Why are the feds loading up on so much ammo?
news.investors.com/politics-andrew-malcolm/02...Posted Feb 9, 2013, 6:17 PM UTC
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news.investors.com
Obviously for a civil war!!1111!!!1 /s
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Its strange because the rounds are hollow points and those arent used for targets :(
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Oh believe me, there are plenty of LE agencies that are so fucking dumb that the only type of ammo they'll issue for target practice is duty ammo, I've heard of it many times. And this isn't just with agencies that hardly issue any ammo at all (e.g. the ones that issue their officers with 50 or 100 rounds per year and that's it) but with ones that will have officers go through hundreds of rounds in a training workshop once every few months: every single one of those 300 rounds or whatever that each officer fires will be their duty ammo, e.g. Speer Gold Dot or Fed HST or what-have-you.
Yes, there are agencies that are this dumb, that will insist upon doing this when their duty ammo is Gold Dot despite the fact that Speer has the entire Lawman line of ammo for the specific purpose of offering cheap training ammo that perfectly matches their combat ammo, the Gold Dot line, in every single factor that matters: bullet weight, size, and muzzle velocity and consequently recoil impulse and point of impact, as well as identical muzzle flash since the same powder type and load is used.
9
This comes from the glory years of revolvers.
Cops would use .38 special for target practice and qualification and then switch out for magnum rounds while on duty.
When they actually had to do something with that gun, the magnum rounds destroyed their build in sense of recoil, sight picture and muzzle flip.
As you said, speeder offers X Y and Z ammo that's deliberately comparable!
1: To them the cost of a single officers life is not negotiable compared to Speeder Vs Gold Dot. They'd simply rather overspend on ammo than introduce a slight chance of training inconsistency.
2: The way their contracts work, there are front-end costs that prevent them from buying small amounts of one thing. To do that, they have to go through a intermediary and they jack the price and no one saves money. This is the source of the famed $240 bolt used on an aircraft or $6.5k+ laptops that are 7 years old. When they buy direct, they get the real price but they have to buy in massive bulk to do so.
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The problem is they don't have unlimited means. For a big department, using training ammo instead of expensive duty ammo when on the range could be enough to put an extra officer on the street that year. Or the savings could be applied to more training time. Or whatever.
So long as the officers train with similar ammo (recoil, reliability etc), there is no reason not to.
Point it, it is a silly use of limited resources.
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Still doesn't make sense. There's absolutely no good reason whatsoever to not use cheaper ammo that's also perfectly identical to your carry ammo with regards to bullet weight, velocity, and muzzle flash. Those are all the variables that matter. If I were a billionaire I still wouldn't train with my carry ammo just because it's dumb and "why?!".
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Maybe as a "fuck you" to the taxpayers.
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It's because while the Lawman line is close, it's not the exact same round. If you compare the Lawman bullet profiles with the Gold-Dot, there's a few options that have different shapes to the projectile. This means it won't feed in exactly the same manner as each other (some may ride on the tip of the projectile, some on the sides of the cone, etc) and there is a chance a pistol with service issues may work fine on practice ammo but not duty ammo. Ideally a pistol should work with anything thrown at it in it's caliber...but that's not always the case.
It's easier to just use one load and one load only on a specific weapons platform in that regard.
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[deleted]
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Best explanation I could find in another gun forum:
I think we worked out the numbers last time DHS placed an order like this. There's roughly 100,000 DHS personnel to keep trained, and they shoot 250 rounds to qualify on a quarterly basis. So that's 100,000,000 rounds JUST spent on annual qualification per weapon. I don't know if they do it like the military where they run through the fire course once or twice for practice before doing it for the real score, and I imagine lots of officers and agents have to be qualified on more than just a duty pistol. There's lots of 5.56, 12ga, and 9mm in there along with the typical .357Sig and .40 duty ammo.
