Want to buy the Glock that lost the Army handgun competition?
- Thread starter Big Bad
- Start date
Well, yes. In Ottawa shooting typically occur on weekends in one of 4 areas of Ottawa proper. For it to happen on a Wednesday night at a country and western bar, at a strip mall in the suburbs is a unique circumstance to the point that the police normally have cases wrapped up in 36 hours have literally shrugged their shoulders publicly. Pretending what happened "is the same as everywhere else" is factually incorrect.
I don't suppose you might want to be a bit more concerned about the young man's health as opposed to worrying about getting the area right for a shooter living on the West Coast. Frankly, I don;t give a rats arse where it happened, I am more concerned that the young soldier will recover and the BG gets caught.
I just assumed you might have twigged on to that. Please read my signature line. I do try to be polite...most of the time.
Take Care
Bob
Cameron SS
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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Thank you for your kind words.
You are not the first person to comment on the pistol playing a limited role while in the Army, and how the Army doesn't actually need good pistols. In 2009, Andrew Leslie came out to my little outpost to rub elbows with the troops, in a town hall fashion. He was put on the spot by one of the lads who wanted to know when a new pistol would be forthcoming. Leslie had the audacity to claim in a room full of more than 100 soldiers that at the point in the war, 6 years in, 3 of which in southern Kandahar, "NOT A SINGLE ROUND HAD BEEN FIRED AT THE ENEMY FROM A 9MM BHP". I was shocked. Personal experience aside, anyone who is familiar with the mission knows that there isn't exactly a full investigation after every engagement, where the soldiers sit down, write a report, account for every round from every weapon system, and document the circumstances there of. Nothing in our reporting structure captures that kind of minutiae. At that point in our tour my battle group had been involved in over 200 engagements. We were the 7th rotation in the area, and the 12th in the country. There was no way anyone with integrity could make such a claim, least of all to a room full of guys walking the street everyday.
In any event, Pistols get used. No, they don't get used in combat often, but thats not the bottom line. When you NEED one, it has to work as quickly and certainly as humanly possible. We have great rifles, and as long as your rifle is running, your pistol should never see sunlight. A lot of guys are trained on rifle and pistol carry, but not all are trained on how to properly carry both simultaneously. Due to old mags, there is an unacceptably high occurrence of feeding stoppages. Anyone familiar knows to simply doom stomp any of the old mags into oblivion and get the new ones, but still there is a lack of confidence in that pistol that causes it to be used less often than what would be the case with something better.
Your top tier competitive shooter probably puts 10 times as many rounds down as a highly trained soldier, so its not really fair to compare one to other, but even amongst that crowd, once the learning curve is accounted for, I would wager a paycheck that regardless of who you are, any manual safety will slow you down a measurable amount. I don't care how many people are using a manual safety in a competition. The guys who win don't use them, unless they are mandatory.
I agree that army bean counters might think that the need for a safety is readily apparent and more important than a fast draw, but I will say it again. THe people that need a safety and the people that need a fast draw are two different groups of people, and I do not accept putting the lives of those who need a fast draw at risk for the benefit of those who need a safety. If you think someone actually NEEDs a safety, than I submit that what they actually need is a whistle.
Yes we carry a lot on patrol. Weight doesn't affect your ability to draw and fire, unless you are at the end of the patrol, at which point its not the weight, but the fatigue. +48 C doesn't help either. In training, with a full battleload, we timed ourselves for funzies, and the average among my team of lads, who I already indicated had better than average training, were scoring in the low 2s for a rifle shot, stoppage, and a transition to the pistol. Rifle up, rifle shot, ***CLICK***, ditch rifle, draw pistol, fire pistol 2.25-2.5. Regardless of whether that was 2 seconds or 20 seconds, if the manual safety adds 0.1 than that is a real cost, and while slim, could be the difference between winning and losing. The overwhelming consensus of my personal experience is that a manual safety slows you down. BHPs especially so, but every safety at least a little. Cognitively there is more going, physically there is more going on, mechanically there is more going on. Show me some scientific data and I will change my mind, but at this point I am certain of it.
As for the UK lad, it was a drive by. THey have a description of the vehicle. Ottawa police are pretty good, I am sure they will track him down. The bar that the shooting happened at is a pretty popular country bar in the area. I can't imagine what kind of altercation could have motivated someone to a drive by, but hopefully the details trickle out in the days weeks.
Last time I checked, 60 seconds ago, Kanata was in Ottawa. And no, no one has been shot in front of THAT bar before. Ottawas homicide rate is quickly closing the gap with Toronto. I don't understand your point.
Kanata was a separate municipality until amalgamation in 2000. Even today, addresses need to be specify Ottawa or Kanata, and Ottawa's homicide rate is still around a 1/3 of Toronto's. That being said, when a completely isolated incident occurs it's disingenuous to chalk it up as business as usual. My point was that people are running down a place speaking of things they don't know about, maybe now you get it.
The poor people who were shot, were shot at random. It sucks that it happened, but it's not as if it's a regular occurrence.
Whoa there partner. Having a limited role yes. I don't ever recall me or anyone else suggesting you ought not to have the best equipment available. The fact we have Inglis pistols still in the wrap after 72 years speaks to either the size of our Army, the number of deployments the Army has had over the past 72 years or the fact the Liberal/Conservative governments over the past 72 years fund the military as if it was their own pension fund money they were spending. I suspect it is solely the latter.
The fact is the pistol and it's outdated manuals should have been sold off years ago and replaced.
Take Care
Bob
Cameron SS
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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Say what now? Canadian troops had unwarranted (unintended?) discharges with Glocks in Afghanistan? Tell me more.
Brutus
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Think about all that body armor as well as fighting order/radios/etc an infantry soldier is required to complete a mission outside the wire. This is lots and lots of weight on the body and anything else too.
Not just our folks have problems with the stress on the polymer frame under these conditions.
I will take Glock over SIG any day. After all SIG knew about the trigger problem on 320, addressed it on the gun submitted for the Army test and left the civilian customers with sub quality product... asking now for volunteer "upgrade".
