Category: Cops

. . . From Colt to S&W, and from Inspector to Cop

In 1961, New York Hardware Store, at 5^th and Hill Streets, was a short two block walk from my part-time Saturday job parking cars in downtown Los Angeles.  New York Hardware had a nice gun section with rifles, shotguns, and handguns.

Editor’s Note: I’m happy to welcome my friend Dick Bonneau to the pages of RevolverGuy, and I’m grateful he’s chosen to share his personal story with us. I enjoyed seeing the arc of Dick’s revolver and law enforcement journey, and I know you will too!

-Mike

I went into their store to ogle the handguns every Saturday on my lunch hour.  My full-time job was with Autonetics, a division of North American Aviation.  I began working there a week after graduating from High School.  I was an electronics quality control inspector.  Wages for someone like me were low, at slightly over $2.00 per hour.  This resulted in my taking several part-time jobs to supplement my income.

Getting Started

I had loved guns and shooting ever since my dad introduced me to a JC Higgins .22 rifle when I was ten years old.  I didn’t have experience with handguns until much later.  When I was about nineteen years old, a friend and I each acquired Ruger Single Six .22 LR revolvers.   As time permitted, we went to local shooting ranges or spent time in the local hills, an hour’s drive away, in an area surrounding the city of Corona.  I had also acquired an Army Surplus 1911 Colt .45 ACP through the Director of Civilian Marksmanship for the outrageous price of $14.00.  This pistol and an M-1 Carbine that I bought for $20 were shipped through the US Mail directly to my home.  Wow! How things have changed.

The Lure of the Double Action

Having only had experience shooting single action revolvers (the above-mentioned Ruger) and the 1911 .45 ACP, I wanted a double action revolver. In New York Hardware’s display case were several Smith & Wesson and Colt revolvers.  There was also a selection of Ruger single actions, but I had my heart set on a quality double action gun.  After looking at, and handling, several S&W and Colt revolvers, my eyes and my heart settled on this beautiful, lustrous, “Royal Blue-steel” revolver with finely checkered walnut grips.  The blue was of such depth that I felt as though my fingers would sink into it.  The action was buttery smooth. The gun had a vented rib barrel which attracted me even more.

Of course, this beauty was a Colt Python.  The beauty and single action smoothness of this revolver won me over, and mostly having experience with .22 LR, the .357 Magnum caliber was alluring also.  The price seemed to be way above my means at $125.00.  Yeah, that’s right, it was $125.00.  In 1961 that was a lot of money.  However, I was smitten, so I put it on lay-away with a $5.00 down payment, and proceeded to deposit five dollars, or sometimes less, on the account every Saturday that I could afford it, for several months until it was paid off.

Jumping Through Hoops

In those days (1960’s), the Los Angeles Municipal Code required a permit from the police department to pick up a newly purchased handgun from the dealer.  As soon as I laid down my last few bucks with New York Hardware, I walked the five blocks to Parker Center (police headquarters) to get the police permit.

Upon entering the police building, the desk officer directed me to the “Gun Detail,” in Detective Headquarters Division, on the third floor.  I took the elevator upstairs, carrying my receipt from the gun store, which couldn’t allow me to take my new Colt home until I had the police permit.  In the Gun Detail office, I found a huge, burly policeman with a crew-cut, wearing a short-sleeve white shirt and tie, seated at a desk.  He asked what I wanted.  I told him I had purchased a revolver and needed a permit to pick it up.  He took my receipt and after reading it, asked what I intended to do with a handgun?  I said, “target shooting.”  He looked at me as though he might march me downstairs to be booked into jail, and said with great emphasis, “a .357 Magnum for target shooting?”  I was sure he was going to deny me the permit.  Then he smiled and said, “have fun shooting,” and handed me the approved permit.  I took it back to New York Hardware to pick up my new gun as fast as I could, before he changed his mind.

In my early twenties I guess I was somewhat naïve, without giving much thought to the Second Amendment and gun control.  Years later, I would have looked at this “permit” incident as an intrusion on my rights under the Constitution, but in 1962, I just accepted it as the normal way to purchase a handgun. Although I find the police permit objectionable now, it was a very mild form of regulation compared to the draconian gun control regulations in California, today.

