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

One of the agents did put his body armor on and took a bullet under the armor

I have to disagree. Body armor is always a help. It may not STOP a 5.56 for instance, if you are only wearing armor rated for stopping .38 Spec. But it may save your life, making the penetration of the rifle round only about half what it would have been. Body Armor underrated for the round coming in may actually stop it if you are far enough away.

I don't think the 10 is the magic that some do. I still say the tactics and thinking is what created the bad situation.

The FEEBS probably didn't even need to be involved anyway. Maybe if the town cops SWAT had done the takedown there would have been less good guy casualties.

It goes back to jurisdiction regarding bank robberies, it's a Fed. crime. They didn't play well together with local agecies back then. They don't still today, but it's better. Some larger areas have a bank robbery taskforce with local LE assisting the FBI on a fulltime basis. If a BR occurs and local agency responds, FBI is still called and they take over the investigation.

My fascination with this gunfight is it shows what a determined person can do. Platt faced 8 agents alone for the most part. Killed 2 and wounded 5 others. He should of been taking fire from 8 people at the same time (though 2 agents lost thier gun at start but one did pull a five shot back up). Platt did not care about being shot he continued to try and win the fight.

If Matix had also been involved in the fight they would have killed or critically wounded 8 FBI agents half of which had been trained to be on HRT. If the FBI agents would have the mindset of Platt and Matix this would have been a simple gunfight that had long been forgotten by everyone but the guys that were there.

Dink

Absolutely. But, we all can get that message without having to argue whether the made for TV movie accurately depicted it and whether a different bullet would have made a difference.

The gun, bullet, caliber argument will be around forever after this fight. Just think what might have happened if the FBI would have adopted the 9mm instead of the 10mm after this fight...grin.

Arguing over a made for TV movie...well you just can't fix some peoples children..

After this fight the FBI did allow personally owned weapons to be carried. After recovering from being shot Agent Mcneill returned to the FBI carrying a sig p226 (or 228) in 9mm. He is supposed to have said that he never wanted to run out of ammo in a fight again.

Dink

I owned a 228 for a time and it was a great weapon. It was during the AWB though and extra mags were not easy to come by. I think they cost about $50 apiece at the time, all for a couple of rounds more than the ten rounders. I now have the Smith M&P for my 9 but I have wondered if I would be better armed with the SIG.

I owned the old SIG P228 myself back in the 1980s and 1990s. My opinion is, although it was an excellent weapon, the S&W is better. No transition from double to single action on the first and second shot. Same trigger pull from first to last, and that's a huge advantage in my book.

I do know that a 180 grain (1300fps) 10mm bullet out of my Glock model 20 does in fact out penetrates any 9mm Luger round being made and the .45acp 230 grn bullet as well. I ran the tests in wet newspaper 2 years ago.

I am not knocking the .45acp (I carry one!) but I myself like it for more up close and personal situations, not shooting 35 to 50 yards away. The 10mm does a better job penetrating simply put and the FBI would be well served it they were carrying this weapon instead of what they had in the 1980's.

I shoot a 255 grain hard cast that clocks 925 FPS out of my 1911 and it penetrates very well. I guarantee it will leave a mark

That's my experience as well. The smaller 9mm and .357 loads with 110-125 gr. HP's kill very well. But if they have to shoot through much, they have little left to do the killing. The 10mm/180 gr. HP and the .45 ACP/230 loads at 900 plus do much better. Or, you can go to the .44 Magnum which really out shines the smaller rounds. E

There's a reason why Dirty Harry likes the .44mag!!!!

Exactly

Well there is a price to be paid for any round you carry. I stocked up on the Win whitebox 110 .357's because back in the day, Jan Libourel said they were excellent for home defense if you liked your next-door-neighbor. I love my wife and thus don't want collateral damage. The FBI was in a specific situation where they needed more penetration and didn't have it. They took that one fight and extrapolated the results changing the whole of LE thinking about penetration. IMO, the results were, for a time, less than satisfactory. To wit: Do they currently use the 10mm?

Sometimes you need penetration. Sometimes you want expansion without the bullet exiting, especially in any scenario where there are bystanders.

The FBI found the 10MM to be to much to handle and I heard they down loaded the round to about .45ACP power levels. I think they may use the .40 now but don't know for sure.

Or, you can quit screwin' around and just take care of business, as summarized in a single word:

Shotgun.

80 percent of all rounds fired by police are misses if memory serves. The over penetration arguement is over done. By standers are more likely to be hit by misses than from over penetration

One always needs enough penetration

True on all counts.......I'll take as much penetration as reasonably possible. I'd rather use ball than a weak HP like the Win Silvertip.

MM

This is a very tough one. While you need enough penetration, perforation is downright dangerous. There have been more than one LA cops who were shot by their partners after perforating thier intended target, I believe there was even a death or two. Clearly you have to have enough penetration to reach the vitals, but perforation of the target of the target is not cool.

This is why I tend to favor JHP's for defense, good penetration, but not too much penetration. The needs of a civilian are much different from that of a cop. Rarely does a civilian need to penetrate through a hardened object. The vast majority are front on confrontations with no intermediate barriers. For that, you just don't need a ton of penetration, 12" in calibrated ballistic gelatin is quite adequate. Anything beyond 18" can be a liability.

You have to think about the aftermath of a shooting. If someone other than the intended target is hit by one of your bullets, you'll have to answer to that, and answering will be something that could ruin the rest of your life.

Let's just pray to God this is only an intellectual exercise.

Holy crap, I find myself in agreement with DINK! Good assessment sir.