OK, educate me here regarding pistols and the US military.

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

Yeah, in a machine gun. Most of which are either mounted or fired from a supported position, unlike a pistol. I would also think there are a lot more women in the military than as field agents. Not only does .40 S&W exist to address this shortcoming with 10mm, it has come to overwhelm 10mm in the LE market.

Ah yes, but I think it has to be admitted that FBI agents don't go through the same physical training that grunts do. They don't wear the same heavy kit as often, they don't get a lot of practice moving heavy objects while running as fast as possible, they don't routinely load heavy supplies by hand to keep fit or for punishment duty. A lot of military training is to get one accustomed to the discomforts which would normally cause an unaccustomed civilian to quit quickly. I've been hearing wildly varying accounts of the 10x25mm round's recoil when properly loaded (i.e., beyond the .40 S&W's capabilities), from everything to "mildly worse than a .45 ACP's" to "just too much." We're not talking about .454 Casull or .50 Action Express though--just how much is "too much", even with service members who are used to most discomforts and pain?

I'll admit that the programs the US has undertaken to replace its service weapons (the M4/16 replacement, the Joint Combat Pistol programs) have been all over the place. Nothing ever seems good enough (seriously, improve on the M16 by 100%?!), or else the makers just don't bid low enough. Sniper Wolf's line from the original Metal Gear Solid that "You men are so weak. You can never finish what you start . . . " is starting to take on less nice connotations the more news I hear about . . .

[funkychinaman]

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

Ah yes, but I think it has to be admitted that FBI agents don't go through the same physical training that grunts do. They don't wear the same heavy kit as often, they don't get a lot of practice moving heavy objects while running as fast as possible, they don't routinely load heavy supplies by hand to keep fit or for punishment duty. A lot of military training is to get one accustomed to the discomforts which would normally cause an unaccustomed civilian to quit quickly. I've been hearing wildly varying accounts of the 10x25mm round's recoil when properly loaded (i.e., beyond the .40 S&W's capabilities), from everything to "mildly worse than a .45 ACP's" to "just too much." We're not talking about .454 Casull or .50 Action Express though--just how much is "too much", even with service members who are used to most discomforts and pain?

You can't TRAIN away the fact that someone's a smaller person. Not being able to handle the recoil is not a conditioning issue. If it were that simple, our professional, volunteer military would still be using full auto M14s. Again, I point out the dominance of .40 S&W in the LE market over 10mm. Cops, who's lives can hinge on being able to hit their targets, still would rather go with .40 S&W, despite probably having as much range time as they want. (Cops shoot for free at my range.)

A friend of mine from HS did two tours in Iraq as an MP. She's an officer, and an MP, so I would think at least one of those facts would mean she was issued a sidearm. She's also tiny, probably no more than 5'2", 110 lbs. How much conditioning would it take for her to handle a full sized 10mm sidearm? And giving her a smaller 10mm pistol would only exacerbate the issue.

[funkychinaman]

And why spend all that time training to use a weapon with such limited capability anyway? The British went from the .455 to the .38/200 for exactly the same reason. Any unit which actually cares about that much about stopping power already went back to using .45 ACP pistols anyway.

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

Cops, who's lives can hinge on being able to hit their targets, still would rather go with .40 S&W, despite probably having as much range time as they want. (Cops shoot for free at my range.)

You mean they get range time for free, right? It's not like you hand them ammunition for free, too? Last I read not many pistol-users know where to get 10mm Auto ammunition at a reasonable price. Good to know that some cops are looking to not be part of the statistic that says "Cops only hit their targets 20% of the time," if not necessarily in an environment that simulates the randomness and rapid change from friend-to-foe of on-the-beat situations (i.e., someone pulls out what you think is a gun, you plug two rounds in his chest and one in his head, only to find that he was holding an aluminum-wrapped sandwich, or someone claims that he's needs help and pulls out his drivers license, only to pull a small revolver to fill your face full of lead).

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

You can't TRAIN away the fact that someone's a smaller person. Not being able to handle the recoil is not a conditioning issue.

Gary Coleman, at all of his 4' 11'', is too small to handle the recoil, until he isn't.

(Interested viewers can see the full vid here. Watch your step around the missile launcher, the machine guns, and . . . the magazine models?)

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

A friend of mine from HS did two tours in Iraq as an MP. She's an officer, and an MP, so I would think at least one of those facts would mean she was issued a sidearm. She's also tiny, probably no more than 5'2", 110 lbs. How much conditioning would it take for her to handle a full sized 10mm sidearm? And giving her a smaller 10mm pistol would only exacerbate the issue.

To misquote a popular saying, the sources I've seen seem to corroborate this: "A gun that's good for the gander is good for the goose" (double entendre totally intended).

From this website:

To further counter this myth we report our observations in watching women shoot some very big guns repeatedly, without flinching. We're talking about very petite 100-110 pound women shooting .357 magnum pocket pistols, full powered 10mm Glock 20s and 4 inch .44 magnums. Not only can they shoot these guns -- they can shoot them darn well! We have seen these same women shooting 458 Lott rifles, loaded to the max. The 458 Lott is a rifle designed for the largest animals on earth, a true elephant gun generating nearly 6000 foot pounds of energy. Women hunt all over the country using high power rifles and are very effective. When asking these women how it was that they were able to shoot such high caliber firearms, they told us that it is simply a mind-over-matter situation. They continued by saying that if you think the gun is in control of you, then you will be afraid. But if you realize that it is you in charge of the gun -- it's a piece of cake.

So what caliber and type of gun is best for a woman? Clearly, the answer is: "The same one that is best for a man." Any woman can easily learn to shoot any handgun effectively. Of course, practice is the key for both men and women.

