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09-27-2016, 10:02 PM
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wondering what ammo would have been issued to FBI agents ??
Hi Guys , I was reading a 1950's C.B. Cobly Book on the FBI , in the book it describes Agents were trained to shoot .357 Magnums at targets 100 yards distance.
I am wondering what ammo would have been issued to agents ??
please post ,many thanks,
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09-28-2016, 12:14 AM
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I picked up a 1972 gun magazine a while back. If memory serves me, they were using Super Vel 38 at that time. I will be interested in seeing those in the know provide some chronological data.
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09-28-2016, 04:02 AM
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In the 1950s, I suspect they would have issued a factory .357 load with a 158 gr lead bullet. It would have been well before Super Vel or any other jacketed expanding hollow points would have been approved, although they may have been commercially available.
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09-28-2016, 04:35 AM
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You misspelled the author's name: C.B. Colby. He wrote a lot of heavily illustrated books on military and police subjects.
I visited the FBI HQ in Wash., DC as a lad in the late 1950.'s They gave firing demos on the basement range, and a case that I picked up from a Thompson was marked Peters. I think they took low bid to buy Remington-Peters, Federal, and Winchester ammo. Not sure about .357, but maybe Lubaloy bullets from Winchester, in hopes of avoiding heavy barrel leading. Good .357 ammo then was all handloaded, with gas check bullets. I don't know if agents could use handloads. I suspect that many used .38-44 high velocity .38 ammo.
Std. revolvers were a mix of Colt Official Police and S&W M&P/Model 10. Agents could buy their own Colt or S&W .38 or .357 if it was all steel, blue and later, stainless. No nickel or Airweight guns.
My HS class visited the FBI field office in our city about 1960. In addition to the .38's, Tommy guns, and shotguns, the gun vault had a few pre-M-27 .357's with five-inch barrels. The action on the one I handled was superb, probably hand-honed by the gunsmiths at Quantico. But I didn't ask about ammo. I was 14 then, and not that attuned to ammo dfferences, although I'd read Keith's, Sixguns.
A FBI agent spoke to us on Career Day at HS, and he carried a Bodyguard snub. He liked that he could carry it in an overcoat pocket in winter and shoot though the pocket without the hammer snagging.
Have you seen Colby 's book on Cheyenne Mountain, the underground AFB? One photo is of a medic whom I knew in Newfoundland. Small world... It's definitely the same guy I knew. His nameplate is legible and he's the only person I've ever known with that odd last name. Also looks just like him.
BTW, I don't think the Bureau ever issued Super-Vel ammo.
We have several active and retired Special Agents as members here, and one is an FBI historian. Maybe they'll see this and comment. But most don't go back to the time the Bureau used revolvers.
Last edited by Texas Star; 09-28-2016 at 05:01 AM.
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09-28-2016, 11:41 AM
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A 100 yard shot at a torso sized target isn't all that hard with a 3" or 4" service revolver. I think too many people underestimate what a decent shot can do with a good revolver.
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I have no idea what the situation was in the 30's 40's and 50s with regard to .357 Magnum ammo and the FBI.
However, before they phased the Model 13s out in 1991, the standard was to carry a 158 gr LSWCHP .38 +P load, and they sourced them from Remington, Winchester and Federal.
Carrying .357 Magnum required approval of the Special Agent in Charge.
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09-28-2016, 12:22 PM
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The oldest .357 ammo I've seen in a Bureau gun vault was 158 grain Winchester JSP. At that time (1991) the issued .357 round was 145 grain Silvertips.
I suspect in the 1950s it would have been 158 grain Luballoy type SWC, probably acquired locally by the field office.
As an aside, I know a guy who was rooting around a gun vault prior to the office moving to a new location and found a case of .38 Super 130 grain FMJ. This was in the mid-90s and the ammo was at least 50 years old.
Once I asked the Indian Country unit at FBIHQ for some ammo to do a shotgun course for some tribal cops in Montana. They sent me a couple of cases of 2 3/4" 00 magnum buckshot that still had the original yellowed shipping labels from when it first went to the Butte Division (which no longer exists) decades before. It still worked - almost too well. That stuff was noticeably more stout than the modern 00 we had on hand - we could tell which cops had which by watching their heads whip back on the range.
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09-30-2016, 12:56 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sigp220.45
The oldest .357 ammo I've seen in a Bureau gun vault was 158 grain Winchester JSP. At that time (1991) the issued .357 round was 145 grain Silvertips.
I suspect in the 1950s it would have been 158 grain Luballoy type SWC, probably acquired locally by the field office.
