VMI77 wrote:jbarn wrote:It is for their law enforcement agents. They buy hollow points for the same reason you carry them. They work best. It is neither odd nor nefarious for them to purchase these.
It is when that's all they buy, and so are apparently using more expensive HP ammo for target practice. So, at a minimum, they're wasting money or have some kind of kick-back scheme going.
Speaking as someone who is issued hollowpoint ammunition both for duty use and qualifications, I can provide three possible (probable?) answers for why they do this. First off, it simplifies the supply chain. If you only have to order one kind of ammunition per caliber, then you have less to worry about logistically. Added types means added complexity. This of course does not completely justify it, though.
Second, by using the same kind of ammunition for qualifications as for duty, it allows the officers to rotate their carry ammunition, instead of re-chambering the same round after every qual for years on end. With the .40 S&W, this is fairly important; minor bullet setback in this straight-walled cartridge can cause a fairly significant pressure spike, which is hard on guns at a minimum, and can cause spontaneous and unwanted self-disassembly of the pistol with injuries all around in a worst-case scenario - and odds are, if the only time HP ammo is used is on a goblin, it will be then that the gun pulls a grenade on you. This is probably the most important issue, in my opinion (I've noticed setback after only one rechambering in the .40).
Third, and probably most importantly in policy-makers' eyes, it reduces liability. By qualifying with the same ammunition carried, they can "ensure" each officer knows how his firearm will perform when the ball drops. While the difference in trajectory between a FMJ and a HP is negligible in practice, in theory (and on paper) it can exist. It's minor quibbling, but this is lawyer-repellant. Plus, and even more importantly, by mandating "only duty ammunition" in the pistol even for quals, they can (hopefully) ensure that an officer won't accidentally leave FMJ chambered and light up a goblin with it, resulting in sub-par performance on the goblin (and the very real possibility of over-penetration and accidental perforation of objects and/or people behind the target). By using only duty hollow point ammo for all purposes, they quash any liability of their own (hopefully), and can pin any accidents or missed shots on the officer, while simultaneously protecting the officer against petty lawsuits for using such a "deadly" bullet (it's what we practice with, so it can't be THAT bad!).
Just my $0.03 of opinion, from the perspective of the boot-grunt who shakes his head both at shooting more expensive duty ammo on quals, while recognizing that some doofus co-worker with a badge would be fairly likely to jam WWB FMJ into his gun for duty carry "because it was cheap, and it worked in the movie!"
Edited to Add:
P.S. If it makes you feel any better (probably won't, but it's worth a shot, pun intended), there's usually a significant discount for bulk purchases.
