P99 is the one I've had experience with. It has the decocking "button" on the top, left, rear of the slide. The trigger can be staged, but if one refrains from doing that, he probably won't have an AD. The Walther version is carbon steel. All S&W P99s are stainless steel, with a "Melonite" coating (similar to the "Tennifer" process on Glcoks)
The P990 is self-decocking, with a smooth, but not too heavy, trigger pull. This is the gun NJSP should have selected. The trigger cannot be staged. It's the best of the lot. Field stripping does not require pulling the trigger, as it does with the Glock. This is a pistol I can recommend.
The P99QA stays cocked. The trigger pull is short and light, and there is no manual decocking. The trigger cannot be staged. Similar to a Glock with a "competition" trigger. Too light for defensive carry.
Not surprisingly, the SW99NJ combines all the worst features into one package! It cannot be decocked, but the trigger can be staged. And, once staged, the trigger cannot be returned to its forward position (without reciprocating the slide). This gun is going to generate, for years to come, multitudinous ADs within the NJSP. On the side of the slide is etched, "Caution-decock feature removed" The trigger is way too light for a duty gun, and, when officers try to stage the trigger (which they will, despite efforts to stop it) they will AD with great regularity.
I secured a copy of NJSP's self-serving "justification" paper for selecting the SW99NJ. They really need to talk to someone who knows something about guns!
4 Dec 00
The incompetence of the management of the NJSP is beyond description! This is from a friend in the NJSP:
"Even we can't believe this! The latest delay on the issuance of our new S&W M99 pistols is that the department is now going to, at great additional expense and delay, retrofit decocking levers onto the already-purchased, already-made, already-delivered pistols that specifically and purposely were manufactured WITHOUT decocking levers, at the insistence of our agency and against the advise of S&W."
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