Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. Massad Ayoob When Customers Demand What You Can’t Get our customers have read about 1,250 feet per second. an L.E.-only load, which is understandable. hot, high-tech ammo in the gun Mention that the Gold Dot 124 grain I love this round’s performance, but recentmagazines and on the Internet. +P is standard issue for NYPD, the largest ly made an error in this very column when I They want it! But some of it is “sold to police department in the nation, and has said it wasn’t L.E. only. I’d gotten that imgovernment purchasers and law-enforce- also been standard issue for the second pression because I’d seen so much of it on ment only” per the manudealers’ shelves for ordinary facturer’s policy — and the consumers, and advertised customers in question are ordito regular Joe Shooters on nary, law-abiding citizens and Internet sales sites. don’t qualify. Again, guide Customer What to do? Substitute. #2 to a substitution. The Customer #1 has read on same okay-for-consumers the Internet that Winchester Gold Dot turns out to be one Ranger 127 grain +P+ is the of the best .45 hollow points “ultimate” personal defense in street encounters. The load in 9mm Luger. He wants same is true of the okaysome! I don’t blame him; it’s for-the-public Remington one of my favorite loads in that Golden Saber 230-grain caliber, too. .45 round, which the FBI Problem, though: Winhas had great success with. chester considers that Ranger They still issue it to their load to be a law-enforcementelite SWAT and super-elite only round, and Customer #1 Hostage Rescue Teams. is not a police officer. Customer #3 has just Judge Farmer (left) explains Federal Personal Defense ammo to a customer Fortunately, substitution at Shuler’s Great Outdoors in Commerce, Ga. At Shuler’s you won’t find “for gotta have a law-enforceis possible. Speer’s Gold Dot L.E.-only ammo.” ment-only round. He will ammunition competes directly accept no substitutes. He’ll with the Ranger line for law-enforcement largest city force, Chicago PD. Winchester buy it from you or he’ll buy it from one of sales and is hugely popular with police recently won the bid in Chicago, with a your competitors. What you do then? officers, but it’s not L.E. only. Explain to 124-grain, 1,250 foot-per-second bonded The “L.E.-only” lines of ammunition the customer that both the 124-grain Gold Ranger load. See, even big police depart- are not so by power of law; however, amDot +P and the 127-grain Ranger +P+ use ments are comfortable with substitution. munition companies are rather firm in rehigh-tech expanding bullets designed to Customer #2 has heard of the fine per- gard to this policy. Therefore, there’s an pass the demanding FBI tactical ballistics formance of Federal HST 230-grain +P in ethical issue here and you’ll have a deciprotocols. Both have nominal velocities of .45 ACP. Trouble is, he doesn’t realize it’s sion to make. Y Vast Options For Ammo Customers M any dealers simply choose not to sell “L.E.-only” ammo to the general buying public. I recently visited Shuler’s Great Outdoors, a burgeoning retail gun sales business in Commerce, Ga. The seemingly endless shelves offer a broad selection of selfdefense cartridges, but the law-enforcement-only rounds are nowhere to be seen. “There are other shops in the area that cater to the law-enforcement trade,” manager Judge Farmer told me. “We’ve just made the decision to stay away from the police-only ammunition.” He observes that they move a lot of Federal’s Personal Defense line in the various calibers. These rounds are factory-designed to expand well while delivering very moderate recoil. Many buyers see them as having been engineered for their specific needs, and are therefore happy to purchase them. Another line that sells well to the private sector at Shuler’s Great Outdoors is the Hornady XTP. The XTP is not a law-enforcement-only product line. It has gathered good reviews over the years from the firearms press, and various other ammo makers (Black Hills, for one) use the XTP hollow-point bullet in their defensive handgun cartridge lines. Also conspicuously displayed on Shuler’s shelves was CorBon. That maker’s PowerBall ammo is popular in semiauto pistols because, as the name implies, the cavity of the bullet is filled with a polymer ball that serves two functions. In the gun, it gives the whole cartridge a round-nose configuration that eases feeding in older or cheaper guns, ensuring better reliability. At the Continued on page 39 www.shootingindustry.com • SHOT SHOW EXTRA SUPER ISSUE 2009 36 Read SI DIGITAL