Air Marshal Bullets "Too Powerful" ???

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Funny You Should Ask

Funny you should ask how many air crew members are armed...

Had dinner with an airline pilot Sunday night who carries who told me there are over 7000 armed crewmen.

He was very complimentry of the ability and professionalism of the air marshals.

Also said they carry Glock 40s.

FWIW

Chuck
 
I've never understood the Fed's choice of .357Sig for the Air Marshall's Service. They chose a great platform (the Sig P239), but why the high-penetration round? Forget overpenetration. Who'd want to be on a plane when a .357Sig is discharged. I once owned a P239 in .357Sig. Loud doesn't begin to cover the report of that little pocket rocket.

I can't understand why folks have to dance circles around the .45ACP. It hasn't been broke in a REALLY long time, yet folks keep trying to fix it. The Sig P245 would have delivered similar firepower and concealability in a time-tested round.

Bureaucracy excells in expending immense resources in pursuit of the wrong answer.
 
Doggieman plus 1

But I feel all of this is moot anyway and the concept of air marshalls is a bit redundant. IMHO 9/11 was the last hijacking we'll ever see. At that time you could hijack a plane with a sharpened pencil because everyone knew they'd come out safe if they just stayed in their seats and let the thing be flown to Pakistan or wherever. Now if anyone tries to hijack a plane they will be jumped by every passenger on board, and air marshalls won't be able to see, let alone shoot, the hijackers due to the mass of everyone else pummelling them.
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Totally agree. Its called a paradigm shift. A lot of people are now willing to get cut or stabbed so they can protect hundreds if not thousands of other people on the ground and in the air. If somehow terrorists did smuggle guns aboard there may be more hesitation, but I doubt they'd have an easy time of it regardless. I think Air Marshalls are somewhat of a deterrent (and more just a placebo for the sheeple) but the paradigm shift of Flight 93 is the real deterrent.
 
I watched a bullet test autopsy on a cow. The .45 went through a full 5 feet of bovine, thick hard skull included. Somehow I'm not convinced "slow and heavy" will solve the airborne overpenetration concern.
 
Penetration and Punch

No doubt about it. A well-placed .45 round will "do the trick". It has sufficient penetration without over-penetration and more than sufficient punch to end the incident quickly and efficiently.
 
They need to go back to the .44SPL revolvers they carried back in the '70's. Big & slow is the way to go....
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Good Lawd man, do you want them to BLOW UP the plane!?!?!

Also, how are bullets too powerful?
Yea yea, nitpicky, but still...
 
More FAM/FFDO nonsense...

only1asterisk
All the handguns that were purchased for the armed pilot program are being sold of as surplus. I'd say few, if any armed pilots ever carried and I doubt the program will be reinstated.

A 10-minute search yeilded me this article. And a further 12 minutes reading the article gets me to the money quote...
FEDERAL FLIGHT DECK OFFICERS AND FLIGHT CREW TRAINING

The Committee recommends $29,000,000 for the federal flight deck officer and flight crew training programs, $6,289,000 below the President's request and $4,000,000 above the amounts provided in fiscal year 2005. Of this total, $4,000,000 is for flight crew training and $25,000,000 for the Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO) program. Funding for the FFDO is consistent with amounts provided in fiscal years 2004 and 2005. Additional funding was not warranted due to high unobligated balances.[emphasis mine]
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But before you take the report's word, let's think about this for a minute. Assuming there are 4000-7000 FFDOs in the system, if the program was to be shut down as you claim, there'd be that many surplus guns hitting gun shops around the country. Anybody seen any? How about any news stories on this matter? The claim that the government is going to shut down the FFDO program falls completely into the category of "Internet Junk Stories".
 
To the best of my knowledge the FFDOs are still carrying, issued the HK USP Compact .40 with LEM trigger system.
 
When I first heard about this fear of current ammo being "too powerful" I found it rather humerous. I remember not long ago when the government went into crisis mode to come up with the .40 and 10mm because they felt their 9mms weren't powerful enough.

If penetration is a worry then what about the use of frangible ammo?
 
what I find annoying is that these articles constantly put up cops who had 30 years of street experience as experts in all things firearms and ballistics.

A person who has 30 years experience being a cop may well be learned in many aspects, the law, personal behavior, reading body language, etc etc.

However, that does not make them an expert in wound patterns, airplane mechanicis, ballistics, etc etc.

To me this is akin to asking a busdriver about a new bio-desiel engine being proposed for the fleet. Just because he sat in the seat behind the wheel doesn't mean he knows a damned thing about the mechanics of an engine, the logistics of fuel supply, or the facts of air pollution.
 