Shots Fired

Once clear of the layaway and the bureaucratic hurdles, I rushed home with my new Colt. Before I could get to the range, I spent time handling, dry-firing, and examining its various features.  As time permitted, I spent time in the hills plinking at targets of opportunity, and at the Long Beach Police range shooting paper targets.

Mostly, I fired my 148-grain wadcutter reloads, with the occasional .357 Magnum.  I almost always fired the Python in the single action mode, as I found the double action mode less accurate due to poor staging of the trigger and timing of the cylinder.  Even though the Python didn’t have a smooth double action I loved to shoot it in single action and found it to be very accurate.

A New Career

I’ll fast-forward here to March of 1971.  I left my twelve-year long job with Autonetics to try something I had always wanted to do . . . become a policeman.

I joined the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).  It took several months to apply and go through the selection process, but I was finally accepted.  On March 21^st of that year, on a cold, foggy morning at 5:00 AM, I arrived at the Los Angeles Police Academy in Elysian Park, across from Dodger Stadium, to begin training along with ninety-seven other men.

Academy Training

The training of new policemen consisted of a vigorous, five-month long, eight-hours per day program, including the three major sections of:

1) Academics: Classroom training, including criminal law & evidence, civil rights, courtroom procedures, the Constitution, criminal Investigation, community relations, patrol and traffic procedures, report writing, public speaking and juvenile law & procedures;

2) Physical Training: Defensive tactics, wrestling, baton training, physical conditioning (mostly running and calisthenics), and arrestee control and crowd control techniques;

3) Firearms Training: This section was sixty-six hours of hands-on firearms training on the Target and Combat Ranges,including shotgun and nighttime shooting. Included were scenarios requiring decision-making of when to shoot or not shoot.

LAPD Firearms Training

There were two firearms ranges at the LAPD Academy—the Target Range, and the Combat Range.

The Target Range had shooting positions at 7, 10, 15 and 25 yards. There were also 50-yard shooting positions located on a roof over the shooting positions for the 25-yard line. We shot regularly from 7, 10, 15 and 25 yards on the 25-yard target range, but never on the 50-yard line. Incidentally, these ranges were used for the shooting competition in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

The Combat Range was in a different location than the Target Range.  It was about 100 yards up the hill from the Target Range. Shooting on the Combat Range was coordinated into the regular schedule of firearms training, and included shooting with our revolvers as well as the department-issued, Ithaca Model 37 slide-action 12 Gauge shotguns.

Target Range Training

Most revolver shooting was performed one-handed in this era. The only time two hands were used to shoot the gun was from the 25 yard barricade.

This was before the Weaver and Isosceles stances were common. Instead, a typical “bullseye” shooting technique was used by officers and cadets. The revolver was held in the strong hand, while the strong hand side of the body faced toward the target (the shooter faced north, while shooting east).  The weak hand was placed on the hip or in the weak-side pocket.

The Target Course was a 30-round course, fired in three phases. The starting position for each phase was the Low Ready position. The first phase was performed at 7 yards, and consisted of 6 rounds fired in 3.5 seconds. After an untimed reload, this string of fire was repeated, for a total of 12 rounds fired at 7 yards.

The second phase was performed at 10 yards, and began with 3 rounds fired in 3.0 seconds. After that, another 3 rounds were fired in 1.5 seconds. After an untimed reload, 6 rounds were fired in 5.0 seconds, for a total of 12 rounds fired at 10 yards.

The final phase was fired from the 25 yard barricade. Shooters placed their support hand on the barricade and used it to help brace the revolver as they fired. The first string of fire was 2 rounds fired in 4.0 seconds from the right side of the barricade. The second string of fire was 2 rounds fired in 4.0 seconds from the left side of the barricade. The final string of fire was 2 rounds fired in 4.0 seconds over the top of the barricade (“Horizontal Barricade”).

The silhouette target was used for the target qualification course. Each shot in the marked arm areas was worth five points, and each shot in the black area of the silhouette, exclusive of the arm areas, was worth ten points. The total possible score on the target qualification course was 300 points, and an officer had to shoot a minimum of 210 to qualify.

Combat Range Training

When shooting on the Combat Range, a modified FBI combat stance was used.  This stance had the shooter face the target, step slightly to the side with his weak side foot, bend the knees, and bend at the waist, assuming a “crouch” position.  The non-shooting hand was placed on the weak-side knee, as a brace, and the revolver was presented at arm’s length toward the target, to fire the required string of shots.

