I've never had to qualify with hollow points.
NOAA Bites the bullet
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DennisS
Contributor
delete, subject already posted
RichKirby
Contributor
My agency (not NOAA) requires that we qualify with the same bullets we carry on duty (i.e. hollow points). We are not allowed to qualify with any other round. And ALL agencies require gun toters to qualify a certain number of times a year. NOAA is no different. They have a criminal investigative division that is armed, and rightfully so.
Gilldiver
Contributor
NOAA officers are one of the 7 Uniformed services of the US Uniformed services of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia As such they may have to do qualification. I know that the ship Officers, yes NOAA is not just weather, hold US Navy Reserve commissions.
NOAA ships: NOAA Fleet Characteristics
NOAA Officer Corp: NOAA Corps
NOAA ships: NOAA Fleet Characteristics
NOAA Officer Corp: NOAA Corps
The purchase is for Fisheries, not the Weather Service. They have an enforcement division. "Move along folk, nothing to see here."
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
koozemani
Contributor
In this day and age, unless they bought a trillion rounds it's hardly worth mentioning.
They will need so many rounds to complete their qual course, so many rounds for any additional training during that qual day, and so many rounds to take home to practice with.
It is a violation of policy for Many federal agencies to shoot anything other than issued ammo through an issued weapon.
---------- Post Merged at 02:12 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 02:11 PM ----------
I've never qualified with anything but(pistol obviously)
They will need so many rounds to complete their qual course, so many rounds for any additional training during that qual day, and so many rounds to take home to practice with.
It is a violation of policy for Many federal agencies to shoot anything other than issued ammo through an issued weapon.
---------- Post Merged at 02:12 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 02:11 PM ----------
I've never qualified with anything but(pistol obviously)
The point can be argued.
My preference is to practice with ammunition of the same weight, velocity (and recoil impulse) and point profile as my carry ammunition. With this approach I can shoot a LOT more rounds for the same $. In practice, this means I use a cast lead, plated or FMJ truncated cone bullet, or alternatively a low cost hollow point with the same profile as my carry ammunition so that the bullet has the same shape and feeding characteristics as the spendy high tech bonded core hollow point I use for self defense. I then back this up with some turn over of the "old" carry rounds every few months where the actual carry ammunition is expended on a regular basis. It ends up being enough to verify that feeding is not an issue and it prevents any set back issues from repeated re-chambering of carry rounds over time.
If an agency or department requires officers to qualify with their actual carry ammunition, it sounds really great on the surface but it creates an incentive to either go cheap on the carry ammo to reduce the cost in practice, or to reduce the amount of practice to limit costs. Thus a semi-annaul qualification, which just is not enough as most LEOs are not "gun people" and don't shoot very often. We had an FBI agent who used to show up at local tactical pistol shoots and I give her credit for that as she was FBI qualified but could not shoot well at all compared to most of the rest of the field, but the monthly shoots along with some personal practice now and then were enough to significantly improve her shooting ability, and specifically her ability to shoot accurately while moving efficiently with good footwork.
Unfortunately what a department or agency policy of always shooting the duty ammo means that when it really counts, terminal ballistics will be compromised, or the officer won't be able to hit anything (and LEO accuracy in an engagement is around 5% in terms of rounds that actually hit the assailant.)
In this solicitation "cheap" but poor performing hollow points are what they may well get as 2 of the 3 specifications just call for unspecified new production .40 S&W 180 gr JHP. In the extreme, the low bidder could submit a bid for new rounds using a very cheap and poor performing plated lead hollow point bullet and meet the specification. Fortunately, the COR added this: "award will be made to the responsible Seller whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Buyer on the basis of price, technical capability, delivery, and past performance." which at least opens the door to some consideration of technical merit and performance.
