Why were the results poor?
10mm is a good round, but I can see how some people wouldn't be able to handle it.
The 40 S&W is basically a 10mm with a smaller cartridge (and less powder, and less recoil). I'm not sure why they are abandoning that.
I've shot a 40 S&W all day in competition. In a full-size gun, it's easy to handle. It can be a handful in a sub-compact handgun, but I'm referring to the G-27. The G-23 is the compact (same size as the G-19) the FBI was using, and a good balance between size and recoil.
The G-23 has two less rounds in the magazine, but I'm not sure why that would be an issue. I can swap magazines as almost as fast as I would be shooting outside a competition.
The article claims "30 years of ballistic improvements" to the 9mm. What exactly would this be, and does it include higher-pressure loading that would have as much recoil as the 40 S&W?
The linked article has other links that may answer your questions better than I.
Out of some 12,800 Agents [the number last time I looked, maybe more now, no matter] There'll be a percentage of real serious shooters, former military or police shooters, and those who just take well to one-on-one shooting instruction and then apply the lessons to their own efforts. That'll be around 10%-15% of those involved.
And likewise, you'll have those with no experience at all and who due to ingrained fear or mechanical ineptitude or clumsiness who cannot shoot their way past the qualification course with a box of pencils. It used to be they'd wash out; no longer. Once again, atound 10-15 per cent.
In between, most will be report takers, summary writers and otherwise paper shufflers; it's one reason why former librarian J. Edgar Hoover required law or accounting degrees of his recruits and baby agents. And for most, it'll never matter. But for the following, it did:
FBI Agents Killed as the Result of an Adversarial Action
- Edwin C. Shanahan [October 11, 1925]
- Paul E. Reynolds
- Raymond J. Caffrey
- W. Carter Baum
- Samuel P. Cowley
- Herman E. Hollis
- Nelson B. Klein
- Wimberly W. Baker
- Truett E. Rowe
- William R. Ramsey
- Hubert J. Treacy, Jr.
- Joseph J. Brock
- John Brady Murphy
- Richard Purcell Horan
- Terry R. Anderson
- Douglas M. Price
- Anthony Palmisano
- Edwin R. Woodriffe
- Gregory W. Spinelli
- Jack R. Coler
- Ronald A. Williams
- Johnnie L. Oliver
- Charles W. Elmore
- Jared Robert Porter
- Robin L. Ahrens
- Jerry L. Dove
- Benjamin P. Grogan
- L. Douglas Abram
- John L. Bailey
- Martha Dixon Martinez
- Michael John Miller
- William Christian, Jr.
- Charles Leo Reed
- Leonard W. Hatton
- Barry Lee Bush
- Samuel S. Hicks [November 19, 2008]