FL Police switch to bigger, more powerful handguns

http://www.oscnewsgazette.com/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=6696

And they need bigger guns, why?

9 mm travel far, .45 do not

Oh and some of the bad guys now wear body armor, the '45 will knock them silly... if they are wearing it.

By the way, historically this is not the first time PDs have used
.45 cal, and when they switched to the 9 mm the argument was less recoil... they never expected 9 mm going through walls as they travel farther, ballistically.

No I am not a gun nut, but I have worked in EMS, knowing ballistics is a good thing.

Makes sense.

Gun control, and I do not mean the laws and the arguments in "The Dungeon".

For many years, LEAs have toyed-with, and deployed, the .45ACP. But they keep dropping it and going to something else. Why? Physics. You go pumping 190-230 grains of round, over 11 grains of Unique, out of a 7" barrel and you get a big roar and some really hella recoil. For the averge schlub cop, this makes it really hard to get off the second or third round effectively, resulting in them spraying rounds all over hell's half acre in a firefight. Cops have this nasty tendancy to keep pulling the trigger, under the stress of a firefight. It's a problem the best minds of handgunning cannot seem to solve.

No doubt the .45ACP is one hell of a defense round and brings with it a slower round that won't penetrate in vitro or walls, and has a Hatcher number that can't be beat by any other handgun. Having said that, I suspect that this version of the .45ACP dance will end up like the others.

The Colt 45 Auto was disliked for its strong recoil AND its weight. 9mm and 38 specials were so much lighter and easier to shoot.

The US Army did a study in the early 1970s that showed that the 9mm was the best pistol round. Why? The test included people who had NEVER fired a pistol before. Thus the test was a test that it was easier for untrained personal to hit a target with a 9mm than it was for such untrained personal to hit a target with a 45.

The solution to that problem was (and is) training i.e. get the officer on the range at least once a week to shoot at least one magazine of ammo. The problem is most police department do not want their officer off patrol that long nor do the departments want to pay for the ammo used, so you end up with ill-trained officers shooting weapons.

I have to agree with Tandalayo_Scheisskopf, I see the Police Departments going back to the 9mm (if not the 38 special) do to the ease the 9mm is to use by officers with minimal time to train on the use of a pistol.

Also remember the heavier the weapon the easier the "felt" recoil is. The Army Colt Automatic was 39 ounces, compared to the Glock's 27 ounces. Thus the Glock is 30% lighter than the old Army Colt, not always a good thing when you are firing the weapon.

Thus the Glock avoids the "excessive" weight of the old Colt Automatic, but at the cost of greater felt recoil on the operator. This is NOT a problem if you train your officer in its use, but with the lack of training in most police department a major handicap.


45 Auto:
weight unloaded was 39 ounces; overall length was 8.25"; the height was 5.25".

http://www.alpharubicon.com/leo/1911care.htm

For the Glock it weight is only 27 ounces
http://www.gunrush.com/firearm/gun/Glock-PI21502-Pistols.htm

Then sue you when I blow up my gun? Just giving you a hard time. Here is a good page for powder weights for unique powder.
http://recipes.alliantpowder.com/rg.taf?_function=pistolrevolver&step=1

it said for "officer safety". Glocks have no external safety like most semi-autos do. Instead they rely
on a trigger safety. Heavy trigger pulls on a Glock are often referred to as a "New York trigger".
http://www.recguns.com/Sources/IIIC2g4.html. Apparently too many NYC cops were shooting themselves
in the ass or having too many AD's (accidental discharges)... and we're told that somehow police are
better trained and more qualified to carry firearms.

You don't think that years of fascination with the storied .45ACP stopping power had anything to do with this? Sure, they have nice safeties, but so do many guns.

Someone has a stiffy for people getting shot with 190-grain hollowpoints or 210 grain truncateds. Know it.

if it were me I'd much rather carry a .45 ACP than a 9mm or .40. I'm only going by what was printed
in the article. If there was any mention of someone getting a "stiffy" or "210 grain truncateds",
I missed it. Sorry.

Triva question: Do you know why and for what reason the .45 cartridge was developed?

It was developed after the U.S. involvement in the Philippines in the early part of the 20th century. The Army discovered that the .38 rounds they were using were not stopping the Moro tribesmen when said tribesmen were hopped up on whatever they were smoking that day.

I carry my .45 for just the same reason as cops do. Ask any police officer if he wants to risk his life on a taser or pepper spray...I'll be he doesn't. If some ghetto thug decides he wants to attack me or my family he'd better be prepared to accept the consequences in the form of some 230 grain, copper-jacketed, hollow point HydraShocks. I assure you he will NOT get back up after two of those.

This is the state that started the whole racial profiling practices with the I-95 stops and just the other week:

Orlando cop will be fired for sending slur to officer

The Orlando Police Department today plans to fire a police officer who officials say sent a vulgar and racially insulting message to the pager of a fellow officer while they both were on duty several months ago.

Orlando police Chief Mike McCoy on Wednesday signed termination papers for Officer Christopher Perez, 30, a bike-patrol officer who has worked for the department for three years.

Perez is scheduled to meet this afternoon for a disciplinary hearing with Deputy Chief Michael Jordan, the agency's highest-ranking black officer and one of three division chiefs. He is in charge of the patrol division.

The page was sent to Officer Branden Thornton, a black patrol officer, according to internal-affairs reports obtained by the Orlando Sentinel Wednesday.

More at:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-locslur04090403sep04.story

Someone who has worked in the department said that if they applied the rules strictly, they'd have to let go of 50% of the police force because that kind of language is common.

45 ACP doesn't have THAT much recoil. Its actually by comparison a "slower" felt recoil than other LE-favored rounds such as 40 Auto and 357 Sig.

Other things to look at here are that they are standardizing the agency to one type of pistol; the Glock is relatively inexpensive, easy to maintain and train on. Its one of the EASIEST weapons available to detail strip, for instance.

The US military went with the 9 mm to appease NATO allies who already used that round and simplify supply lines by having a common round instead of making other countries go with our 45 ACP, which is the way it SHOULD have gone. The LEO's and militaries in other countries have always skewed their choices to some fairly wimpy rounds, which the 9 mm qualifies as, especially in its FMJ configuration.

When LE started going to the larger capacity handguns in the late 80's, the primary caliber available in that configuration at the time due to the (at that time) recent military trials.Once similar weapons in other calibers became available, it was only natural that LE began to move away from 9 mm to the other weapons and calibers.

there is almost no recoil at all.

n/t