Page 11 - topcoverissue19

SPRING 2024 TOP COVER 11

A FIREARMS FACILITY SECOND TO NONE

Tony Long shares his recent visit to Northumbria Police’s state impressive firearms training facility

involved calling on the expertise of to completely replace their fleet with
top civilian practical pistol competitors the Gen 5 machined to accept
Bob Dunkley and Graham Guest; optical sight systems (FS-MOS). The
their advice, amongst other things, opportunity was also taken at the
was to take a good look at red-dot same time to replace their Streamlight
systems specifically developed for TLR1 pistol lights with the more
pistols and used by most of the world’s compact TLR7A model, and they
top pistol competitors. adopted the Safariland 6380 RDS
Northumbria’s instructors already holster to accommodate the change
knew the merits of having optical and give more protection to the
sights on their force’s carbines, new sight.
specifically the benefits of increased
situational awareness by being able to Minute difference
focus on the actual threat in most light The changeover fell within lockdown
conditions, rather than in the throes and straight away they encountered a
of fight or flight syndrome, trying to problem with fitting the sights. This
steal your eyes from the target to focus was finally, after numerous phone
on your front sight; from personal, and video calls, pinpointed to an
operational experience, an almost unannounced change in design and
impossible task in most situations. engineering by Glock. Had it not
been for restrictions, James from
Shield said that he would have
jumped straight in his car and driven
the six hours to resolve the issue face
to face.
For most, there’s a minute difference
in how we present our pistol to find
our front sight rather than how we
present it to locate our red dot. It’s
After fully evaluating a variety of therefore always easier for a novice
different sighting systems from around shot to be trained on red-dot pistol
the world their project settled on those sights from the outset, rather than
manufactured in the UK by Shield reprogram a veteran of irons; but it’s
Sights in Dorset, and specifically easily achievable through repetition,
the RMS W (The W stands for and Northumbria devised a two-day
Waterproof and Venty assured me that conversion course where every officer
it rains a lot in the North East!). was given over 500 rounds a day to
With their Gen 3 Glocks due to go adapt to the new system.
out of service, the decision was made

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