Alrighty...LE, Retired LE and MP/SP....Let's talk handcuffs
- Thread starter MelvinWalker
- Start date
Unless you didn’t hear the 870 being racked…
Shrek Of The Arctic
Member
- Joined
- May 22, 2019
- Messages
- 295
- Reaction score
- 956
I started with some blued S&Ws that had been given to me. They've never failed, but they sure show wear after six years on the job. When I worked segregation where we spent all day cuffing and uncuffing inmates I eventually buffed mine to a mirror polish around the key holes so I could see them better in the dimly lit environment.
I eventually got a pair of Hiatts that I like a little better. A bit more durable around the chainlinks and the sliding bar double lock is handy.
When I first started, I wanted as much **** as I could fit on my duty belt, to include bubba cuffs. At this stage in life, I don't even wear a duty belt, but rather an uber stiff tactical style belt. Bubba cuffs are an excrutiatingly rare requirement, though I was the outlier they got used on during academy.
Anymore, I'm inclined to try a pair of aluminum cuffs. Use those for the 97 percent of routine cuffing with compliant inmates, and keep a pair of the steel.Hiatts for spicier occasions.
Of course I tend to use the facility cuffs whenever I can to keep my own from wandering off.
Hinge cuffs aren't even permitted in my department, though there are always a few...unique officers that carry them anyways.
The one brand they say you can use but don't suggest using is ASPs. Some folks carry those too. They do look a bit less durable, but I've yet to see them break.
I've rarely seen any fail. Usually when they do, it's a software issue when Officer nice guy didn't want to make the cuffs too uncomfortable, so they fell off. I have seen cuffs that were practically orange with rust fail to lock up.
I can't make myself geek out on cuffs the way I do with guns, but simply as a man I beileve in regular inspection and lubrication.
I eventually got a pair of Hiatts that I like a little better. A bit more durable around the chainlinks and the sliding bar double lock is handy.
When I first started, I wanted as much **** as I could fit on my duty belt, to include bubba cuffs. At this stage in life, I don't even wear a duty belt, but rather an uber stiff tactical style belt. Bubba cuffs are an excrutiatingly rare requirement, though I was the outlier they got used on during academy.
Anymore, I'm inclined to try a pair of aluminum cuffs. Use those for the 97 percent of routine cuffing with compliant inmates, and keep a pair of the steel.Hiatts for spicier occasions.
Of course I tend to use the facility cuffs whenever I can to keep my own from wandering off.
Hinge cuffs aren't even permitted in my department, though there are always a few...unique officers that carry them anyways.
The one brand they say you can use but don't suggest using is ASPs. Some folks carry those too. They do look a bit less durable, but I've yet to see them break.
I've rarely seen any fail. Usually when they do, it's a software issue when Officer nice guy didn't want to make the cuffs too uncomfortable, so they fell off. I have seen cuffs that were practically orange with rust fail to lock up.
I can't make myself geek out on cuffs the way I do with guns, but simply as a man I beileve in regular inspection and lubrication.
Some while back a guy on this forum, Dave Teeters, put together a E-book on handcuffs. I have a copy. It is interesting.
Big Dave in WNC
Member
Knowing I was going into armed security at 18 (only because I was too young to enter LE at the time) I asked all my LEO friends and they unanimously said "Smith and Wesson Model 100" so that's what I bought. I used these for about 18 months of armed security and they were never used on ANYONE (well..except the girlfriend...but I digress.) Once I entered BLET these were my only set, but I seen others (Peerless, Hiatt's, JayPee's, etc.)
I continued carrying these after I was sworn as a reserve officer for a small town, and they were used a few times (and no matter how many times I'd imagined using them, and how many times we'd practiced in BLET, I was almost shaking I was so nervous the first few times I placed them on someone!) Then in 1988 I was hired FT in a small but incredibly busy department with tons of violent arrests and encounters. To put this in perspective the job I was hired for was taking the place of an officer who had been shot, and on my first night of orientation we answered 40 calls in 12 hours! And this was in town with only 2000 people and 15 officers! At night 2 officers were all that was on duty most nights, with 3 officers being a Godsend!
The S&Ws got a WORKOUT, let me tell you! It became SOP for us to stamp our name and department on our cuffs so I did, and still have these. (I really felt old in my later career when I realized I had OFFICERS under me that were younger than my handcuffs!)
