TexasRaider
Member
I've had more than enough experience with the USPS (including working for them years ago) to know that for whatever numbers that can be thrown out about what they do correct, the number of misdelivered, mishandled or outright stolen pieces of mail is staggering. There's a reason they keep sucking up billions of dollars but never really improve...they're a bloated govt bureaucracy that's pretty much unaccountable. So no, I disagree. They don't do a great job, I don't even think they hold the line. They didn't get their package delivery act together 'til FedEx showed up and kicked their tail ten ways to Sunday.
Contentiousness aside, equating the success of the USPS with the FBI's effectiveness is a misdirection, anyway. The reputation of our Federal govt in wasting a colossal amount of tax payer money, their rabid pursuit of political ambition and operating in an atmosphere of a complete dearth of common sense is obvious. Even if the USPS was the outlier that did their job well, that means nothing in relation to how the FBI conducts ammo or weapons testing.
And no, the FBI is not "responsible" for ammo innovation, any more than taxes create wealth. In fact I think the FBI recommendations are retrograde. I won't plow into Miami 1986 again for the umpteenth time, but sufficed to say their attempt to hide their catastrophic training by blaming one single Silver Tip round and screaming 'Penetration!' for 30 years has done little to convince me they really know what they're doing. As you said about "that round you like so much", and I assume you mean the .357 Sig, it actually runs counter in philosphy to the FBI's deep digging ice pick round mentality. The 357 Sig is light weight, high speed and has a hellacious impact. Not heavy, slow, drillling 'all the way through' subsonic junk. And counter to what the FBI's protocol says about it, it does actually work and very, very well. If Sig lived and died by the FBI's ammuntion 'innovation', that round would never have been seen the light of day in the first place.
It is funny that the Secret Service has ignored the FBI protocol and decided that the high energy, warp speed Sig round is their choice to use in protecting the top elected folk of our nation. Now that's interesting. Wonder why they and the Federal Air Marshals, whose job descriptions includes really, really, really needing to stop a threat right now have chosen to disregard the FBI's 9mm? Maybe they know something the Feebs don't?
And as far as the FBI being 'responsible' for two new calibers? Ok, they gave us the .40 S&W. A castrated 10mm. Big whoop...there was nothing the forty could ever do that a great 9mm or 45 couldn't. It was an answer to a non-existent question that begins with "Do you have enough penetration?!?!?!" The other round? If you're talking about the .357 Magnum, that was birthed by Elmer Keith for the most part, and the Feebs hardly were 'responsible' for it.
But as a refresher, the FBI were the ones that said the 9mm was the way to go back in the early to mid-80's. Then they said "Whoops, we were wrong, not enough penetration. It's bad." Then they went to the 10mm. Then they said "Whoops. Too much blast, we can't handle it. It's bad." Then they gutted the 10mm and issued the .40 S&W. Now they're saying "Whoops. We were wrong, too big, not enough capacity, too much recoil. We were wrong. It's bad." And now they're back to the nine....apparently they're running out of calibers to blame and change to. Maybe the .45 GAP is their next big thing!
I'll give you that the FBI crime labs are highly talented, and some of the Agents I know really bust their butt and care about their job. But their 'testing' of firearms is hardly second to none and their understanding of gunfighting certainly isn't earth shattering. And don't you imagine their requirement of hiring and graduating smaller, non-conventional recruits might have something to do with going to a soft recoiling polymer pistol?
The days of all the G-Men being a 6"1', 230 lb. burly hoss are largely gone. But a 5"5', 125 lb. featherweight female? Sure. But then, you'd need an expensive 9mm protocol to justify why you're issuing soft shooting, easy recoiling rounds and pistols, wouldn't you?
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