The silhouette targets on the Combat Range would rotate in and out of view on a timer. Each shooter faced an array of three  targets that would turn and appear for a designated time, then turn away and disappear when the time for the stage had run out.

The revolver course of fire on the Combat Range consisted of thirty rounds. In the first stage, six rounds were fired from a 15 yard barricade position. Three rounds were fired with the right hand, from the right side of the barricade, and three rounds were fired with the left hand, on the left side of the barricade. When the target turned, you had three seconds to fire one round, then the target would turn away. This sequence would repeat for a total of six rounds–three on the right, and three on the left.

We then advanced to the 12 yard line for the second stage, which was shot using the modified FBI combat stance. The shooter would begin with his revolver pointed downrange, lowered to a 45- degree angle.  When the three targets turned to face the shooter, he had 18 seconds to fire six rounds (two on each target), before the targets turned away.

The targets would face away for nine seconds, during which we would empty and reload our revolvers with six new rounds from our dump pouches.  The targets would then turn toward us again, and we had another 18 seconds to fire two rounds into each of the three silhouettes (six total).

We then advanced to the seven-yard line for the final stage, where we shot a similar course of fire on the turning silhouettes (two rounds on each target, six total, in each string).  The time for each of the two strings of fire was shortened to 13 seconds.  The time for reloading remained at nine seconds.

When the Combat Course was fired in daylight, shooters had to attain a minimum total score of 210 points, with a minimum of 70 points on each individual target. During hours of darkness, the minimum total score was 180, with a minimum of 60 points on each target.

As training time permitted, we would repeat the Combat Course again.

When firing the shotgun, we loaded four rounds of birdshot in the Ithaca.  From the seven-yard line, the targets would turn toward us for fifteen seconds while we fired all four rounds, alternating between targets.  We fired double-ought buckshot (magnum duty loads) a few times during training.  Wow, what a difference from the birdshot loads!

Training Ammunition

When we entered the academy, we were given a box of several hundred rounds of .38 Special, 148 grain wadcutter reloads.  At this time, the range staff had an automated reloading machine.  Brass and lead were reclaimed and reloaded for academy training ammo.

We occasionally shot with full-power duty ammo to give us the feel for the real thing.  I think we shot two or three times on the Combat Range using duty ammo, probably sixty rounds total.

Mike Wood discussed this common practice of shooting low-powered ammunition in police training, but carrying full-powered ammunition on duty, in his excellent book, Newhall Shooting: A Tactical Analysis.  His book examines the murder of four California Highway Patrol Officers in 1970.  It might have been better if we’d trained with full-power ammo like we’d carry on-duty.  I believe that training with lower powered ammo was mainly a cost savings measure.  The one benefit I could see in using 148 grain reloads was that it allowed new police officers, who were unaccustomed to shooting, to be slowly initiated into shooting with lower recoil.  Not a good tradeoff, when balanced against the possibility of an officer being killed in a gunfight, because he was unaccustomed to the ammo being carried.

LAPD Issue Revolvers

At the time I joined in 1971, LAPD issued 4″ S&W Model 15 revolvers to new policemen. The revolver issued to me was the model 15-3 pictured below:

In large, metropolitan police departments, the accidental discharge of a firearm is dangerous to citizens, as well as to policemen. Therefore, in an attempt to eliminate the accidental discharge of revolvers, the department modified the S&W revolvers to only fire double action (the hammer could not be cocked).

Since my experience with double action revolvers had only consisted of shooting my Colt Python, which I almost always fired in the single action mode, I thought I’d never learn to shoot this way.  However, I found that in a very short time, due to the excellent staging and timing of the S&W, and the excellent instruction provided by LAPD instructors on the academy range, I could shoot on the Target and Combat Ranges quite well. I even earned LAPD’s “Sharpshooter” medal before graduating from the academy.

Over the five months of academy training, I grew to prefer double action shooting.  It was during this time that I came to recognize the superior staging and timing of the S&W revolver in the double action mode.

The academy firearms training consummated my relationship with Smith & Wesson revolvers and my conversion from Colt to S&W.