There are 3200 special agents and 1200 uniformed officers in the Secret Service alone, I find it hard to believe they only shoot 1000rds for quals much less for initial training. Then there's HRT, Border Patrol SWAT teams, DoE/ICE/Treasury special teams, and I think the Coast Guard has a few high speed types who work under DHS.
Then there's actual carry ammo. If every agent carries 3 mags for their duty sidearm, that's another 4.5m rounds sitting in magazines @15rds per mag and 9m rounds for rifles @30rds/mag- just carried daily. I have no idea how much they keep ready in cars, armories, or what they carry for potentially hostile situations like moonshine raids and boat boardings.
DHS also sponsors a lot of training for state and local guys as well as international partners. 7.62x39 is used by a lot of people we want to be competent in counterterrorism policing.
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Most likely case. I'm sure this isn't unusual and isn't the first time but people are just now starting to actually take notice of large orders like these.
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Yeah I agree. People are just going to go all tin foil hat on this saying the "guv'mnt gonna prep to shoot up the civvies!" dons tin foil hat
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Bullets don't grow on trees, so the .gov has to place orders for agents, officers, and training programs at some point.
People jump to the conclusion that the .gov is out to get 'em or has something fishy going on when they buy a lot of ammunition, but I bet a lot of the same people, right now, are buying up all the ammo they can find. Makes me laugh.
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Oh yeah, I understand its cheaper to buy in bulk. Particularly for government contracts its FAR cheaper to buy that large of a supply. Plus, Im sure the contract spells out a certain period of time for delivery as well. Its not like its a one time purchase and hundreds of pallets will come down to some government warehouse to be distributed to all the agencies with guns.
Also, for anyone reading, NASA has an armed division as well, its like 20-30 people, but they get to carry in the name of SCIENCE!
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I think the Coast Guard has a few high speed types who work under DHS.
Doesn't the USCG in total operate under DHS?
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I believe it does.
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The entire Coast Guard reports to DHS.
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What's really got me worried is that they are the new tin foil hat penetrating 'patriot killer' loads too.
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If there's any "conspiracy" that's true, this is it. And even this is far less likely than some kind of bureaucratic or contractual explanation.
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I'm mostly just cranky and cynical today.
Welcome to my life, now STFU and smile.
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DHS runs a lot of training courses all over the country for a lot of agencies. The use something like 12-15 million rounds a year for those programs.
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So 100 year supply. Seems legit.
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Running training using JHP?
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Why not? It's not their money.
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Because of the implications.
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Dennis are you going to RAPE THESE WOMEN?
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Bullshit.
They took that money from me under threat of force. I have a right to see that it's used judiciously.
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Feel free to register a complaint, then.
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Wrong. It's our money. Or was that sarcasm?
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my buddy is a police officer and when we go to the range, he brings hundreds of "training" rounds from his station. most of them are jhp. when i first saw this, i was shocked and explained how expensive those rounds are. he had no idea.
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Not exactly, you are probably comparing a FMJ bulk ammo pack like Winchester white box to a something like Hornady Critical Defense ammo where the price difference is outrageous. When State or Federal agencies order they can spec their ammo to certain components. Seeing as they would need practice and quality with the same if not similar ammo the only real cost difference would be the bullet itself. From my current source the price difference is .032 cents per bullet from FMJ to JHP.
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the real question here is whats the price of FMJ according to your source. if the force pays for training ammo what i pay for hornady critical defense type ammo, its ridiculously expensive either way.
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Border Patrol always trains with JHP.
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Yup.
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I suspect that the gov't intends to dramatically expand the mission and size of the DHS, which will require a large number of both training and issued rounds.
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They aren't. The source of this is infowars.com(who I will not link to) misinterpeting a fedbid.com posting so as to be off by two orders of magnitude.
Infowars claims the linked order is for the purchase of 21.6 million rounds.