I then went to an Officer Survival school (early 90s) where the entire staff even some of the officers from other agencies just RAVED about hinged cuffs. I had never even seen or handled a set of hinged cuffs, nor did I know any officers in my area carrying them. I immediately bought a pair of hinged Peerless and INITIALLY I became one of the fan boys for hinged cuffs. I LOVED the extra control it gave over squirrely arrestees. I ALSO loved the double-lock pin being on the side, AFTER I got used to it of course. Then one day in 93 or 94, we had to fight a really big dude at some public apartments. Dude was about 6 feet tall, but about 350 pounds, AND was wearing long sleeves and a thick denim jacket. It was my arrest (outstanding warrant) so my hinged Peerless cuffs came out. We HAD the troops there (4 or 5 of us that day on day shift) so when he started fighting the battle was on. We got him to the ground after a while and I couldn't get the cuffs on him, due to his pulling away, struggling, the huge wrists covered with a sweater and denim jacket. Every time we would get his wrist to the cuff, he'd pull away before we could guide the wrist into the open cuff. This went on for at least 90 seconds with 4 or 5 officers on him. He wasn't getting away, and he wasn't hurting us, but none of us could get his wrists in the hinged cuff. Finally we did, and every officer there (with three older than me and two less experienced) told me ADAMANTLY "You need to get rid of those damn hinged handcuffs!"
I then realized that chained cuffs allow you to orient the cuff to the angle the wrist is being brought into it, and hinged requires you to get the wrist (of the fighting arrestee) brought not only TO the cuff, but then to get it oriented to the fixed angle of the cuff, which is wholly dependent on (and dictated by) the position of the already cuffed wrist.
That day, I went back to my S&Ws and the hinged became my spares.
A month or so later I was at a police supply store (National Police Supply in Charlotte) and noted the Peerless chained cuffs, and since I now preferred the side-mounted double-lock pin, I bought them and ran them at my department then and at my next department into the late 1990s.
A FFL friend of mine loaned me a monthly catalog he'd gotten from a large distributor in the north-east (in Forest City PA but I can't recall the name). They had S&W Model 1 Universal Handcuffs on sale and I had him order me a pair.
THESE BECAME THE BEST SET OF HANDCUFFS I'VE EVER OWNED AND ARE EASILY MY "FAVORITE" HANDCUFFS TO DATE.
These will go down smaller than standard cuffs (for petite ladies and juveniles) and substantially larger for the majority of men we arrest. (NOTE-I've never had a MALE get out of handcuffs after I applied them, but I've had three WOMEN get out-due to that little racoon-like wrist AND the fact that men are subconsciously unwilling to put the cuffs down as tight on a female.)
I also have an aluminum set I got the PD to buy me one year after I'd seen a Deputy US Marshal friend carrying them, but they were ALWAYS a 'backup" or off-duty pair.
ASP was getting big when I retired but I never cared for them because they "felt" flimsy, although, as someone stated above I have never seen them fail. The pink ones were/are popular with some of our ladies.
And for the non-LE folks, even though I made a joke about this earlier, I quickly found that all those jokes about handcuffs in a bedroom setting were not that big of a thing, ESPECIALLY when you know that mine have been on folks who have urinated on themselves, defecated on themselves, drenched in beer, MRSA, Hep, HIV,, etc.
I continued carrying these after I was sworn as a reserve officer for a small town, and they were used a few times (and no matter how many times I'd imagined using them, and how many times we'd practiced in BLET, I was almost shaking I was so nervous the first few times I placed them on someone!) Then in 1988 I was hired FT in a small but incredibly busy department with tons of violent arrests and encounters. To put this in perspective the job I was hired for was taking the place of an officer who had been shot, and on my first night of orientation we answered 40 calls in 12 hours! And this was in town with only 2000 people and 15 officers! At night 2 officers were all that was on duty most nights, with 3 officers being a Godsend!
The S&Ws got a WORKOUT, let me tell you! It became SOP for us to stamp our name and department on our cuffs so I did, and still have these. (I really felt old in my later career when I realized I had OFFICERS under me that were younger than my handcuffs!)
