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Old 05-20-2017, 12:41 PM
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galena galena is offline
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Default USAF +P+ .38 Special ammo

Maybe I can shed a bit of light on this subject. From Jan 1974-Aug 1977 I was assigned as an instructor at the Air Force Office of Special Investigations School. I was the marksmanship instructor and also served as the HQ Marksmanship Manager for OSI world wide. The OSI issue handgun at the time was the S&W M-36, 3" barrel with the 'Banana' grips. The issue ammo was the afore mentioned anemic 130gr .38Sp round. At times at the school we also used 148gr Wadcutters, but mostly a steady diet of the 130gr stuff. We trained two classes of Agents every six weeks. The school guns got a lot of use. During my tour there was much discussion about adopting a better duty round, both with the AF Marksmanship folks and the Lackland AFB gunsmith folks. About halfway through my tour we were issued the high pressure PGU-12B ammo that oldtanker describes above in Post #8. We shot a lot of it. Before long it started to shoot the M-36s loose. We sent some of the school guns to the Lackland gunsmiths for evaluation. To make a long story short, they recommended that the PGU-12B ammo not be used in the M-36. The decision was made to begin a search for a new OSI issue handgun. I recommended OSI people who I knew were shooters with experience and interest to be selected for an evaluation/study team. The Air Force offered an inventory of 1911 target guns being stored at Lackland the the Gunsmith folks offered the ultimately selected 'chopped and channeled' Officer's 1911 that they converted from the target guns. I was reassigned before the selection team met and did not get to participate in the selection.
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