They are interpreting "100,000 ROUNDS PRICE PER 1000 ROUNDS" x 100 to mean 100 blocks of 100,000 rounds. Back in reality, the purchase is for 100 blocks of 1000 rounds, totaling 100,000. This can be seen in "40,000 ROUNDS PRICE PER 1000 ROUNDS" x 40 which makes the formatting clear, 40 blocks of 1000 rounds, totaling 40,000 rounds. Infowars interprets it as 40 blocks of 40,000 rounds, which is utterly nonsensical.
Anyone who takes a few seconds to actually understand the order can see that it's 240,000 rounds being purchased.
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also, they repeated that stupid claim about Obama
":We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded"
which has been fact checked to death as totally wrong
so yeah, the source of this info is bad, the article is bad, the numbers are bad and the site should die in a fire
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It must be for the revolution!
... Or they just do a lot of firearms training, and want a stock on hand for when surges in demand in the market place cause ammunition makers to have problems meeting demand.
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If you were a major buyer of good X and it became really scarce why would you not buy/place massive orders to combat the newly volatile market?
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The worse part is that these are Jacketed hollow point (JHP) and are internationally banned in the armed conflicts and war.
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Since the DHS isn't going to be fighting a war and doesn't fall under the Geneva Convention, why does this bother you? Police use JHPs.
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It bothers me because my government is buying so much ammo, it seems as they are preparing for a civil war or to commit genocide.
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And if they were buying FMJ this worry would go away?
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At least the possibility would exist that they are planning to use them on people other than americans if FMJ. It would not be any more reassuring. How about option C, that the government doesn't buy enough ammo to kill every american 5-6 times
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This is probably something that happens pretty regularly, just more people are taking notice because of the ammo shortage. The .gov probably loads up on ammo like this every year or so. they have to train just like everyone else, and training uses a lot of ammo. Or you know, "Thanks Obama!"
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Dude, they do this every 4 years. Government tends to order way more than they think so they need to use up money before the end of the fiscal year. It's better to order more than you'll need than just enough. If you've got more than you need, you can just expend it on the range. If you order just enough, and end up needing more, you'll get stuck paying 10 to 20 times more than its actually worth, then everyone screams about government paying $20 for a .40 round.
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Except for specifically sanctioned missions. If we're to use JHP on a mission it must be pre-approved.
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Too deadly for warfare, but ok for civilian use?
The Hague Convention of 1899, Declaration III, prohibited the use in international warfare of bullets that easily expand or flatten in the body.This is often incorrectly believed to be prohibited in the Geneva Conventions, but it significantly predates those conventions, and is in fact a continuance of the St. Petersburg Declaration of 1868, which banned exploding projectiles of less than 400 grams, as well as weapons designed to aggravate injured soldiers or make their death inevitable.
It's banned under a technicality.
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How else you going to keep the low people from drinking too much soda, or using Styrofoam cups, or refusing to have a black box installed in their cars, or refuse to give up their guns. It's all about control. Regardless of your politics we must resist increasing government power and control.
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Relevant username
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EDIT: Shit, misread the question, sorry.
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They're going to smack us down with 9mm and .40. God help us
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If they only buying bullets you have nothing to worry about. Since bullets are useless without a cartridge and charge( ammunition). Maybe they'll be using good old fashioned slingshots to launch those " bullets".
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It is a way for them to pad their budget, while driving up ammunition cost and scarcity.
It is killing two birds with one stone for the Obama camp.
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Having actually won one of these contracts once (absolute disaster).
you need to understand how they work.
The govt won't be putting in an order the day after for the total amount awarded, and storing them in some big warehouse.
What happens is a variety of people bid, from that variety a subset is chosen.
Those that are chosen are put on a list that is distributed to all of the individual offices.
The individual offices can then order, as needed, for the time period of the contract, ammunition from those sources.
The total number is a pie in the sky estimate of what will be purchased over the period of the contract (due to how long it takes to be awarded they are usually multiple years).
The only requirement per individual supplier is one case of a 1000 rounds, and they don't even pay attention to that. Getting the contract actually put the guy I was working for out of business because he bought a shit ton of components and then never received a single order.
Basically these numbers are horseshit over a longer period of time than one year.