Issued Equipment

Along with the S&W revolvers, my academy class was issued a Sam Browne belt, holster, ammo pouches, traffic whistle, baton and baton ring, handcuffs, handcuff case, handcuff keys, and a Game-Well key.

The Game-Well key was the key to our call boxes, installed by the Game-Well Company, and located throughout the city.  These call boxes contained telephones that were directly connected to the desk sergeant at each of the seventeen police stations.

I need to divert the narrative slightly here to point out that in the 1970’s, LAPD still deployed many “foot beats” (policemen on foot patrol). Hand-held radios were still in the future. The foot beats needed access to communications with the station, and the Game-Well box telephones provided this access.  Each foot beat was required to check in telephonically with the station at least hourly.

I should also point out that even radio patrol cars only had radios in the car.  Once the officers exited their patrol car, they were without communications.  It was a blessing that LAPD assigned two officers to each patrol car, thus providing a safer working scenario than one-officer patrol cars.  When we exited the car to investigate criminal behavior, we tried to be sure one officer could get back to the radio in the car, to call for help when it was needed.

In addition to the Game-Well key, we were also issued a “999 key,” that opened the door of any police building in Los Angeles, and a belt ring for all the keys.

Ammo Pouches

The ammo pouches were “dump” pouches.  Each of the two dump pouches held six .38 Special cartridges.  The pouches were held closed by leather and Velcro flaps that closed over the top of the pouches, to keep the ammo secure.  When needed, the Velcro flap was opened and the pouch unsnapped, allowing it to release the six rounds into the policeman’s hand.  This could be repeated for the second pouch, releasing a second six rounds.

I was able to force three extra rounds into each of my pouches, giving me eighteen extra rounds of ammo for an emergency. I also carried a full box of .38 ammo in my riot helmet bag, kept in the trunk of the police car.

The problem with dump pouches is that, when dumped, the loose rounds in your hand must now be loaded into the revolver’s six empty chambers.  In the heat and anxiety of a gun fight, it is difficult to load the chambers of a revolver with a handful of loose ammo. The loose rounds can easily be dropped.  This problem led to development of several better reloading methods for revolvers, like reloading strips, and several designs of six-round speedy loaders that allowed six rounds to be inserted into the cylinder at once.  These sped up and simplified the reloading process, and allowed the policeman to deal with all six rounds at once, instead of six loose rounds.

Issued Holsters

My academy class was issued JAT-brand flap holsters that were referred to as “Widow Makers,” because of how slow it was to draw the revolver.

I traded mine for a Safety Speed clamshell holster as quickly as I could, after graduating from the academy (as did many of my academy classmates.)  I carried the clamshell until the department no longer allowed them to be used.  They were de-authorized due to accidental discharges that were blamed on the holster design. I think the holster was rarely at fault, but it provided a convenient excuse for an accidental discharge.

By issuing neutered (double action only) revolvers, and decertifying clamshell holsters to eliminate accidental discharges, it may appear that LAPD was obsessed with this issue.  I guess that may be a fair assessment, but to place these decisions in context, I would point out that Los Angeles is a very large city (464 square miles) with a concentrated urban environment of over four million people, and a very small (per-capita) police department, that (until recently) was expected to conduct proactive, aggressive police work.  These factors frequently combined to place LAPD officers in situations where accidental discharges of weapons could seriously endanger both citizens and officers.  Therefore, even though I loved the clamshell, and having the ability to fire either single or double-action, I find It difficult to criticize these decisions.

Duty Ammo & Ballistics

The duty ammo we were issued was either Remington or Western brand, 158 grain .38 Special with round-nose lead bullets.  Also authorized, but not issued, was Western .38 Special ammo loaded with 200 grain Lubaloy bullets.

The 158 grain loading was always issued by the department and was carried by almost all our officers.  The round-nose lead bullet was very conical in shape, with a muzzle velocity of about 855 feet per second.  There were shootings where the round-nose lead bullet went through the suspect without enough energy transfer or tissue damage to stop him.  This was because the conical shape didn’t deform when contacting tissue.

The 200 grain Lubaloy bullet was blunt, and if fired at respectable velocities, it would deform more than the 158 grain bullet. But the velocity of this round, as issued, was slower, at 730 feet per second.

