The Economics of gun replacements

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94045

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I read an article from a couple of years ago that really brought home the economics of gun replacement.

Sheriff's dept experiencing an accelerated failure rate with 13 yo Glock 22s.

$30,000 for new Glock 22 as they are
13 years old and Glock won't do the $200 trade-in deal.

Refurb would be $150 per gun from Glock.

S&W offered them new M2.0 9mm for $28,000 with $15,000 trade in for the G22s for a net of $13,000. However this came with the downside of new Holsters which S&W offered to supply at 50% of normal contract rate.

The only real question I have is why they were shopping G22 and ended up with M2.0 9mm?

My guess is they may have calculated fewer required training hours with the 9mm and future ammo costs to make the deal more cost effective but I don't know that as it wasn't stated only conjecture on my part.

It really brings home what agencies are faced with when they have a lack of funds and failing equipment.
 
We are switching from the G22 to the G45 9mm in August. The savings in ammo costs alone will almost pay for the costs for the new guns, red dots, lights and holsters. Yes, we are getting reflex sights on our Glocks. As well as tac lights. Should be a fun transition.

I've been told we will be able to buy our G22 from the office at a reduced cost. I plan on keeping mine. Not because I'm in love with 40, but it's my second duty weapon and the first one I've been able to buy. My fist was a S&W 4006 way back when I was with State Patrol. I hated that boat anchor anyway...
 
9mm ammo bought in bulk is about 1/2 the price of 40 S&W. The 9mm pistols are lasting longer and there is no evidence that they give up anything in performance to 40 S&W.

I was more wondering why you would cross shop:

G22 vs M2.0 9mm
Instead of
G22 vs M2.0 .40 S&W
or
G17 vs M2.0 9x19mm.
 
9mm ammo bought in bulk is about 1/2 the price of 40 S&W.

Is that accurate?
I pay $0.14 a round for Speer .40 S&W (minimum 1000 rounds).
I had no clue you could get Speer 9x19mm for $0.07 a round or less.

What would be the minimum at that price?
I could probably manage 100,000 rounds or so.
I could likely get a group buy together if we need more.
 
It's amazing they got that long out of the Glock. The PA State Police used the Colt Official Police from the late 20's until about 1981-82, or roughly 50 years. I knew a trooper that carried the same revolver from 1961 until retirement in 1981. After that they used a Ruger Service six or one of that series but within a couple years went to a Berretta in 40 caliber. Since then they have changed guns another 4 or 5 times and changed calibers 2 or 3 times. In this case, I don't believe the guns are wearing out. There are politics & budgets involved with the reasons for change here
 
It's amazing they got that long out of the Glock. The PA State Police used the Colt Official Police from the late 20's until about 1981-82, or roughly 50 years. I knew a trooper that carried the same revolver from 1961 until retirement in 1981. After that they used a Ruger Service six or one of that series but within a couple years went to a Berretta in 40 caliber. Since then they have changed guns another 4 or 5 times and changed calibers 2 or 3 times. In this case, I don't believe the guns are wearing out. There are politics & budgets involved with the reasons for change here

They claim they are seeing an accelerated failure rate. I suspect they have been only changing parts at failure. That's why they considered a $200 Glock Refurb. I don't doubt the failure rate is higher in the 2nd decade if you don't do proactive replacement of small parts. That isn't a specific issue to the pistol.
 
They claim they are seeing an accelerated failure rate. I suspect they have been only changing parts at failure. That's why they considered a $200 Glock Refurb. I don't doubt the failure rate is higher in the 2nd decade if you don't do proactive replacement of small parts. That isn't a specific issue to the pistol.
A thirteen year old G22 would most likely be a Gen 3. The reason there was a Gen 4 was to fix issues with previous generation .40 S&W Glocks, especially with lights mounted. Those guns probably needed to be replaced.
 
This just illustrates that it's silly to take agency/department adoption of particular handguns, or even cartridges, as being strong evidence of what it "the best." At that scale, relatively small unit price differences add up, and the vendors go at them aggressively with pricing that isn't close to what individual consumers pay.

Generally, most agencies figure out a list of things that are "good enough," and then go with the least expensive of the "good enough" choices. When they pick a Glock, that doesn't mean Glock is "perfection." When they pick a S&W 2.0, that doesn't mean that S&W has surpassed Glock in some qualitative way.

This isn't limited to guns, or to law enforcement. You'd find the same thing in the selection of fleet vehicles for water departments, or shovels for the DOT, or compasses for the Forest Service.
 
9mm ammo bought in bulk is about 1/2 the price of 40 S&W. The 9mm pistols are lasting longer and there is no evidence that they give up anything in performance to 40 S&W.