Are these women exceptional in some way that I am unaware of?

There's also the assistance that can be rendered by technology. Aside from the aforementioned slim frames that Glock 20s/29s come in, there's always the compensated models (which can be changed back to uncompensated simply by replacing the barrel with a non-ported version). How about the pseudo-foregrip used by the Beretta M93R? Is that covered by a patent somewhere that disallows its use on other pistols without paying a hefty licensing fee?

To get back closer to topic, why hasn't the M9 been replaced already by the "winning candidate" of the Joint Combat Pistol program? It's not a good way to address a problem by cancelling the program that was supposed to appoint a replacement twice. And here I was thinking that because pistols are easier and less costly to make than rifles, the Joint Combat Pistol would have a better chance of reaching completion and meeting its objectives than the M4/M16 replacement program did.

[funkychinaman]

There's too much to quote, so again, I ask, why bother spending all that time practicing using something that won't be used that often in combat? If LE can be bothered to train to use 10mm as their PRIMARY weapon, why would servicemen train to use it as a BACKUP?

If you're going to give them a foregrip, then why even settle for a pistol?

When I say cops get to shoot for free, I mean they don't have to be members or pay any guest fees. We don't sell ammo there anyway.

And as far as I know, there wasn't a winner in the JCP competition.

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

There's too much to quote, so again, I ask, why bother spending all that time practicing using something that won't be used that often in combat?

Okay, maybe next time I'll use fewer sources. Were you at work when you first read that post?

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

If LE can be bothered to train to use 10mm as their PRIMARY weapon, why would servicemen train to use it as a BACKUP?

Because thanks to their short barrel lengths, pistols are undeniably deficient in their ballistics. To get their full potential, you really need to go for a pistol-caliber carbine. Of course, you could always go with more powerful cartridges, but the fact remains you waste a lot of the powder's energy the shorter the barrel gets, most of the time. Muzzle flash is just the visible signature of the powder's energy being wasted on useless light and heat rather than being directed to the ammunition. So to me the 10x25mm round is a good compromise between the capacity of the "wonder nines" and the stopping power but limited materials penetration of the .45 ACP. I've already gone over the round's advantages already (longer range, better energy at 100 yards than the .45 ACP has at the MUZZLE, better cover penetration, similar capacity to 9x19mm handguns)--having those handy when you're forced to use your pistol could definitely save you from becoming another "terrorist kill statistic." Your female MP friend could certainly use a less anemic pistol if the situation called for it.

Every time I watch the "Hurt Locker" scene where Sergeant James walks up to a VBIED driver and slowly puts his Beretta 92 to the driver's forehead, I'm reminded of this video which depicts how well properly loaded 10x25mm rounds can penetrate auto glass, even when they're Winchester Silvertips (a form of hollow point bullet which expands the moment it hits hard cover, but in this case had enough energy to go past the glass and make a deep hole through the catching material). If Sgt. James was using a Glock 20 instead, he could have popped the VBIED driver's noggin without putting it through the open window had the driver proved threatening, assuming the driver was not using a dead man's switch for the bomb.

The examples I linked to in an earlier post show that even those who are short and small are perfectly capable of handling "larger-caliber pistols" (a somewhat relative term) well, assuming they get their mindset and "combat reactions" right.

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

If you're going to give them a foregrip, then why even settle for a pistol?

I meant to ask why such a nifty feature isn't present on more pistols. Usually when features like that only show up on a few models it's because a patent is involved (like the FN F2000's unique forward casing ejection system, which would be really nice to have on bullpup rifles everywhere). I thought you, or someone else reading that post, might have known.

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

And as far as I know, there wasn't a winner in the JCP competition.

But in cancelling the program, isn't it akin to the competition organizers declaring that "Everyone lost"? I don't think everyone who competed was so incompetent they couldn't meet the objectives. The HK45 seems to have some good reviews, for instance.

[funkychinaman]

No, I just meant I didn't want to quote that whole block of text.

I don't think the Hurt Locker scenario is a very likely one. A more likely scenario would involve someone with a rifle.

I think once you add a foregrip, you acknowledge that it's no longer a handgun. How many handguns have foregrips? (And the Beretta 93 is a machine pistol.) Why not a folding stock while we're at it? (I'd love to see someone make a modern version of a Mauser C96. I think that would make both of us happy here.)

As for JCP, I'm not saying none of them were good enough, just that the military never specified which one was the best. All of the candidates got good reviews.

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

I don't think the Hurt Locker scenario is a very likely one. A more likely scenario would involve someone with a rifle.

Except I brought up that situation in the Hurt Locker to show how some poor sods are only issued a pistol in the military (or only have one on hand in a dangerous situation) and how difficult it would be for the 9x19mm or the .45 ACP round to penetrate the cover provided by an average automobile, or even cover that isn't particularly thin (like plywood or drywall).

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

Why not a folding stock while we're at it? (I'd love to see someone make a modern version of a Mauser C96. I think that would make both of us happy here.)

Actually, I've seen advertisements for detachable/folding stocks for Glock 18 pistols. From what I've read the Glock 20 is not that much larger than the Glock 17/18, so producing a detachable/folding stock for a Glock 20 shouldn't be too difficult. That, combined with a Glock 20 using a 6-inch barrel or something similar could make for an excellent ersatz pistol-caliber carbine that would allow an LEO or military personnel like your female MP friend to put the hurt out to unarmoured perps/terrorists out to 100 yards with good materials penetration.

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

As for JCP, I'm not saying none of them were good enough, just that the military never specified which one was the best. All of the candidates got good reviews.

And that makes the decision to cancel the JCP twice even stranger.