Sig,

And here I thought I was the one they threatened to take away AUO. They got me in 10/98 when I was dumb enough to qualify with it at an HQ shoot. DOH! And then they melted it down!

There's a good reason the Agents all had S&Ws. with a few exceptions that was all they were authorized to carry (you forgot the best one though, the Model 19 4"). In the mid-80s the Bureau called in ALL Bureau owned and issued Colts. And I mean ALL. I was issued a Det. Spec. as well as my Model 13 and off it went back to the Gun Vault along with every other Colt in the entire field. The reason? The Gun Vault convinced some executive that it was too costly to maintain a parts inventory for both firearms, i.e., Colts AND S&Ws, and it was too costly to maintain gunsmiths trained to repair both types of firearms. I'm not kidding one little bit. And to make matters worse, since the FBI couldn't find another law enforcement agency that wanted the Colts they were obliged to cut them up (this was before the smelter). There were literally 1000s of Colts that would be considered rare and collectible today and their remains were buried on Quantico's artillery range. At the same time all Colts were removed from the POW list. No parts, no gunsmiths, no Colts - no problem.

So, the reason you saw only S&Ws in 1991 was that other than a few Sigs for SWAT agents that is all we could carry. A similar tragedy happened when the FBI transitioned from the Model 13 to pistols. It had been approved at THE highest level for Agent to purchase their Model 13 should they chose to. Then the Gun Vault got involved and complained that it would be too much trouble and take too much of their time. Result: buy back program nixed. Tragedy: 10,000 Model 13s destroyed.

The crusty old guys you saw carrying the Colts - were just that - crusty old guys that probably didn't pay much attention to what any suit told them to do. They wanted to carry their POW Colt and they did. But they weren't Bureau Colts unless someone pulled a fast one. And we all know that never could happen. LOL

Regards,

D