Really, half the price? Where are you buying bulk ammo?

I have seen 9mm on sale for ~$150 per 1K and .40S&W for about ~$200 per 1K. So about 25% less expensive. This is ME buying ammo, I am sure an entity that buys thousands of rounds of ammo a month would be able to negotiate a much better price than I would be able to get.
 
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One car crash costs more than the entire department's handgun inventory?

$30,000 for 13 years?

One (outsourced) training class per year would cost more than that. So if they only did one training class like say a FoF class per year, it would cost more than 13 times as much as the guns.

Besides that, any vendor like Axon for example, could go in there and offer to lease them body-cams, tasers, and guns in exchange for a no-bid single-source contract for their cloud-based digital evidence management system. That move doesn't increase the size of the department's budget, it just makes it so one company gets a larger piece of it which makes it more worth their while. S&W can't do much but try to package AR's with the 2.0's and the department probably already has M4's. Glock can't package anything but a night out at the boobie bar.
 
The police aren’t buying budget FMJ ammo for their duty guns. Comparing bulk budget ammo to defense ammo police carry is not a fair comparison. Sure, they may buy FMJ for the range but HP ammo is what they would carry and use.
 
The police aren’t buying budget FMJ ammo for their duty guns. Comparing bulk budget ammo to defense ammo police carry is not a fair comparison. Sure, they may buy FMJ for the range but HP ammo is what they would carry and use.

I agree, but I would assume they use cheap FMJ for the range and JHP for duty. I would also think the police officers would use a LOT more bulk FMJ ammo at the range than JHP. It would make no economic sense to use thousands of JHP ammo at the range to keep yourself sharp.
 
I agree, but I would assume they use cheap FMJ for the range and JHP for duty. I would also think the police officers would use a LOT more bulk FMJ ammo at the range than JHP. It would make no economic sense to use thousands of JHP ammo at the range to keep yourself sharp.

If they buy something like 147 gr Gold Dots I suspect their practice ammo is a mix of something like 147 gr Lawman and Gold Dot "Seconds". I don't know what GD Seconds cost in bulk but they are $70 for 350 in 9mm and $80 for .40 S&W at my LGS.
 
They were thinking about G22 40 cal and saw dollar signs when they were offered a 9mm instead. Maybe S&W laid out the line items or maybe not. That deal was so much better than the Glock deal that it sold itself on pure cost savings.

If they were to do their due diligence then they should get a revised quote from Glock for a 17 or 19 package. It is entirely possible part of the reason S&W was able to cut such a deal was because they have an excess of 9mm pistols right now because they are selling better than 40s. At the same time Glock may also have a stockpile of new 9mm guns for the same reason and Glock has more G22 police trade ins than they know what to do with and the turds are starting to stink hence the trade in refusal and refurb counter-offer.

S&W may have a bit more to gain with some G22 trade ins as Glock has filled up their methods of shuttling them to their normal outlets.
 
Is that accurate?
I pay $0.14 a round for Speer .40 S&W (minimum 1000 rounds).
I had no clue you could get Speer 9x19mm for $0.07 a round or less.

What would be the minimum at that price?
I could probably manage 100,000 rounds or so.
I could likely get a group buy together if we need more.
When I order for the office by the 35,000+ round lot, and the agency doesn’t pay the Federal Excise Tax that we all have to pay when we buy ammo, it’s pretty darn cheap to buy 9mm.

The 9mm guns last longer, kick less so they are easier to train on, ammo costs less and the bullets work when effectively placed, so the .40 is slowly fading from government service. (These are the main reasons it’s fading, it is a great round for duty use!)

Stay safe.
 
When I order for the office by the 35,000+ round lot, and the agency doesn’t pay the Federal Excise Tax that we all have to pay when we buy ammo, it’s pretty darn cheap to buy 9mm.

The 9mm guns last longer, kick less so they are easier to train on, ammo costs less and the bullets work when effectively placed, so the .40 is slowly fading from government service. (These are the main reasons it’s fading, it is a great round for duty use!)

Stay safe.

Sounds like Speer. 350 Round Cases IE 100 Cases.
 
I read an article from a couple of years ago that really brought home the economics of gun replacement.

Sheriff's dept experiencing an accelerated failure rate with 13 yo Glock 22s.

$30,000 for new Glock 22 as they are
13 years old and Glock won't do the $200 trade-in deal.

Refurb would be $150 per gun from Glock.

S&W offered them new M2.0 9mm for $28,000 with $15,000 trade in for the G22s for a net of $13,000. However this came with the downside of new Holsters which S&W offered to supply at 50% of normal contract rate.

