Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns The FBI shoot Out In Miami 1986

From the movie
FBI Shootout

The shootout spawned the 10 mm in a high capacity pistol

my Brother in Law was on the FBI task force in Miami then, and was testifying in Court (in a case brought by Janet Reno when she was State Attorney), when the shoot out took place.
He missed the shoot out, but knows all the details. He later was on the FBI firearms team that brought the S&W pistol and the 10MM into FBI Use. He told me the other day, that during testing, he fired 5K rounds in a week, through one of those S&W semi autos.

The problems they had were not so much caliber related as bullet design. The 9mm they used was too light and expanded too fast for deep penetration.

The problem is that they brought handguns to a long gun fight.

Exactly, not enough penetration is correct.

The other important factor that I got from the shootout is that there are some that will not stop until they are stopped and one must be prepared for that scenario

Those two should be pictured in the dictionary under "Bad Guys". If I recall correctly, one of the cross-torso shots that Platt took should have been a killer, but the Silvertip just didn't dig quite deep enough.

That stupid made for tv movie should be banned....if one takes the time to do the research, what tv depicted was was not even close.... The agents involved would not even endorse it....


Bob

Platt had a Mini-14 in .223 and that is the weapon that inflicted all of the damage on the FBI guys.

With the exception of the FA Mini in the movie, the shootout was almost EXACTLY as it happened. I got the chance to watch the FBI's training video of the firefight and the one in the movie, and Hollywood did pretty darned good. Yeah, they pumped up the drama, but the placement of the shooters, and the events of shots, hits, and respoonses to being hit were pretty much dead on. But Hollywood just can't help being Hollywood.

A number of thoughts go through the mind.

1. Why 9MM when the .45ACP was available. The.45ACP was designed as a man-stopper. The .45ACP was the round that stopped the drugged Moro warriors of the Philippines.

2. Why police and federal police agencies using revolvers did not adopt the .44 Special. The .44 Special in a double action revolver is the premier man-stopper.

3. Which is why in Veitnam the Special Forces advisers chose to carry .44mag as a man-stopper when they weren't allowed to carry anything else.

4. When face with low velocity and big chuck of lead is the way to go.

Well sorta. It spawned 10mm development in a large framed pistol platform that couldn't be controlled by novices. That resulted in a downloaded 10mm and the result of that led to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow called the .40 S&W. (I call it a solution in search of a problem - but that's just my opinion.)

But it also spawned about 95% of the BS propogated these days about the "effectiveness" of weapons and ammunition.

With the odds stacked 4 to 1 in their favor, the agents involved should have been able to handle this encounter with .22 rifles! There were over a dozen agents in 11 cars involved in the search for Platt & Matix that morning before they initiated this "gunfight". By any measure, the bad guys were outnumbered and outgunned.

The law enforcement community missed it then and they continue to miss the point .... it had absolutely nothing to do with the guns on either side. But I must admit, setting the realities aside sure has spurned a host of mindless arguments (9mm vs .45 immediately comes to mind) and generated a bunch of guns and ammo sales.

I certainly don't mean to offend anyone directly, but if anybody really thinks the outcome of that "shootout" would have been any different had they been armed differently - then I'm afraid you don't know what you don't know.

41magfan;

You bring up a couple excellent points.

I'm not a cop; never been one, didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, yada, yada, yada...

Here's a few screw ups from the get-go:

The FBI went in without ANY notification to local authorities (i.e., the local guys who showed up had no idea what was actually going on). Which also meant no immediate back-up if schit got weird.

And, they had NO semblance of a unified approach to those two once/if they were identified; it was all cowboy-up and go get'm, with no game plan.

Compound those two with Murphy's Law, and you get the clusterphuck that they got.

Probably because in order to get women and men who are not familiar with firearms to qualify, they have to make standard a pistol that is easy to shoot.

Landrum

I once worked under a retail manager who was a Vietnam War vet. He told me he carried a Model 29 Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum, and shot quite a few VC from the trees with it. I wonder if he was an adviser of the type you mention. Can't imagine opting for the M29 when you have an assault rifle slung over your shoulder. I never questioned his choice, though, or maybe he would have elaborated.

Gee VA, I don't read anything of yours any more but I did this time and I think you are dead on. Forgive the pun.

Not quite. The war in the Philippiines was in 1899, and the .45 ACP was created in 1910. The round used in the Philippine war was either the .45 Colt, the .45 S&W, or both; probably both. The .45 S&W's ballistics are nearly identical to the .45 ACP.

In the beginning of the Vietnam War before we committed combat troops the Special Forces were in an advisor capacity to the South and weren't allowed to carry weapons. However, for self defense, they were allowed to carry side arms and the side arm of choice was a S&W Model 29 in .44mag. I also heard that there were a number of special made Ruger .44mag carbines with folding stocks and selector switches for use by Special Forces advisors. They were called the "Green Machine" because the carbines were painted green. I did see one of the "Green Machine". I have no idea if this story about the "Green Machine" is true or not. The S&W Model 29 story is true.

Thanks for the correction. The M1911 was a result of the Philippine campaign wasn't it?