OT: revolver/speedloader/police equipment history

My apologies to everyone for this being a little off topic. I was not sure where to post this.

I was pondering today, and was wondering when certain equipment was developed and became standard for police officers. Mainly I was considering the topic of speed loaders. I know the evolution basically went from cartridge loops to dump pouches and then to speedloaders before the adoption of semi-auto pistols, but I couldn't find anything on the net regarding when.

Can any of you help me out on this one?


I was also pondering the same question regarding radios and vehicle equipment, but I know that is way off topic.

My apologies to everyone for this being a little off topic. I was not sure where to post this.

I was pondering today, and was wondering when certain equipment was developed and became standard for police officers. Mainly I was considering the topic of speed loaders. I know the evolution basically went from cartridge loops to dump pouches and then to speedloaders before the adoption of semi-auto pistols, but I couldn't find anything on the net regarding when.

Can any of you help me out on this one?


I was also pondering the same question regarding radios and vehicle equipment, but I know that is way off topic.

Here is some very brief history as I know it...and for what it's worth.

I became a cop in May, 1975. Training completed in September. We were issued Model 10 (heavy barrel) revolvers. We HAD to use dump pouches, only, for training whilst in rookie school. I was not a gun aficionado but had heard of the newfangled "speedloaders."

Very soon after graduation we were allowed to buy/carry/use speedloaders, and I was among the first to do so. That required modification of orders regarding items we could carry. Believe it or not, at that time there was an actual photograph in orders that depicted exactly how all equipment was to be carried on the duty belt!!! No variation was allowed thus the need to revise to allow for speedloader holders.

At the time I believe only Dade Machine Screw Products manufactured speedloaders. They were plastic with a spring encircling the device. The spring actually held the rounds in the holder. Pressing the tab at the top forced the rounds over the spring into the cylinder.

Soon (?) thereafter, HKS brought their product onto the market. Their product was much more effective, compact, and secure as it used a rotating metal "star" to secure the rounds. One turned a knurled metal knob to release rounds into the cylinder.

Hope this info is useful...

BTW, I have one of each of the speedloaders I have discussed. If you want them I am sure we could make a deal.

Be safe.

PS:

Send me a PM if you want some info on the evolution of radios and equipment.

I have a similar history. Started with loops and dump pouches in the late 60's.
Got some Dades in the early 70's and still have them.

I believe that speedloaders actually go back further than that, but didn't really become practical until the '70's, and therefore weren't used much prior to this.
My father became a cop for the second time when I was about five, this was the mid seventies. He had been a cop (SFPD) prior to my birth in the mid sixties. My first memories of him in uniform include the loops. This was a small town PD in WA. I would guess that he used equipment from his earlier stint on SFPD when he started. He later had speedloaders before going to an auto towards the end of his career. I don't know if he ever used the dump pouches or not.

I started in 1974 and we carried Bianchi double dump pouches, BUT we were issued Bianchi Speed Strips to go into the pouches. Never saw another local Agency that issued or allowed the Speed Strips.

The HKS round speed loaders and a double pouch were common a few years later. Still have mine!

FN in MT

Here's a representative sample from about 1975 in the Law Enforcement Handgun Digest.
The first Safariland as we know them came very shortly later.

I can document the Matich to 1967. The Hunt/Kel-Lite/Safariland all-rubber was about the same time.

Matich in action, June, 1967 G&A:

I started with my agency (INS Investigations) in 1972; at that time speedloaders were definitely NOT approved. Same rules applied to the Border Patrol. When I did the firearms instructors' course in Glynco in l981 they were still teaching reloading from loops.

I carried a LW Commander .45 for my first few years, so didn't worry about the issue. I finally was forced to quit carrying it around 1982, and went to speedloaders--approved or not. I think they were finally ok'd for the BP about the same time.

The adoption of hollow point ammo was a similarly tortured path.

Not exactly enlightened times, those.