The only real question I have is why they were shopping G22 and ended up with M2.0 9mm?

My guess is they may have calculated fewer required training hours with the 9mm and future ammo costs to make the deal more cost effective but I don't know that as it wasn't stated only conjecture on my part.

It really brings home what agencies are faced with when they have a lack of funds and failing equipment.

The Sheriff could save a ton of $ if he made his Deputies buy their own sidearms.
I'd bet good percentage of his men would rather buy their own than have to switch to a completely different brand / platform.
 
Sounds like Speer. 350 Round Cases IE 100 Cases.
We shoot Winchester. The sheriffs office gets (at least) three semi-truckloads of ammo a year for all the training and classes they put on from the Winchester distributor. We are on their County contract, so it’s very economical for us.

We aren’t necessarily married to Winchester, I checked into Federal, Speer and Hornady several years ago when we had a bunch of crappy Win 115 gr 9mm lots (The flash holes weren’t drilled all the way through so the guns would really tie up when the primer fired!) No one could come close to the price we pay for the lot sizes we buy, so we’ve stayed with Winchester. (They took back all the suspect ammo and replaced it. Those issues were fixed, we haven’t had the issue again.)

Since my ammo budget is pretty much fixed, the lower the price per round I pay the greater number of practice shots the office gets. :thumbup:

Stay safe.
 
The Sheriff could save a ton of $ if he made his Deputies buy their own sidearms.
I'd bet good percentage of his men would rather buy their own than have to switch to a completely different brand / platform.

We have a fair number of local agencies that issue guns but allow the use of private weapons if you can qualify with them.
One allows any 9mm - .45 ACP. They only supply ammo for .45 ACP and .40 S&W though. They issued the G21 and G30 with the G22, G23 and G27 as alternatives for smaller hands. I was told out of 100+ officers only two took them up on it.
 
Smith and Wesson makes sweetheart deals for agencies to transition to its pistols. We basically got our first runs for free, in spite of having to go to different holsters.

No one can really say for certain how some of the deals happen. We wanted less expensive, simpler to operate pistols than our previous issue pistols. We got that. Personality of the folks charged with the acquisition process came into play. Perhaps there was some wining and dining involved. The fact that S&W is an old American company can come into play.
 
The politics and economics are interesting.

I have heard of people ordering a police tradein and getting a new gun.
Apparently the department was changing guns and had some unissued guns kept as spares or for new hires that they just sent along with the rest.
 
The politics and economics are interesting.

I have heard of people ordering a police tradein and getting a new gun.
Apparently the department was changing guns and had some unissued guns kept as spares or for new hires that they just sent along with the rest.

My local LGS had a bunch of NIB Gen 4 Glock .40 S&W and .45 ACP with Night Sights of various models for $349.99-419.99 before Christmas that were unissued police trades. That's about a 25% premium over the typical police trade. I believe most larger agencies keep pistols in inventory to replace defective guns and for issue to new personnel. Does seem like they would get a premium for trade-in on unissued pistols but I don't think it usually works that way.
 
The agency I retired from gave us an equipment allowance and we bought everything ourselves, which were ours to keep. We were told what guns to buy, 9mm Glocks, and what ammo to use, 147g JHP. They examined the guns at every range session to check operation and to make sure we still had the NY++ trigger installed. New guns had them installed at that time.

They supplied the same ammo for re-qualification, so I'd bring my old stuff to use, and walk out with fresh ammo.

I doubt they'll ever change guns. We got the same allowance every year. Guns, uniforms, holsters, ammo, worn equipment, etc. all came out of that. Usually the first year you had out of pocket expenses, after that you often made some money.
 
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We shoot Winchester. The sheriffs office gets (at least) three semi-truckloads of ammo a year for all the training and classes they put on from the Winchester distributor. We are on their County contract, so it’s very economical for us.

We aren’t necessarily married to Winchester, I checked into Federal, Speer and Hornady several years ago when we had a bunch of crappy Win 115 gr 9mm lots (The flash holes weren’t drilled all the way through so the guns would really tie up when the primer fired!) No one could come close to the price we pay for the lot sizes we buy, so we’ve stayed with Winchester. (They took back all the suspect ammo and replaced it. Those issues were fixed, we haven’t had the issue again.)

Since my ammo budget is pretty much fixed, the lower the price per round I pay the greater number of practice shots the office gets. :thumbup:

Stay safe.

How much difference do you see between different brands and weight of practice ammo vs duty ammo when it comes to POI?

I've noticed a lot of people that make a big deal about same weight and brand practice ammo and duty ammo. I'm a bit agnostic myself since we are not talking .38 Wadcutters vs full house .357 Magnum.
 
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