Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuck33079
So when consumer grade arms are pushed in LEO/MIL environments and training, they fail more than arms designed and built for LEO/MIL use? Huh. At some point, aren't we using the wrong tool for the job? My RRA has never had one issue, nor have any of the others I've built from their parts for others. They see 2500-5000 rounds a year. Of course, if I was going to shoot that in a weekend I'd expect parts failures and plan accordingly. My Sig has never had one issue. I've got a collection of Glocks that, other than the occasional errant bit of brass, have never had any issues that I couldn't directly trace back to my reloads.
And lets be honest. SWAT gets plenty of practice, but are we really using the rest of the police as an example of a group of people who know their weapons and shoot worth a damn? Maybe it's different in your neck of the woods, but here it's pretty dismal. One of the guys at our local Bullseye matches is the local PD armorer, and the stories we hear would turn your hair white.
|
Absolutley! Agency firearms choices are generally made by bean counters, not shooting cops. They pick their issued patrol weapons based on price, not on performance and usually don't allow individually-owned rifles even though most armorers would prefer it. Here, DPMS headquarters is located about 90 miles away, so finding those rifles issued as patrol weapons is common in all the various police agencies around here. It's a nightmare for most of them because of the lack of reliability and the effort that department armorers have to expend to keep them running even for the twice-a-year qualifications they have to go through. You're right, your average cops are usually not gun guys. They often can't shoot well and usually know little about guns. The frustrations that I see, however, aren't from the street cops who are issued the weapon, it's from the department armorers. You're also correct in that SWAT (TAC Team here) uses different weapons. Lots of AR15's but they're usually higher quality SBRs, mainly Colt and BCM, with a smattering of select fire ARs as well as some subguns (mainly UMPs, but we did just get in a Kriss Vector on trial. Holy crap that's an amazing firearm!). The difference between a Colt or a BCM and the usual run of issued patrol rifles from a bean-counter purchase is readily apparent and an ongoing source of both frustration and jokes. Those agency administrators...they don't have to shoot the things and the armorer staff...they're already on the payroll. Their daily frustrations don't matter since they're not really costing the department any extra.