The entire process is more screwed up than you can imagine. Due to all sorts of changes, fixes and added requirements the bid process actually exceeded the original year that it was supposed to be for. i.e. if the contract was meant to be for 2006, in January of 2007 they had to redo the bid requirements because the year that the contract was meant to be for had already passed.
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This is how it works:
You run a government agency. You are allotted a certain amount of money for your budget. If you don't spend your money then you have proven that you are incapable of setting a accurate budget and are wasteful. If you spend the money then you will get it again next year.
This is why there are all sorts of insane government spending. People buying massive amounts of vehicles only to store them in a underground garage and have everybody drive rental cars around. People buying large screen displays and cameras for every room in a office for people that use it mostly for watching sports. Renovating the same stretch of road every single year. etc etc.
This is just how it works when you are spending other people's money. Profits and losses don't apply to you when people are required to pay your salary or face imprisonment. Instead of spending time worrying about making ends meet you instead spend all your time and effort 'justifying your budget' on paper to a bunch of clueless, backstabbing, and lazy committee members..
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Should have worked smarter, not harder. We laid our M16's and M249's on top of empty ammo cans with the dust cover face down to expend all the extra ammo. Ended the day with all ammo spent and needing 3 new SAW barrels.
Non-military, non-gunnie here. Would you mind drawing a picture of this, please?
Empty cases eject to the right. Turn gun 90° clockwise, putting the ejection port over the empty ammo cans.
[deleted]
Me too! All that yummy brass.
There's "feed-bag" (forgot the name,looked like a damn bag that was attached via a wire frame) type devices you can attach to a rifle to guide brass into a specific direction. Just shoot from a bench and have all that ammo fall into a oil drum, guided by the "feed bag".
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same here 90's Army company range trainer person.
lol, should have gotten promoted. As a Naval masterseaman (e6 I think?) I don't pick up brass for shit anymore
I call shenanigans. Anyone in the military would know what rank they are.
EDIT: Also Naval masterseaman doesn't exist.
I was an E-3 twice, an E-4 twice and a E-5 twice. At any given time the rank on my ID card, the stripes on my uniform and my actual rank could have been three totally different things.
Just sayin.
Master Seaman exists in Canada, would be the equivalent of E6, hence why he thinks. But everyone still picks up their brass after shooting.
oh?
chui matelot chef este... je n'ai pas travaillé comme une fonctionaire pendant dix ans pour gens à doute que j'existe.
I am a master seaman idiot, I did not work for 10 years as a public servant for people to doubt that I exist
Did you even bother trying to learn, or were you too busy jerking yourself off in front of your clever comment?
You must have served with a different country. From my experience with the US Marines everyone polices their own brass, including Staff NCO's and Officers.
Canada, navy. We shoot off the side often, so it just goes into the ocean, and usually the junior bosun just kicks the rest off the side
Most of this is sadly correct...
Definitely correct. Even the department of transportation: I work in concrete, and remember a conversation I had with a DOT liaison while on a federal interstate roadway job. We had just started the 3rd mile of a five mile stretch and he and the quality control guys were getting lax in their procedures and not sticking to specs. When I asked why, he replied, "doesn't matter, they're going to pour all five miles regardless just so they can tear it out and pour it again to make their budget." I asked "why not just pour ten miles, then?" ..."because then they've gone past their estimated workload, and they'll be expected to meet or surpass that during the next budget cycle."
So, yeah,... bureaucracy sucks.
You are forgetting one central problem there :
Lets say i am a government agency and ihave a budget of 10 million usd.
Somehow I manage to save money. I don't know - i bought stuff and got a rebate, prices dropped, contractors finished faster.
So I spend only 9.5 millions.
So now what you said kicks in - if i spend only 9.5 million there is almost a guarantee that I will get only 9.5 millions next year.
Problem is though i I know (nearly 100% sure) that I will have to spend 10.5 millions next year due to some one time costs that were not factored into the budget when I got my money allocated last year.
