You mean other than the ammo that they actually accept/reject?
Yes, of course. If they issue one loading of 9mm but don't issue another, that doesn't automatically imply that the round they chose is acceptable and the other one isn't.
The idea that the select one particular loading (or a set of loadings) doesn't mean that all other ammunition is unacceptable. If they're like other government organizations, they figure out which offerings will meet their specs and then go out to see who will make them the best deals and buy those loadings.
Because I read the whole thing and didn't stop at 12" minimum????
Because you can't seem to separate the idea of acceptability from the idea of preference. By the way, as nearly as I can tell, according to the scoring system, it appears that the highest preference is not for ammunition that penetrates up to 18", it's for ammunition that penetrates in the 14" to 16" range.
So you think if Patrick worked for Scotland Yard the threshold would be 30.48 CM and not rounded to 30 ?
Maybe 30cm, maybe 30.5cm, maybe 31cm. Who knows. The bottom line is that whatever they set it to would become their threshold of acceptability and things over it would be acceptable while things under it wouldn't be. That's how thresholds work.
Does the FBI
prefer ammo that only penetrates 12"? No, they like it better if it penetrates 14" to 16", but ammo that only penetrates 12" is
acceptable--because that's how they set up their testing protocol/standard.