I think the first speedloaders came into vogue with the old Webley top break revolvers from the days of the British empire. I used to be an ER Nurse and one day we had a young kid that was hurt and brought in by his very despondent father. Dad was a Houston PD officer and had his duty weapon (S&W Model 66), duty belt, and speedloaders. One of our security officers (moonlighting local cop) very politely asked the Dad to give him his weapon for safekeeping, and that we would lock it in our safe. Dad agreed and the cop opened the cylinder, dropped all six rounds into a baggie, signed the inventory slip and handed everything to me. I asked him "what about the 12 rounds in the 2 (HKS) speedloaders?" Boy did he feel stupid...even more so a few seconds later when he had to ask me how to unload a speedloader. It wasn't his fault as the local PD was very conservative (dump pouches only, .38 round nose bullets), and I was a gun nut. That cop had always treated me nicely, and after that, he treated me with a great deal of respect. Ah, the old days. By the way, the kid did just fine.

Regards,

Dave

The Prideaux Quick Loader was pre-WWI and designed for use with the top break Webley MKV and MkVI series. They allowed quick loading of the British service .455 Webley revolvers.

Stateside, speedloaders did not get much attention until there were used in the Dirty hary movies. "Magnum Force" and the PPC combat competions popularized them for duty carry. It seemed like almost overnight police and sheriff's departments were authorizing them for service use.

When I started my career in Northern Michigan in 1979 my department used dump pouches, although one oldtimer still had 6 loops on the belt loop of his swivel holster. Other departments in the area still used the slides with loops, which they considered more secure than dump pouches. I used Bianchi Speed Strips in the pouches from the start and kept an HKS speedloader in my jacket pocket. We supplied all our own uniforms and equipment and the Chief wasn't a stickler on the small stuff.

Actually, the course of fire for qualification required the use of loose rounds (Load 6, fire 2, load 2, fire 6). A speed strip worked fine for this, but speedloaders were a distinct disadvantage.

In '81 I moved to a larger department, which issued and mandated Safariland speedloaders. I couldn't get a pair that worked consistently and continued to carry two HKSs in my jacket pockets. In the summer I kept a speed strip in my left shirt pocket and another in my left pants pocket. The Safarilands were still in use about 10 years ago by the last uniformed officer in the department to carry a revolver (a 6" M28).

Hope this isn't too long and boring but here's my practical experience with all three systems over a long time. With Detroit PD in '73 when hinged top opening dump pouches were issued. Impossible to dump 6 loose rounds into 1 hand and deal with them so a 6 round loop was added to my belt and I taught myself to shoot 2 and reload 2 from the loops. One day the inevitable occurred and training took over. Although I don't remember, my model 19 got reloaded from the loops. Went to Metro-Dade in '75 and was issued bottom opening dump pouches. Again, impossible to manage all of those loose rounds plus boys being boys resulted in everyone dumping each others pouches at roll call for grins. Speed strips were new and solved that problem. At contract time in '76, 1 pouch of HKS speed loaders was issued in lieu of a raise and they remain issue to this day. A series of non uniform assignments began and my model 19 became a 66, which became a 686+. My "raid belt" was now sporting 3 pouches of HKS speed loaders and the same old loop that I continued to practice with. When semi autos became "the gun" I got lots of looks and some laughs. But when that day came again and a running gun battle occurred covering several Miami blocks, there were lots of cops with jammed semis and miss handled mags were dropping like rain. And those few reloading their revolvers using speed loaders only, were running dry before reloading. But my loops were going strong and I was alive and happy at the end of the day. I'm retired now but my CCF choice is still a 66 with a 2x2x2 dump pouch that is so old that not even the cops know what it is. Maybe I'm old too.

When I started in 1988, we were issued 4" S&W M65 with 6 loops and 1 HKS Speedloader. I carried a Bianchi speed strip with 6 full power magnum loads in my shirt pocket too (unauthorized). Issued load was the 38 spl +p 158gr LSWCHP FBI Load. It was only about 2 years until we all switched to the Sig P226 in 9mm, just because the State Police did and all our higher ups were wannabe super troopers.

