What "Odd" Guns Have You Seen Used On Duty By LEO, Security Guards, Etc.?

When I was in high school in the early '70's I worked after school on the loading dock of one of the long defunct White Front stores. The security guard who sat there to make sure people didn't back up to the dock and grab something that they hadn't paid for inside carried a Llama .22 Magnum with a 6" barrel and stoked with hollow points. He claimed that it was just as powerful as a "regular .38" and that the hollow points wouldn't shoot right through a shoplifter and damage the merchandise he was supposed to be guarding.
 
For a while I worked at a gun store. We were all supposed to be armed. Occasionally, for gits and shiggles I wore that sawed off 12 gauge I posted in the holster thread. Just for the coolness factor. If I'd needed a gun, I'd have pulled the 38 out of my back pocket.
 
when i was in highschool we had a conservation officer as a guest speaker come to our class once, he had a ruger blackhawk with a 6 inch barrel. i think he wore it to keep us from picking on his name, which was Richard Head. for real! parents must have hated him! he didn't smile much as i recall.
 
In the early 1970's I would occasionally go into a bar called Clancy's in S.E. Washington D.C., on Good Hope Road. The neighborhood was in the process of changing demographics. In fact it was becoming a lot more Democratic. On Friday and Saturday nights there would be frequent brawls. There were always be a couple of bouncers during the week, but on weekends he would always have a private security guard also. One of them used to carry an Old Model Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 magnum in a western style fast draw holster on a cartridge belt. I know it was an Old Model now, because that was before the New Model came out. But I didn't know it was an Old Model then, because the New Model had not come out yet. I had one also.
 
A friend of mine carried a chrome-plated .38/200 Victory Model with chambers bored out to .38 Special from the early 1970s to around 1984. He was exclusively shooting Winchester 110 +P JHPs in it in the final years he carried it.
 
I had a constable (elected county officials with limited LE authority in this state) show up for qualification with a 9mm Hi-Point. I loaned him a Browning Hi-Power as I didn't trust the Hi-Point on my range. He qualified and carried the Hi-Point on duty, loaded with whatever the cheapest ammo he could find.
 
While in college, I walked for a bit at the 5 o'clock position behind a mall-security guy making his rounds. I was curious, because I had never seen an armed security guard there before, and this one apparently WAS, but the gun just did not look right. Sort of like a Colt Python, but anyway...got to looking closer and saw it was a 'non-firing' replica arm. This was later confirmed by another security guard there I got to know.

On another occasion - saw a long, tall painfully thin (think 'Barney Fife') security guard holding forth in a local LE Supply Store, patting his Sam Browne rig with Border Patrol holster, stating 'Yep, in my line of business, you can only afford the best'. The BP holster was meant to fit apparently a 4" k frame. It housed a chrome RG .32.
 
Indiana used to have town marshals, but I don't see them much anymore. There used to be two not far from where I live with some odd firearms that have been mentioned in this thread already. One had an RG .38 revolver, or some awful thing that looked like an RG. :o

The other fellow carried a Ruger Blackhawk, probably a .357. I think this fellow knew how to handle the Blackhawk. Not much shooting goes on around here, but he probably could have made those six .357s count, if he had needed to.

Neither of these gentlemen are on duty these days, both having "retired" some years ago, shortly after Indiana required all marshals to graduate from the state's training academy, like ordinary full-time police officers.

These days, a 686 seems odd. And yes, I do still see a revolver now and then. The last was being carried by a Brinks guard who stopped by McDonald's to pick up lunch.
 
We have a constable locally that carries a S&W revolver, but I can't get close enough to ask what. It doesn't actually look big enough to be a K-frame, certainly not an L-frame. One day I'll ask. Mostly around here they just serve papers on dead-beats and such.

One of them got caught in a deadly force situation a few years ago. A guy shot up a deputy and left him for dead (he survived and still serves), then took off. The constable and the sheriff set up a roadblock and got him stopped, and the bad guy then proceeded to shoot the constable in the arm before the sheriff, who has a reputation as being very good with a handgun, dropped him.

I may have some slight details a little fuzzy, been a few years.
 
Maybe not as truly odd as classy, I recently purchased a 1972 Colt Royal Blue Python 6 inch barrel complete with a vintage Dirty Harry holster from a retiring Detective. Almost everyone on the force carries a Glock now, except for the old school guys that are grandfathered in. Most of them carry S&W 38 Specials.
 
I knew a cop who carried a 6" barrel S&W Model 25 .45 Colt. He won competition after competition with it too. He was an amazing shot (still is) and he believed that gun could stop any bad guy. I think he was right. Not sure what ammo he carried, I think Winchester Silvertip hollowpoint factory ammo on duty.

I also knew an instructor at the Chicago PD who attended our graduation party. He carried a Browning Hi Power, cocked and locked, in a floral carved crossdraw concealment holster. The 9mm had pewter grips of a naked woman with two red rubies....

I still laugh when I think about it. He was originally from Mexico and when I commented on the gun, he said, "I know, I know, am I a Mexican or what?"
 
mm6mm6 said:
I also knew an instructor at the Chicago PD who attended our graduation party. He carried a Browning Hi Power, cocked and locked, in a floral carved crossdraw concealment holster. The 9mm had pewter grips of a naked woman with two red rubies....
Click to expand...
Back in the '60s, my father knew a Chicago cop who carried a BHP as a backup gun. Supposedly he got in a gunfight with a gang member who counted off six shots and stood up to shoot the cop... who shot him two or three times.
 
After a period of civil disturbance in Los Angeles, California, and shops and restaurants closed early due to fear of more riots, I saw a uniformed security guard carrying a Ruger Standard Model .22 pistol in a cheap Hunter holster. Maybe he thought he was going to shoot ground squirrels?
 
I still get a kick when I see a uniformed officer carrying a 1911 in condition 1. Just makes me want to start smiling and maybe tap dancing down the street a little bit :D
 
Here in FL security guards are only permitted .38 Special, 9mm or .380. There are ammo requirements as well, see your company legal representative for current details. Only interesting thing I have seen is a MAJOR national company switching from Glocks to Ruger 95s for safety reasons.
Geoff
Who notes armed security is extremely expensive almost everywhere.
 
i worked for wackenhut in 2000 and they still issued revolvers....in 2008I visited florida and all the wackenhut guards there had new stainless revolvers.....ahhh wackenhut!
not bad company ..but way behind in technology.
 
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