This was an interesting thread to read through from start to finish. Some of it filled with facts and some speculation. I worked in law enforcement for 30 years and the FBI was always held in high regard in firearm selection by many agencies. They had the time, inclination and money to really get into selecting hand guns and ammunition for their agents. My agency did not have the resources for that type of selection process, but we did try to glean whatever we could from the FBI and other department studies. Unfortunately my agency usually took the cheap way out on firearms, but not so much on ammunition.

I came into law enforcement at an interesting albeit frustrating time. The days of big tough ex-military type applicants was fading away and giving way to smaller less physically strong applicants who had absolutely no experience with firearms and were quite literally afraid of them. To them a firearm was just something they had to accommodate themselves with and get a passing score on the qualification test. Once that was done then they could move onto whatever the next hurdle was.

Early on we carried a 4 inch S&W Model 66's loaded with 158 grain full power loads made by Remington. It was a handful for the uninitiated and caused many problems for new shooters. We tried to break them in by only shooting 148 grain wadcutters in their first week on the range, but the second week they started shooting the "combat" courses with duty ammunition. By the end of the second week the recruits had to shoot a qualifying score with duty ammunition or they were removed from training.

If you are a firearms enthusiast and wanna-be-instructor you haven't lived until you stand alone on a range with a struggling student in heat and humidity, rain or snow and they know their chosen career is on the line because they need a passing score. That is where an good firearms instructor is made. Yes the life of that student and others is also on the line at that point, but the student isn't thinking of that at that point. The only thing they want to know is what am I doing wrong and it's up to the instructor to help them figure it out and save their job if possible. I know we lost more than a few good people that no doubt would have made good officers but when I looked at their cut and bleeding hands from shooting Lord knows how many full house loads in their Model 66's I felt sorry for them, but I felt it was necessary. I should add in those days we were shooting part of our qualification course out to 50 yards. That was eliminated when we converted to semi-autos and 25 yards was the maximum distance.

When we went to a 9mm semi-auto we tested different ammunition and picked Winchester 115 Silvertip +P+. It was good stuff and about the best 9mm ammunition available at that time. We ran our training the in the same format, the first week was more or less target shooting with 9mm ball ammo. If the recruits qualified they moved to the second week of combat shooting with duty ammunition. It was a night and day difference using a 9mm semi-auto versus our old .357 magnums. Oh we still had "problem" shooters, but they were far fewer and much more time could be given to improving student performance and running many more scenarios with them. The recruits still got tired after a full day on the range, but gone were the cut and bleeding hands unless they put their hand where it didn't belong. Overall our shooting scores jumped up dramatically. Today I don't believe many departments even shoot for score anymore and it's just pass or fail which is another conversation for another day.

The point of my entry is this, I don't believe every shooter, especially new ones, can be trained to shoot a large caliber handgun such as a 10mm or even a .40 as well as they could shoot a 9mm. It just isn't in the cards when you consider weapon size, hand size, recoil sensitivity and experience. It can and in most cases takes years for a person to become a really good pistol shooter and few departments are going to want to spend the time and money to develop a good shooter with a 10mm pistol when they can accomplish the same thing with a 9mm service weapon. A few years before I retired my old department followed the lead of a well known agency and went to a .40. I said it was a mistake at the time and our qualification scores proved my point. They went down, but when I mentioned this fact to our brass they shrugged it off and didn't want to talk about it. A few years later I retired and it didn't matter to me anymore. A few years later still and they have gone back to the 9mm cartridge. Funny how the wheel always seems to be re-invented.

Rick H.