Before I retired my agency had to resort to FATS training to replace qualifying for one of the quarterly shoots a year because the corrupt governor had cut back on funding. Ammunition was plentiful, common sense was not.

We’re hurting, real bad. Training is being cut down. I heard a number of how many rounds we have per officer department wide averaged out and it was bad.

My nephew works for small PD in Maine and bought 250 rounds of 9mm from me last November. Not official PD training - but he purchased a new back-up pistol and couldn't get any department issued ammo to train/qual.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Wow; that's tough. An example of one more thing that most people don't recognize about those hired to enforce their laws and what they are sometimes required to put up with.

At least we don't have to supply our own patrol cars anymore. No, I'm not joking.

Yep. We're in the same boat. We just got an order in, but it took over 6 months to get it. Before it showed up, I was starting to get worried about how I was going to get everybody qualified this year. We should be good on that now, but there's not enough to do much more.

We’re hurting as well. The ammo I ordered in August hasn’t hit production yet. I’m waiting for approval now to order three times the amount next week.

Two of us got sent to a red dot instructor course last week. 800 rounds of ammo per student. We had 450 rounds of 357 on the shelf which isn’t enough for quals this year.

We ended up using our personal guns in 9mm for the class since we had 9mm on the shelf.

If it comes down to the wire, I have enough personal 357 ammo at home to get my department qualified. Same thing happened years ago where I had to supply the ammo.

Yep, instructor development stuff is pretty much dead here right now. I was signed up for shotgun instructor last year, and was trying to get into a patrol rifle instructor course. COVID happened, all the classes got cancelled, and now the state academy is so backlogged just dealing with basic students who knows when they'll start offering instructor courses again. At least I don't have to worry about coming up with ammo to use for class.

I did get into a couple of armorer courses, so at least that's something I can get done this year without having to use ammo.

Someone a few years ago posted one of those old film documentaries, and I can’t remember the police agency it featured at this time. It may have been LAPD or LASO, and it was made in the ‘40s or ‘50s. It showed them recovering the lead from the berm after they were finished their qualifications and practice where it was then melted down and cast into new bullets - a full recycling system. We used to shoot straight lead in my early years, but we finally transitioned to jacketed only after a few years.

When I first started we used trustees to melt down old wheel weights, then mold the projectiles, etc. That worked for many years until an officers personally owned Model 36 was damaged from an over loaded round on the range. Ahh, the good ol' days.

Some small agencies might have to go back to rudimentary basics for the range.

Was issued 158gr RN lead +P .38 by LAPD in 1978. Fit nicely in our S/W Model 67 shinny revolvers. If we ran out of ammo, we just threw our Sap at them. If we missed with that, we threw our hickory night stick. If that didn't work we walked up and applied a choke hold. If none of those worked, we went to Winchell's for a doughnut.