As an aside, I know a guy who was rooting around a gun vault prior to the office moving to a new location and found a case of .38 Super 130 grain FMJ. This was in the mid-90s and the ammo was at least 50 years old.
Once I asked the Indian Country unit at FBIHQ for some ammo to do a shotgun course for some tribal cops in Montana. They sent me a couple of cases of 2 3/4" 00 magnum buckshot that still had the original yellowed shipping labels from when it first went to the Butte Division (which no longer exists) decades before. It still worked - almost too well. That stuff was noticeably more stout than the modern 00 we had on hand - we could tell which cops had which by watching their heads whip back on the range.
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The 2 3/4" Magnum buck load is a dentist's delight! Even worse than a 3" Magnum round. As to FBI ammo, my buddy, a Supervisory SA who retired in 2001, said he carried the .38 LHP load in his Model 13. Also, the SA I met in 1979 carried the LHP round in his 2 1/2" bbl RB Model 10.
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10-02-2016, 05:23 AM
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While I do not doubt that Agents might have been trained and taken some 100 yard shots, I do not believe it was part of their qualification requirements. My Dad served from 1952 to 1979 and AFAIK he qualified at distances out to 50 yards. While some may have been trained with a Handgun to longer distances and while a well practiced Agent can hit a human sized target at that distance, it leaves much to be desired unless there is absolutely no other choice. Still - probably not a bad skill to have.
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10-07-2016, 10:34 AM
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The .357 magnum cartridge made its debut in the S&W "registered magnum" series (predecessor of the Model 27) in about 1935. That was the period of the "automobile bandits", armed gangs that would mount raids on banks and other businesses. Law enforcement personnel of the period frequently had difficulty in engaging bad guys, and the .357 magnum was touted as being capable of shooting through automobile bodies and doors with sufficient remaining energy to get the job done. Quite a few communities armed local officers with BAR's, Thompson guns, and even heavier weapons, and some built concrete bunkers in town squares to provide security for local businesses faced with armed raids.
Ammunition for the .357 magnum was originally lead round-nose bullets, which were the norm for most revolver ammunition (although semi-auto ammo frequently featured FMJ bullets) until at least the late 1950's. To maximize performance of the .357 magnum some ammo makers offered armor piercing loads, usually a pointed FMJ bullet with cores of hardened lead, capable of piercing cinder block walls or seriously damaging an automobile engine. Somewhere around here I still have a box of WW .357 magnum 158-grain armor piercing ammo featuring pointed FMJ and tungsten carbide cores, which I bought about 1976 (easily penetrates a car grill and radiator before breaking a water pump into pieces).
Following much experimentation, mostly by handloaders, following WW2 led ammo makers to offer different options starting in the 1960's. Various plated bullets (WW Lubaloy, etc) were relatively popular, gas check bullets (long used by reloaders) were adopted for commercial sales, jacketed bullets, and finally jacketed soft point and jacketed hollow point ammo reached the market (early to mid-1960's). Super Vel developed high performance handgun ammo using relatively lightweight JHP bullets at higher velocities, a trend gradually followed by major ammo makers.
My law enforcement career started in the early 1970's. Revolvers were the norm across the US. Many agencies prohibited the use of magnum ammo, and hollow point ammo was a public relations circus well into the 1970's. Newspapers and TV reporters frequently decried the use of "dum dum" bullets by cops, and many agency heads were put into the position of either going against the media firestorms or banning certain types of ammunition by their departments.
From the late 1970's through recent times there has been considerable research and testing to determine the effectiveness of different ammunition for law enforcement use. The FBI pretty much led the effort, and when FBI went to certain choices (notably the "FBI load", .38Spl+P 158 LSWC-HP) many state and local agencies followed along.
Right on through the 1970's the major ammo makers published charts showing performance of handgun loads, usually rating performance by the number of 1" pine boards could be penetrated. Penetration was considered the primary virtue to be sought. The old standards have changed considerably.
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10-10-2016, 04:16 PM
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In the era 1962-1963 my agency sent me to a FBI training school at Lake Wales, Florida. The FBI issue duty side arm was a Colt or Smith and Wesson .38 special revolver with 4" barrel and standard .38 special 158 grain LRN ammo.
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10-10-2016, 06:40 PM
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Last round was Hydra-Shok
From the mid 90s until the the last days when the revolvers were allowed, the duty load was 147 gr. +P+, normally Hydra-Shok. There was still a little bit of 158 SWC+P around from the 80s used in training and perhaps some field offices, but the new stuff was 147 JHP +P+. The last contract I'm aware of was filled by Winchester rather than Federal, so it was just a JHP.
Last edited by RWJ; 10-10-2016 at 06:41 PM.
Reason: spelling
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