Posted on 12/11/2004 6:12:01 AM PST by Mr. Mojo
The Coast Guard is trading in the 9 mm sidearms it has used for 18 years in favor of a more powerful pistol, the Sig Sauer .40-caliber automatic.
Lt. j.g. John Strasburg of the Office of Cutter Forces at Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said the service has started to take delivery on the first of 12,000 handguns to be purchased under a $4.2 million contract. Field units will start to get them next September.
“It's going to take a while to get all the weapons out to the fleet,” Strasburg said. “The transition plans are still in development in terms of who's going to get them first. The target date of September 2005 is only when we're going to start the transition. It may take a year after that to get it out to the entire Coast Guard.”
Eventually personnel authorized to carry sidearms at Station New London and the Coast Guard Academy will have the guns.
He said 22 Coast Guard marksmen helped to evaluate 46 models of handguns from six major vendors, firing 15,000 rounds during three weeks of tests in Altoona, Pa., and Fort Benning, Ga. The guns were each rated on 53 characteristics, and the shooters kept detailed logs about the rounds they fired.
“It was a very extensive evaluation,” Strasburg said. “It's all they did for three weeks.”
The testers were looking for a gun with a low-profile hammer so it would not catch on life vests at sea, and they wanted a particular type of rail that would allow the service to mount lights for a laser sight or illumination on top of the gun.
He said this is the first time the service has adopted a handgun other than the one used by the Department of Defense, which still uses the 9 mm.
The acquisition program coincides with the acquisition of new guns by the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of the Coast Guard. The department is outfitting its offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, Transportation Security Administration and Federal Law Enforcement Training Center with Sig Sauer and Heckler & Koch handguns in 9 mm as well as .357- and .40-caliber.
At the time it was put into use, the 9 mm was hailed for its large magazine — 17 rounds — and long-range accuracy. It replaced the .45-caliber automatic, which was heavy and had limited accuracy, but had enormous stopping power.
One Coast Guard officer said the Sig Sauer .40 makes more sense for boarding teams and other law enforcement functions because its heavier round provides greater stopping power, and when it is used it will probably be at close range and in a situation where the Sig Sauer's 12 rounds will be more than sufficient.
Strasburg said another problem is that the 9 mm pistols are aging. They were designed to fire up to 5,000 rounds, but Coast Guard guns fire an average of 500 rounds per year, mostly in training, so the average 9 mm in service now has fired almost twice that number of rounds.
“The Berettas have gone long beyond their service life,” Strasburg said. “We're getting a lot of frame failures, and there are other unreliability issues.”
The .40-caliber Sig Sauer emerged from the tests as the top choice of the testers, he said.
“The .45 has the stopping power, the 9 mm has the penetrating power, so this gives us something in between,” Strasburg said.
The gun that the Coast Guard has selected is a variation of the popular Sig Sauer P229 known as the P229R-DAK.
This will also be the first time that the Coast Guard will provide its forces with three different types of ammunition, which can be tailored to a particular mission. The types will be:
•Jacketed ball ammunition, the only type that is in use now, which is designed to pass cleanly through a target. This will be the only ammunition authorized for use in joint operations with the Department of Defense.
•Hollow point, a type of bullet designed to mushroom on impact, causing a more devastating wound.
•Frangible or “soft” rounds, made of ceramic or metal powder that are designed to break apart into dust when they hit something hard, to prevent ricochets during close-quarters combat.
“The reactions so far have been phenomenal,” Strasburg said. “We have a lot of experienced shooters in the office, people with a lot of trigger time, and they all say it fires great.”
The real big news is they are changing the ammunition to three different types and not just the caliber.
There's a line in the movie, 13th Warrior that I like which fits this article where they complain the 1911A1 is too heavy. The movie character complains a sword is too heavy and another tells him the solution is to get stronger.
Handguns are for close quarters combat. The adversary has to die in a matter of a single moment and not later. Hopefully, the new pistols and ammunition will have a better than 90 per cent One Shot Stop rating.
Also designed to transfer bullet energy to the 'soft' target with devastating and complete effeciency, causing massive hydrostatic shock in the wound area, while virtually eliminating through and through penetration of perpetrators and the possibility of wounding innocents, hostages, or fellow combatants on the other side of the perpetrator.
"Glock and Roll is here to stay"
$4,200,000.00 divided by 12,000 = $350.00 each...quite a bargain!
HOLY CRAP! That's one hell of a weapon! Great video!
I wondered that too - guess I've just got some really aged hardware.
I've shot a 3 inch .44 Smith. Load it with light .44 Specials. Try it first with full power .44 mag, before you buy it, if you want. Maybe you'll be able to shoot it. Big recoil, big flash, I'm told that you don't get as much velocity as you would with a longer barrel, but I can tell you that I wasn't able to get a quick follow up.
"They should have switched back to a newer variant of the 1911 .45. Best damn handgun ever made."
Exactly my thought. But then, I'm still an M1 fan, too.
My cousin in the Border Patrol has been using a Sig .40 for a couple of years . It's a fine weapon.
This should do the trick:
http://www.ww2mmrefphotos.com/photos/GERMAN/artgun/88%20mm%20Flak.jpg
Use enough gun!
$350 sounds like a good deal in government procurement.
I'm not quit that old, but I do prefer the M-14 I used in Basic Training to the M-16.
The M-14 felt like a rifle.
I only have 2 Smiths that were produced after 1984. I concentrate on ones in the 1950-1970 era.
I'd use them if (and only if) I could afford to practice with them. Skills erode too quickly without range time, and I like to shoot what I shoot, now, and if need be, then.
BTW, FReepmail me if you ever find a source for frangible round components, I reload, too. Thanks!
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