In reality, they will probably get middle of the road, 20-30 year old hollow point technology at comparatively low bids that will not be up to the same performance level as current, more evolved, but more expensive hollow point technology with much improved terminal ballistics. Also, the way it's written with non specified technical capability and past performance criteria, they'll probably buy what they want from their preferred source anyway. But if they are not real careful, someone with a proposal to sell them 30 year old technology like the original "hydroshok" at a low bid price could file a protest and make a very solid case that the difference in technical merit is not enough to offset the extreme difference in price and NOAA could end up with 46,000 rounds of less than stellar ammo, or worse 46,000 rounds that won't even feed reliably in their particular semi-auto pistols if that was not an evaluation factor (which it should have been.)
In my former LEO, still current avid tactical pistol shooter, and current federal COR opinion, it makes far more sense to specify X number of rounds of carry ammunition and a lot more rounds of ammunition with the same weight, velocity, recoil impulse and feed characteristics as the specified carry ammo to be used for practice. This is especially true as a few ammunition manufacturers provide exactly that to departments and agencies that see the value in getting 4 times more practice with $10 per box practice ammo than with $40 per box duty ammunition in order to increase the potential that their officers actually hit a perp when the need arises.
Still, you can be smart and work within the qualification "rules" . For example qualification courses vary from 50-100 rounds so assuming 100 rounds and the specified semi-annual qualification with duty ammunition for 63 officers, I'd buy them 12,600 rounds of duty ammo per year, and expect them to expend 100 rounds at each qualification on a rolling basis for qualification and carry purposes, then buy 126,000 rounds of practice ammo and allow 500 rounds per quarter per officer for practice in addition to the qualification. The end cost would be about the same as 46,000 rounds of your chosen duty ammo, but the qualitative difference in performance and the scenarios you can cover with 2,200 rounds of both duty and practice ammo per officer is substantially more than you'd get with only 720 rounds per officer.
But if agency rules prevent that, the odds are they are either incredibly well funded, or their officers shoot so infrequently that they'd be better off throwing rocks.
My preference is to practice with ammunition of the same weight, velocity (and recoil impulse) and point profile as my carry ammunition. With this approach I can shoot a LOT more rounds for the same $. In practice, this means I use a cast lead, plated or FMJ truncated cone bullet, or alternatively a low cost hollow point with the same profile as my carry ammunition so that the bullet has the same shape and feeding characteristics as the spendy high tech bonded core hollow point I use for self defense. I then back this up with some turn over of the "old" carry rounds every few months where the actual carry ammunition is expended on a regular basis. It ends up being enough to verify that feeding is not an issue and it prevents any set back issues from repeated re-chambering of carry rounds over time.
If an agency or department requires officers to qualify with their actual carry ammunition, it sounds really great on the surface but it creates an incentive to either go cheap on the carry ammo to reduce the cost in practice, or to reduce the amount of practice to limit costs. Thus a semi-annaul qualification, which just is not enough as most LEOs are not "gun people" and don't shoot very often. We had an FBI agent who used to show up at local tactical pistol shoots and I give her credit for that as she was FBI qualified but could not shoot well at all compared to most of the rest of the field, but the monthly shoots along with some personal practice now and then were enough to significantly improve her shooting ability, and specifically her ability to shoot accurately while moving efficiently with good footwork.
Unfortunately what a department or agency policy of always shooting the duty ammo means that when it really counts, terminal ballistics will be compromised, or the officer won't be able to hit anything (and LEO accuracy in an engagement is around 5% in terms of rounds that actually hit the assailant.)
In this solicitation "cheap" but poor performing hollow points are what they may well get as 2 of the 3 specifications just call for unspecified new production .40 S&W 180 gr JHP. In the extreme, the low bidder could submit a bid for new rounds using a very cheap and poor performing plated lead hollow point bullet and meet the specification. Fortunately, the COR added this: "award will be made to the responsible Seller whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Buyer on the basis of price, technical capability, delivery, and past performance." which at least opens the door to some consideration of technical merit and performance.