I then went to an Officer Survival school (early 90s) where the entire staff even some of the officers from other agencies just RAVED about hinged cuffs. I had never even seen or handled a set of hinged cuffs, nor did I know any officers in my area carrying them. I immediately bought a pair of hinged Peerless and INITIALLY I became one of the fan boys for hinged cuffs. I LOVED the extra control it gave over squirrely arrestees. I ALSO loved the double-lock pin being on the side, AFTER I got used to it of course. Then one day in 93 or 94, we had to fight a really big dude at some public apartments. Dude was about 6 feet tall, but about 350 pounds, AND was wearing long sleeves and a thick denim jacket. It was my arrest (outstanding warrant) so my hinged Peerless cuffs came out. We HAD the troops there (4 or 5 of us that day on day shift) so when he started fighting the battle was on. We got him to the ground after a while and I couldn't get the cuffs on him, due to his pulling away, struggling, the huge wrists covered with a sweater and denim jacket. Every time we would get his wrist to the cuff, he'd pull away before we could guide the wrist into the open cuff. This went on for at least 90 seconds with 4 or 5 officers on him. He wasn't getting away, and he wasn't hurting us, but none of us could get his wrists in the hinged cuff. Finally we did, and every officer there (with three older than me and two less experienced) told me ADAMANTLY "You need to get rid of those damn hinged handcuffs!"
I then realized that chained cuffs allow you to orient the cuff to the angle the wrist is being brought into it, and hinged requires you to get the wrist (of the fighting arrestee) brought not only TO the cuff, but then to get it oriented to the fixed angle of the cuff, which is wholly dependent on (and dictated by) the position of the already cuffed wrist.That day, I went back to my S&Ws and the hinged became my spares.
A month or so later I was at a police supply store (National Police Supply in Charlotte) and noted the Peerless chained cuffs, and since I now preferred the side-mounted double-lock pin, I bought them and ran them at my department then and at my next department into the late 1990s.
A FFL friend of mine loaned me a monthly catalog he'd gotten from a large distributor in the north-east (in Forest City PA but I can't recall the name). They had S&W Model 1 Universal Handcuffs on sale and I had him order me a pair.
THESE BECAME THE BEST SET OF HANDCUFFS I'VE EVER OWNED AND ARE EASILY MY "FAVORITE" HANDCUFFS TO DATE.
These will go down smaller than standard cuffs (for petite ladies and juveniles) and substantially larger for the majority of men we arrest. (NOTE-I've never had a MALE get out of handcuffs after I applied them, but I've had three WOMEN get out-due to that little racoon-like wrist AND the fact that men are subconsciously unwilling to put the cuffs down as tight on a female.)
I also have an aluminum set I got the PD to buy me one year after I'd seen a Deputy US Marshal friend carrying them, but they were ALWAYS a 'backup" or off-duty pair.
ASP was getting big when I retired but I never cared for them because they "felt" flimsy, although, as someone stated above I have never seen them fail. The pink ones were/are popular with some of our ladies.
And for the non-LE folks, even though I made a joke about this earlier, I quickly found that all those jokes about handcuffs in a bedroom setting were not that big of a thing, ESPECIALLY when you know that mine have been on folks who have urinated on themselves, defecated on themselves, drenched in beer, MRSA, Hep, HIV,, etc.
Last edited:
DR505
US Veteran
Had S&W and Peerless, chains and hinged...preferred Peerless chains.
Biggest guy I cuffed took 3 sets (he was 400+ pounds), and only got one or two clicks of the ratchet on his wrists.
I also remember when a set of cuffs put a guy behind bars for murder...back in Cook County, IL, in the 80's. A cop caught another guy with his wife, cuffed him, took him to a forest preserve and shot him in the head. Left the cuffs on him that were engraved with his name and number. I was at the States Attorney's office at the time and he came through the preliminary hearing courtroom when I was there.
Biggest guy I cuffed took 3 sets (he was 400+ pounds), and only got one or two clicks of the ratchet on his wrists.
I also remember when a set of cuffs put a guy behind bars for murder...back in Cook County, IL, in the 80's. A cop caught another guy with his wife, cuffed him, took him to a forest preserve and shot him in the head. Left the cuffs on him that were engraved with his name and number. I was at the States Attorney's office at the time and he came through the preliminary hearing courtroom when I was there.
Last edited:
heeter3
Member
I carried a pair of peerless chain cuffs from day 1 on the job in Dec of 74 til I retired 30 years later in Jan of 05.My son has them now and he still carries them today 22 years later along with his issued pair.
BigBear437
Member
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2021
- Messages
- 12
- Reaction score
- 18
Still active, and having gone into undercover work, when I carry cuffs, I carry a pair of S&W 100 with the serial number 987564. (That's an easy number to remember, and no, I didn't accidently transpose the 5 and the 6.) They're 25 years old, and still work as well as they did the day I bought them.
Similar threads
