Uk police armed response

[the running man]

i know for a fact that a zoo in the south west has a put down gun,loaded and ready to go,its an older winchester pump 12g loaded with solid slug. apparently the person charged with having to rush over to shoot whichever animal needs instant death brought to it,has police training twice a year.....its got to be in a secure room somewhere on the site becase its no good searching round for keys for the gun whilst roger the lion is munching on 3 kids!!!

i know this becase i helped service the gun,and chatted to the guy.

i dont know if its a universal thing for all zoos,i do know 3 zoo's that use them in the west country.

[Dangermouse]

As previously mentioned I am aware that the RSPCA has a number of Sec 1 shotguns for similar reasons.

DM

[Chuck]

May be something in that Sim, but as a salesman it is a horrible selling point to the law enforcement market....I know that Lapua came out with that when Strathclyde made their purchase...SO why potetially damage your sales...and make a case for lawyers should that be used against anyone. Excessive force.

[ovenpaa]

...and make a case for lawyers should that be used against anyone. Excessive force.

Hmm... at what stage/calibre does a bullet start being excessive force? A 7,62x51 will take most of a man's head off.

[Robin128]

As you no doubt know...its range and stopping power that are key.

:|

[Sim G]

Chuck, an arms company cannot make sufficient profit purely selling to police and military unless it is highly specialised and they have a monopoly. The real reason the H&K XM8 was shelved? The US government wanted the sole rights to it and for H&K not to "semi" it for civilian sales!!

By declaring no LE application the potential market is increased. Look what happened to Colt when they abandoned civvy sales..... It brought them almost to ruin before they opened up to sportsmen again.

[Porcupine]

Chuck, an arms company cannot make sufficient profit purely selling to police and military unless it is highly specialised and they have a monopoly.

Then why did HK voluntarily choose not to make a civilian version of the G36? Instead they created the Frankenstein's monster that is the SL-8 which they have now discontinued having sold a tiny fraction of the number sold to military and LE (and no plans to make a proper G36 version for civilians AFAIK even though they sell semi-auto versions of it to LE already). It took HK 4 years to bring the 416 to the civilian market, while it took FN 5 years to start selling the FS2000 and a whopping 15 years to make the PS90. Only a minuscule number of FAMAS, FNC, or Steyr AUG rifles were ever sold to civilians, and essentially no semi-auto SA80s, Howas, or Soviet AKs during the cold war.

[Sim G]

Essentially, they did, as you said, in the SL-8. A "proper" civilian G36 pobably doesn't make economic sense as it's popularity seems to be drawn from Playstation and Xbox, a few police departments and limited military outside of Germany and Spain. The XM8 on the other hand, would have had great civilian appeal had it been adopted by the US miltary. The explosion in all things AR in civilian circles no doubt attests to this.

However, H&K are certainly interested in the civilian market, for if not, they wouldn't have hammered GSG in the US courts and then launched their own .22 rimfire MP5s and 416's. Perhaps a civilian G36 may appear in rimfire....?

H&K sunk a considerable amount of money into the XM8 project and it's forerunner, OICW as the contractor for ATK. No such development was needed with the 416 as it's a piston driven, Stoner rotary bolt, AR. Which in essence, is the same operating system as the G36 and before that, the same system as the SA80, which all find their roots in the AR18.

As for the FAMAS, where would the semi market be? St Etienne had Beretta upgrade it to the G2 as they are so limited now. The FNC and AUG were beaten on the civvy market because of the US's "assault weapon ban", the main market. MSAR do an AUG copy which appeared to sell well on the civvy market. But, FN and Steyr both have a very healthy civilian sporting arms side.

Was the 15 years to push out the PS90, ability or just not viable at the time. A very unconventional weapon for the civilian market using a propriatory cartridge...... Not until Playstation? FN probaly sell considerably more shotguns than they do PS90's

No semi SA80's. Yep, no RSAF in either Enfield or Nottingham now! Limited themselves purely to the military market. How many former Soviet arms factories still operating after the end of the Cold War? And if you couldn't get news from the other side of the Iron Curtain, what chance semi AK's. And Howa? The Type 89 is essentially an FNC, but designed small for the Japanese stature, coupled with the international and self imposed restrictions on Japan on the exporting of "military arms". But then again, Howa also has a healthy sporting arms side.

The biggest gun manufacturer in the world today? Probably Sturm, Ruger. They sell close to a million guns a year. Very, very limited police and military contracts. I'll stand by what I've said. It makes sense in the world market with heavy restrictions to declare a product not to have LE/Military applications even though blatently, they could have. And, that the civilian market is far more lucrative to arms manufacturers at the moment, than purely LE/mil.

[Porcupine]

For whatever reason those companies didn't sell (many of) their military rifles to the civilian market, they still didn't. Your point was that it's not profitable to make guns only for the military market but it seems that it can be. Whatever profit HK made off the few SL-8s they sold I'm sure it wasn't enough to make or break the profitability of the G36, a rifle that became the primary service rifle of half a dozen nations and also sold to dozens if not hundreds of military units and LE agencies. Although the G36 might have had a tough time going up against the AR15 in civilian sales, the recent AUG copies, SCAR, SU16, XCR, Mini-14, FS2000, SIG 556/550 etc all show that you can make a lot of money from alternative 5.56 designs in the US if you bring them to market. With the G36 (x) SF variants already being made for LE it would take literally no new design work to do that. Now HK would need to have some plastic parts made in the USA to circumvent import laws, or set up a factory there - but FN and SIG have had to do this too. They could also sell semi G36s in Europe - a smaller market but there are still plenty of IPSC, 3-gun etc shooters for whom the G36 could be an attractive option. If civilian sales were really that vital HK would surely be doing everything it could do crack that market but they don't seem to be doing so.

Equally, Steyr hardly sold any AUGs on the civilian market (which may not have been by choice but none the less they didn't) yet they have stayed in business because they sold the AUG to Austria, Ireland, Australian etc. It's true that FN sells quite a lot of arms on the commercial market, but again I doubt this is the only thing making their military/LE sales profitable. Similarly Howa and all the rest. If all civilian arms sales were banned tomorrow, FN would lay off a good few workers but they aren't going to stop making MAGs and Minimis and Browning .50s and all the rest. I'm not even sure how much crossover there is, I doubt much of the tooling to make smoothbore barrels, aluminum receivers and polymer furniture for their shotguns is also used to make M240!

[Chuck]

Intersting poiints Sim, still a funny sales pitch though.

So, if it has NO LE application and so more theoretically suitable for civvies why do FEO's and military ranges have a ferret up their bottom about this calibre.