I started in late in 1986, and I carried a model 13 first, and then switched to a 686 soon thereafter. I carried two HKS speedloaders strong side and loops weak side. I practiced tactical loading, firing two-loading two-firing-two, and I practiced emergency loading- running dry, and loading with the speedloader. About half of the officers carried speedloaders, and the others mostly loops. Very few dump pouches. I made the the SWAT team after a couple of years and switched over to a 459.

Steve,
That's a very interesting device.
Can you tell us about it??

I've seen that one before on here. Isn't it pre-WWII?

Thanks guys for all of the input! It has been great.

(Now anyone have some links regarding police radios and other equipment?... wink wink...)

bryson.... please tell us about that interesting loader you pictured.

Originally posted by captianworkbench:

(Now anyone have some links regarding police radios and other equipment?... wink wink...)

Click to expand...

Police Radios??? Started out with a brick, now have a slightly smaller brick after 20+ years (ain't technology grand!). Still want to know why my cell phone can go days without charging but I can't get a prep battery to last a whole shift, and my cell phone works places my prep won't. Don't even get me started on the computers! I'd go back to pen/typewriter/paper for reporting in a heartbeat.

I started in police work in 1996, so I solidly missed the revolver days. As it happens, the PD I started with was a County PD formed out of the Sheriff's Office in 1983, and even if I had started working for them in 1983, I still wouldn't have had a revolver. When the PD was formed they adopted the Beretta 92SB as standard issue. It was the first department in the state to issue a semi-auto as a standard duty weapon. I actually got one of the original SBs in 1996, and carried that for 2 1/2 years before the PD switched the the HK USP40 Compact as standard issue.

In 2006 I got the bright idea that I wanted to try something a little different, so I got a job as a probation/parole officer in North Carolina. At the time I was hired, the department was still issuing the S&W 65 3" with 2 HKS speed loaders and 125 grain (+P) .38 Special ammunition. Even though I'd been a street cop for ten years, that wasn't good enough for P&P to issue me a weapon until I went to their training. By the time I made it through the necessary training, the issue weapon had changed to the S&W M&P40 (mostly due to the large number of failures of new S&W revolvers purchased by P&P and Prisons in 2006; it was heavily discussed here at the time).

So, while I completely missed the revolver days, I've carried a revolver (J-frame mostly) of one sort or another as an on and off-duty backup for pretty much my whole career. I don't see that changing anytime soon. I've never found an auto pistol that worked nearly as well as a BUG, and besides, revolvers just do something for me.

I wouldn't feel undergunned carrying a revolver as a duty weapon (so long at it was a .357 Magnum), in fact, I'd be more than happy to go to work carrying my 681-3.

I went back to policing full time at the beginning of 2008, and obviously I was issued yet another auto. I wish I had gotten a chance to carry an issued revolver, but it didn't happen.

Now, when I started my portable radio was big and heavy. While the battery didn't last that long and it didn't work that well, it made an excellent club. These days, the radio is much smaller and lighter. It doesn't work any better, and the battery doesn't last any longer, and now its not even a good club.

I started in 1971 with a model 19 and dump pouches. Our mandated holsters were the retention type that had to be pushed forward before drawing (don't recall the name of that style). We had the option of a clam shell and I soon purchased one. This is the old style clam shell, not the modern imitator. I think the were shown on the old Adam Twelve TV show. The release for the shell was inside the trigger guard covered with leather. Fast on the draw, but difficult to reholster if your attention was diverted by a struggle, etc. When I went to Vice I could carry what I wanted, and I wanted something that didn't scream "cop" so I carried a 1911 tucked in my waistband. Only problem with that was there was no where for the extra mags but loose in the pockets. Even though I've always been a little overweight I don't have enough inches around my waist for all the stuff the modern day cop carries.