Mounting 'add ons' to a rifle which do not alter it's mechanics is a far cry from removing, altering or jury rigging the internals of an issue pistol.
Somebody 'splain how going to "a more modern side arm" will result in "a much smaller training curve" .....
Plastic or steel, the principles of pistol shooting are the same. Some handling characteristics may vary, but that's about it. When the Glock came out it became dangerous to be in police quarters when guns were being handled. This indicates a higher learning curve was required.
In the case of the DA pistol shot by the rcmp, I shoot in IDPA with members armed with this turkey and it's hard to imagine a more miserable sidearm. There is only one of the lot who is able to hit well with it past 10m and he is ex-Army (Medak Pocket vet) having learned pistol shooting during his service with the PPCLI.
If a worn integral barrel bushing is the reason for scrapping the HP (along with the magazine issue), it's false economy. Any competent 'smith could remedy that, but that would deny the government the joy of trials and competitive bidding. A contract needs to be awarded to a firm in Quebec for refitting the Inglis HPs. That would likely fly.
The throw-away frame of the SIG 320 is a great attractant, the trigger group being the heart of the gun. Regrettably, it is what the world is coming to.
What the world is coming to is a realization that the old world one size fits all approach human performance belongs in the museum right beside the willys jeep and the Browning HP.
I really want to take you at your word and value your contribution here, but then you make posts like this one.
You ask somewhat rhetorically how does moving to a better firearm reduce the learning curve, and then give an example of how different firearms have different learning curves.
You then give an example of how a more dated firearm, the Smith that the RCMP uses, is a miserable firearm that only one person could shoot well.
Most bizarrely, Glocks made police head quarters dangerous? Because they would go off in the holster? or because all of a sudden everyone was pulling out their new glocks for show and tell to their friends who also had new glocks, and were having NDs? Is this meant to be a genuine argument in favour of the browning?
As for the difference between add-ons and jury-rigging, I know more than one person who mounted an 'add-on' upper receiver to their issued lower, or who used after market barrels, and in one case an aftermarket slide assembly on their Browning. You probably would have thrown up into your hat at all the rule breaking.
"soldiers have been advised not to fully load the pistol "
that should be reason enough for replacement. damage due to loading a firearm to its listed capacity. hmm
Well it would be if it were true. It goes to show that some people can't even talk about the pistols without making basic errors. As has been said, not loading the MAGAZINES to full capacity was a problem with the magazines, not the pistols themselves. At the Training Unit I worked for, we quarantined all the old style magazines and pounded them flat with a hammer and then returned them to stores as N/S. The replacement mags we were issued would be 50/50 old style/new style. The new style went into the vault and the old style would get pounded flat and returned as N/S until 100% of our mags were new style. We never had magazine issues after that.
A big part of the problem is that the fleet as a whole is getting degraded after 70 years of use, and there are no new replacements. The army determined long ago how many pistols they needed, they bought them, and they haven't bought new ones since. Op Stock has long been depleted, spare parts are becoming rare. Pistols get lost, damaged beyond repair, or worn out, and the remaining serviceable firearms have to share the burden. As pistol training becomes more difficult, there starts to be less of it. Fewer competent students means eventually fewer competent instructors. Sound maintenance practices fall by the way side and the rate of failures decrease.
Much of the issues that the military is having with the browning, they would be having with any firearm that were treated with the same neglect.
Even if the brownings were in good shape, well maintained and abundantly available, they still fall well behind what a modern combat pistol should be.
Manual safety,
Magazine safety,
half #### safety,
God awful heavy trigger pull,
Its literally a pistol that seems as though it was designed to make it as difficult as possible to shoot someone. Great for competitions though.
Lack of night sights could easily be remedied by simply upgrading the sights, but the browning was not designed for interchangeable sights, and the existing fleet isn't worth the upgrade.
None of the Inglis HPs I shot in service were "tweaked". I suggest that woodchopper's 1800 rds of test fire speaks volumes for the serviceability of Inglis HPs, given normal parts replacement and good mags. That's far more shooting than most get in their entire career with the Inglis HP.
Yes, all of my shooting has been done in "clean competitions" as opposed to rolling in the dirt. But at my peak at the national level, I was putting 500 rds a week down range. That's a lot of hard, continual use. I dismantled after every 1000 rds to clean and lube. Failures to go into battery were usually as a result of small brass fragments getting into the grooves of the slide. They happened because I was not always good at removing the GI primer crimp and little shavings would get into the works.
The same stuff would not stop any but the tightest fitting 1911s due to the more powerful cartridge.
Thats adorable. Every in-service browning I have ever seen always has those same brass shavings, even when using factory new ammo. Excessive spring tension on the internal extractor and weak recoil spring often results in the casing being subjected to overly violent ejection where the extractor is tearing off a piece of the case. A piece of brass that will then be pushed up into the slide rails by the rim of the next round coming into battery.
by the way, 1800 rds spread across 8 pistols is only 225 per pistol. Not really much of a torture test. You'd think any decent combat gun could get through at least 500 rds before your first filth induced stoppage.