In reality, they will probably get middle of the road, 20-30 year old hollow point technology at comparatively low bids that will not be up to the same performance level as current, more evolved, but more expensive hollow point technology with much improved terminal ballistics. Also, the way it's written with non specified technical capability and past performance criteria, they'll probably buy what they want from their preferred source anyway. But if they are not real careful, someone with a proposal to sell them 30 year old technology like the original "hydroshok" at a low bid price could file a protest and make a very solid case that the difference in technical merit is not enough to offset the extreme difference in price and NOAA could end up with 46,000 rounds of less than stellar ammo, or worse 46,000 rounds that won't even feed reliably in their particular semi-auto pistols if that was not an evaluation factor (which it should have been.)
In my former LEO, still current avid tactical pistol shooter, and current federal COR opinion, it makes far more sense to specify X number of rounds of carry ammunition and a lot more rounds of ammunition with the same weight, velocity, recoil impulse and feed characteristics as the specified carry ammo to be used for practice. This is especially true as a few ammunition manufacturers provide exactly that to departments and agencies that see the value in getting 4 times more practice with $10 per box practice ammo than with $40 per box duty ammunition in order to increase the potential that their officers actually hit a perp when the need arises.
Still, you can be smart and work within the qualification "rules" . For example qualification courses vary from 50-100 rounds so assuming 100 rounds and the specified semi-annual qualification with duty ammunition for 63 officers, I'd buy them 12,600 rounds of duty ammo per year, and expect them to expend 100 rounds at each qualification on a rolling basis for qualification and carry purposes, then buy 126,000 rounds of practice ammo and allow 500 rounds per quarter per officer for practice in addition to the qualification. The end cost would be about the same as 46,000 rounds of your chosen duty ammo, but the qualitative difference in performance and the scenarios you can cover with 2,200 rounds of both duty and practice ammo per officer is substantially more than you'd get with only 720 rounds per officer.
But if agency rules prevent that, the odds are they are either incredibly well funded, or their officers shoot so infrequently that they'd be better off throwing rocks.
RonFrank
Contributor
46,000 rounds may cost $12,000. Maybe more, likely less. In typical journalist style the details are not clear like the non important weapon type, or caliber, you know FACTS. Apparently it's news worthy that the bullets are hollow point and that NOAA employees found this funny, likely because it is!
I guess the only thing sadder than the news worthiness of this story is that it made it on SB. How bored is our society? Newsflash, our grass is growing!
I guess the only thing sadder than the news worthiness of this story is that it made it on SB. How bored is our society? Newsflash, our grass is growing!
sportxlh
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I know the NOAA patrols certain areas like the Dry Tortugas. A few years ago I was on the Ultimate Getaway live-aboard and the NOAA stopped the boat, boarded and searched the vessel. They were professional and pretty quick about getting on and off the boat, but were also armed. I'm assuming (and this is a big assumption since I don't know this for a fact) they were armed in case they run into drug runners, or if someone that is illegally fishing, or doing anything illegal for that matter, pulls a gun on them.
The boat they were using was pretty amazing, it could literally spin on a dime and do a full 360 degree turn without moving fore or aft, sort of like a large jet ski. While they did not open it up, I bet it is pretty fast as well.
Here's a couple of photos of the boat.
And here is a screen shot of an officer boarding the Ultimate Getaway. Its pretty grainy since it is a screen shot from a video I look with my SeaLife camera, but you can just make out the firearm on the officers hip.
Just want to stress one item again, these officers were very professional.
Chugwhump
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Please let me clear this up....
These bullets are for Underwater Glock pistols.
NOAA is FINALLY getting serious about LIONFISH!!!!!
Please, make a note of it.
Chug
Thinks that DA Aquamaster did an EXCELLENT write up.
These bullets are for Underwater Glock pistols.
NOAA is FINALLY getting serious about LIONFISH!!!!!
Please, make a note of it.
Chug
Thinks that DA Aquamaster did an EXCELLENT write up.