So what shall I do ? Well on one hand - I can go to whoever gives me money and tell him - look i spend 0.5 million less - can I have that for the next year ? The answer will be "no you can't, you will have to make due with the 9.5 millions, you did it this year and it looks better in the budget"
Or you can spend it on stuff you might maybe need next Year (like new cars and ammo which will not be used until the old ones can be officially switched out - and use the 0.5 million from this year for the next were you don't need to spend it and thus don't need the request extra Budget which would look really bad since now you are not asking for another 500k but one million.
I worked under such circumstances and it's shit no one likes it - cause you can never or only with big problems react on new developments that arise.
And Believe me : I would have loved to give the over budget back if I could have been sure that I would get it back next year - but that was never the case - so we bought stuff we didnt really need - just to keep the budget in a black 0 range and get the same amount of money the next year.
Yeah, when I ran an electronics repair shop in the army I ended up with CASES of work order forms, O-rings, light pipes (for NVG's), and screws, oh so many screws, just because I was being told to order SOMETHING! I tried to order things that we used a lot of but after a while it was just like "Shit! What is the most expensive shit we could possibly ever need? Fuck it! Order that too!" Because even after ordering the sensible stuff I still had thousands of dollars of unused budget. (I was an E-5 doing an E-7's job so I made the mistake of doing things the most efficiently in my shop and didn't use nowhere near the amount of shit that normally got used)
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Federal budget laws, decreasing budget is just about as hard as increasing budget, in the end it's much easier to just leave it at what it is. Not to mention a branch of government isn't going to push too hard to get it to cut it's own budget.
Decreasing is seen as easy most of the time.
The problem is that once its decreased you wont get the money back once you need it.
Its politics.
It sells good if you can tell your voters "under my watch we saved x amount of USD" - but its seen as bad if your opponent in the election after this year says "Well yeah he saved 0.5 millions in 2011 but in 2012 he spend 1 million extra !!!!"
Combined with the "every tax dollar spend is waste" mentality that is prevalent in large parts of the country (and other countries) you get such bullshit.
[deleted]
I could regale you with tales of government waste that I personally signed off on in the name of "unit funding justification", but it would probably just really piss you off.
I'm actually interested.
^(does jazz hands)
Choose your own adventure!
A - ~$14K emergency fiscal year surplus spending
B - ~$150K "training" justification (hunting trip)
C - ~$12M political handshake deal that spanned 3 agencies
A.
As am I.
ah, the good old march rush to find things to spend money on. I'm far too familiar with it.
So many smart screens going unused.
What used to really drive me crazy was that we couldn't use our government funds for things we really needed (like having plumbing replaced or the electricity fixed) because it wasn't "slated" (coded) for that purpose. But Lord knows the BC needs a big ass TV and cable hook up for "briefing purposes".
Worked at a county government agency that would buy new vehicles at the end of the year with the left over cash exactly for this reason.
[deleted]
Buying new heavy diesel pickup trucks every 2-3 years. That's a huge waste of tax money.
The only plus side is that if you go to govt auctions, you can pick up essentially brand new trucks for a fraction of the cost.
No and yes. That money just goes back into the economy because you had to buy the trucks from someone.
Ah the buy Ferraries and set fire to them school of economics.
Yeah but it isn't going where the free market wants it to go i.e. where it would have gone had the people not been taxed but rather did what they wanted with their money. (Only talking about waste, not legitimate government expenditure)
This explains the general concept of excessive purchasing, but it doesn't explain why it's ammo that's being purchased. DHS could be buying a ton of vehicles (like you gave as an example) but they're not. Instead, they're buying ammo, and such an extremely large amount of it that it's on back-order and won't likely be fulfilled until after the end of the next budgeting period.
Vehicles would be great, actually, since Hurricane Sandy trashed a shitton of vehicle stock in field offices for every agency all along the eastern seaboard.
Except that the linked article is utterly wrong about the amount of ammo the DHS bought.
Doesn't the fiscal year end in october though?