These velocities were recorded from six-inch barrels.  Most LAPD officers carried S&W revolvers with four-inch barrels, resulting in slightly lower velocities than advertised. This left the police officers with two authorized duty rounds that they believed to be marginally effective in a gunfight.  Jacketed hollowpoint ammo was proposed, but was not authorized until sometime in the mid-1980’s.

An enterprising sergeant, who was also a gun enthusiast and a reloader, came up with an unauthorized solution.  He removed the 200 grain Lubaloy bullets from their cartridge cases, and loaded enough powder to bring the velocity up to a more respectable level.  Of course, this was done without the knowledge of department management.  Very few officers ever carried this “improved” ammo, but it was reportedly used in one or two shootings, and proved to be more effective.

In 1982, the LAPD finally recognized the need for more effective ammo, and began to issue Federal 125 grain jacketed soft-point, Plus-P ammunition.  We were all ecstatic over the change.  There were many more changes in weapons and ammo to come, but they would involve a move to pistols, not revolvers.  Ultimately, the LAPD transitioned to the 9mm pistol and then to the .45 ACP pistol.

Officer Survival training and my first tour of duty

The LAPD was hiring a new academy class of seventy to ninety policemen each month.  The training academy could only accommodate this number by staggering the training times between day watch and night watch.  The first and second months at the academy were spent on day watch. The third month was spent training on night watch. The fourth month was spent on loan to one of the seventeen patrol divisions, where each “recruit” policeman would work in a patrol car with a veteran policeman.  The fifth month was spent back at the academy, with enhancement of the prior training regimen, with a focus on community relations and public interaction.

The last class on the final night of our third month (before being loaned to a patrol division) was “Officer Survival.”  It was a four-hour class, taught by a well-respected Captain named Bob Smitson.  Bob was a huge man, 6’4” tall and well over 220 Lbs.  Captain Smitson’s credentials were impeccable, including assignment to Metropolitan Division (where he helped establish and command the first-ever SWAT team), tours of duty in South-Central Los Angeles, foot patrol in Central Division, and assignment as an academy instructor in Physical Training and Self Defense.

This Officer Survival class came on the heels of several shootings in which police officers had been killed (such as the Newhall Shooting in April of 1970, where four California Highway Patrol Officers were shot to death, and an LAPD shooting with the Black Panthers, where the officers were fortunate to have survived, and three of four Panthers were killed.) Capt. Smitson discussed these and several other shootings in detail. He spent the night telling us that what we had learned in the academy had to be applied in the street to ensure our survival.  To emphasize the lesson, he discussed the murders of several policemen and how their tactics had affected their ability to survive on the street.  Each of these cases was highlighted by crime scene photographs of the fallen officers.

Captain Smitson had our undivided attention.  Throughout the four-hour class, you could hear a pin drop in the classroom.  Class was adjourned at 10:00 PM on Friday.

At 7:00 AM on Sunday, I reported to my first day of four weeks on-loan in 77th Street Division, where I would ride in a patrol car.  77^Th was the division covering most of South-Central Los Angeles, where the 1965 Watts riots had begun, and was consistently the most violent division in Los Angeles.  After Captain Smitson’s class, I was beginning to wonder if I had chosen the right career.

Reflections On A Career

I was blessed to go through my entire thirty-seven-year career with LAPD without being involved in a shooting.  There were several close calls, but no shootings.

Los Angeles is a very big city with a relatively small, per-capita, police department.  This disparity tended to require LAPD officers to be more aggressive in combating crime.  And yet, only a very small percentage of officers ever fired their weapon in the performance of their duties.

I’ll use a statistic to emphasize the flip side of this fact, and to highlight the dangers faced by LA cops.  When I retired in 2007, I had a retirement dinner at the police academy.  People who attended sat at round tables that seated ten people each.  The number of officers killed in the line of duty during my career would have filled almost seven tables (over sixty officers), if they had survived and attended the dinner.  Of course, these on-duty deaths included all causes of on duty deaths, not just shootings and murders of officers.

I have to say that I loved every minute of my thirty-seven years with the LAPD.  While we were slow to adapt to better weapons and ammunition, I believe I served during the very best of times, with some of the best people I’ve ever known. Bob Smitson, for example, was a true legend in law enforcement–in California, and nationally, as well.  He was one of many who stood tall within the law enforcement community. I was proud to serve with him and my fellow policemen.