Gotta be careful with that hyphen , otherwise ‘police trade-in guns’ becomes something else completely. (Although sometimes that happens too.)
I’m always on the lookout for bargain priced 9mm Glocks. It used to be that every few years police departments would slough off their old pistols for new ones, and those older pistols would work their way onto the market. Ask any cop and he’ll tell you that they guns look pretty worn, what with all the holster wear and whatnot, but they get fired very little. They are, basically, the used car from that little old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays.
Thing is, just about every police agency in the country migrated to the .40 S&W back in the day and have stayed there up until recently when the 9mm has been making a move back into the cop market. All this to say, while finding police trade-in 9mm Glocks is a bigfoot hunt these days, there is a metric buttload of surplus .40 Glocks out there at stupid prices.
If youre plans revolve around the .40, you can get all sortsa flavors of Glock for $250. Ditto for S&W M&P‘s. A friend of mine just scored a used .45 M&P, with night sights and spare mags, for around $275 as police trade-in. The deals are out there.
But, as I said, my plans revolve around 9mm so Im kinda left out in the cold. But, if you’re a .40 guy this is going to be a golden era for you to get cheap big-name .40’s.
It reminds me of ‘back in the day’ when the big revolver-to-auto transitions were taking place and the market was awash in Smith Model 10’s and 15’s. I still have a couple of those sitting in the safe.
Anyway, I was trotting through the usual vendor websites and noticed that theres a plethora of .40’s on the market these days andthought Id point it out.
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In other news, a couple cases of AR mags shipped to me yesterday so it looks like we can go ahead and start getting people matched up for those AR mags. You know the drill.
Glock 40 + $100 barrel (40 to 9 conversion) + 9mm mag = a Glock that fires either 40 or 9.
Hows that for versatility in a survival weapon. Not to mention another bbl in 357SIG and a Advantage Arms 22 kit for it.
I do love me some Glocks.
while doing some forestry work for next winters’ firewood i’ve dun sum thinkin ’bout that.
makes sense, as .40 goes where no 9×19 goes; and this comes from a 9mm guy:
in any situation when the rifle is more than a few steps away (think chainsaw work on a sloping hillside in the snow), against improvised body armour or an irate animal a .40 fmj will be better any 9mm (please don’t bring up .357mag, just try to reload a wheelgun with gloved hands or cold fingers.
…and with a barrel swap and g17 mags it can join the flock, holsters are same same anyway.
my 2 cents.
your thoughts and opinions, please.
A surplus police firearms sale was how I picked up an S&W model 10 that I still have. It cost me $75 and it turned out to be one of the best buys I ever made. You are spot on when saying these surplus guns are the “used car from that little old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays.” kind of deal.
I’m a .40 guy from wayback. Really like the caliber as it’s an effective alternative to both 9mm and .45. It’s been my (military) experience that 9mm often doesn’t do the trick unless properly targeted – which can get difficult in a chaotic situation such as nighttime shooting matches with multiple “contestants” at very close quarters. .40 and .45 has better knockdown with less than an optimal hit. An entrenching tool with a sharpened blade is pretty good too.
That M9 they made us carry until the PTB finally relented and allowed us to carry modded match grade .45s (all that was available in inventory – had to remove the match sights etc…) was pure crap IMHO. I know it’s not fair to tar the whole 9mm world but I’m set in ways and prejudices at this point. The suppressed HK 9mm Subbie was pretty sweet though…
Aimsurplus.com has surplus Glock 17 police trades ins for $379. Police guns get shot maybe 150-200 rounds a year unless the officer shoots on there own dime. That’s the way it was in my 20 years in state police.
oof…thats way too much for a used 9mm Glock, IMHO.
Unfortunately, used 9mms tend to command premiums over used .40s.
The pawn shops here in TX want retail for used 17s and 19s. I always ask about bubba’d up glocks or worn looking police trades, but the guys tell me they buy them, ceracoat them, and charge extra. No bargain glocks in 9mm to be had.
That said, there are a metric crapton of used .40s out there. I haven’t seen any in the sub-$300 range, but I don’t look at .40s too hard, having settled on 9mm long ago. There is lots of inventory though.
nick
Glock armorers book lists a different extractor for the 9mm and .40sw. The .40 supposedly will work on the 9, but not the reverse (I have no personal experience to back this up). Best to change it along with the barrel swap for serious social uses. They are not expensive.
True, but not completely true, Will. I am a Glock armorer (my cert has lapsed in the spirit of complete disclosure) and what I rem is that the very early Lone Wolf (they were the first to do this) 40/9 conversion bbls seated the rim in such a manner that you had to exchange the extractor for the 9mm one. Any of them now, at least from Lone Wolf, are fine. I have literally thousands of rounds thru them with no problems. Its all about the bolt face and where the brass sits in relation to the important moving parts.
If anyone is interested, give the Lone Wolf guys a call and ask them. That’s what I did when they first came out and I was leery of something too good to be true.
Dunno if this is a bargain or not but I just ordered a 9mm G26 police trade-in. Was $380 plus shipping.