Why on earth would the .357SIG cartidge even be thought of as a good choice for use in an enclosed space such as an airplane. What's next? A .50AE Desert Eagle? I say the .45ACP is the best choice. Slow moving bullet but yet at 240 grains, that's more than enough lead to stop a hijacker.
 
mbs357 said:
seeker_two said:
They need to go back to the .44SPL revolvers they carried back in the '70's. Big & slow is the way to go....
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Good Lawd man, do you want them to BLOW UP the plane!?!?!
Click to expand...

No, sir. I'm talking about using the .44 SPECIAL. It's a gentle beast and a proven stopper w/o excessive penetration... :)

You're thinking about the .44 MAG-A-NUM. You only load those to shoot down OTHER planes... :evil:
 
What about switching to a soft lead non jacketed hollowpoint and downloading the powder in the 357's?

I agree that a .45 acp would be a dandy cartridge, I'm a huge fan. But I think they may be trying to fix this problem on the cheap instead of issuing new handguns.

putting super heavy bullets in the cartridges and downloading the powder a little might have the desired results.

Just a thought. I'm just getting into reloading and I don't fully understand the physics of cartridge design yet, but it seems like it could work.

what do you guys think?
 
They are issuing SIG P229s in 357 SIG right now. I would think that if they wanted to go with a heavier, slower bullet they could use 40 S&W Gold Dot. That would decrease the muzzle velocity from 1375 fps to 1025 fps, and would only require a barrel swap.
 
the issued 357 gold dot is a "reduced power" load from speer. I think the specs from speer list the velocity as only being about 150fps different but the noise level and muzzle blast difference is quite easy to see.
 
For stopping power, I can see that the .357 Speer Gold dot may be a good round. However, I recommend against it in close quarters.

First, Glock lists it for "superior penetration, even against light armor."

Second, My friend and I took a level IIIA vest with a 1/8th inch steel trauma plate and put 2 rounds of .357 speer gold dot into it from 15 yards fired from a sig 229. (much further that a shot taken at a bad guy on a aplane would be.) The result? 2 rounds that penetrated the steel and the kevlar. One of which was caught in the back of the vest.
 
:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

Too powerful, not enough power, just right, who knows. How the caliber and pistol where picked as the standard issue FAMS weapon is where I have my problems.

Personally I like the pistol and cartridge. Next time I get out with my chronograph I will have to shoot a few through it and see what the real world velocity is.

Maybe I will get to the range today and see. But in light of Company (FAMS) policies :barf: I can't post that information here :neener: .

But then again, the company is giving away much of this information anyway so who knows.

Edited to say - the FAMS Miami shooting report is out there available on the net. Sorry you will have to dig it out yourselves. Lots of sketches and even a few pictures. NOTE - Graphic pictures of Mr. Alpizar are shown. Of course bullet trajectories and where they ended up are listed. Total of 9 shots fired. And boy are there witness statements. Seems like half the airplane was interviewed.

To those people that may not have realized it. This is the very first line of duty use of deadly force that the FAMS or the old Sky Marshal Program has had.

M.
 
"An aircraft is made up of composites, plastics, and aluminum. If a round were to penetrate through the front plastic/composite windshield of the aircraft, the results would be catastrophic at 500 miles per hour. We should be using frangible ammunition. It's a no-brainer," the Nov. 27 memo said.
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Absolute genius here, boys. The cockpit windscreen is several inches thick, made of polycarbonate composite. It's capable of taking a direct strike from a 30lb bird at cruising speeds. .357sig (or any handgun caliber for that matter) won't even come close to penetrating it.
 
Firearms-Aircraft- Law enforcement. I love guns, work on jets, and the honey is in LE. I'm in. Have all of the above calibers- 180gr in a 40 SEEMS ,IMHO, to be about "right" for the job. aircraft interiors are made of plastic-aluminum-titanimun-regular old steel (albiet 4130 or 4340) 301,302,321 stainless. Forgot- cloth fabric, and magical composite (read aluminum sandwiched balsawood ) floorboards. All in all- about like the inside of most peoples homes. the windows are fine if they are lost- they just fall to the ground:neener: losing cabin pressure is WAY overstated in the movies- most aircraft failures are the result of C.E.O greed and thats the fact. Aircraft have rather long isles, and a fairly flat shooting pistol makes a tiny bit of sense. All in all the guys are basically trick shots, anything they use is more than likely just fine. Just compare the stastics- OH YEAH, there ain't any.
 
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