Posted: 1/10/2026 1:27:39 PM EDT
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What are you guys using that are not being paid for directly by the hard working taxpayers? I'm going to buy one soon for some upcoming training. Lots of rounds down range and a fair amount of pressure for it to work. I'm going with a SBR and a can. On a cop's salary, I'm not swinging for the fences on "top-tier" but do want something that meets mil-spec. Chrome lined barrel is non-negotiable. I would like to keep the weight down even though my optic of choice is kind of porky. My department issue rifle is a 16 inch Smith and Wesson with some gawd awful foregrip light attachment that adds about 87 pounds to the front of the gun. That goes well with the 87 pound trigger. We use a very early model of a Vortex optic that is, well, always kind of vague for me for some reason. I shoot it well but I really don't want to lug it around for 12 hours a day. I think I already have my optic chosen out of my collection. I REALLY like my Primary Arms 2.5 prism. My light is already bought since I have a box full of Streamlights. I still need to settle on a sling and the Vickers is a front-runner at this point. |
| I'm curious what people are currently using as well. 20+ years ago we weren't allowed optics so I carried a stupidly accurate and bone-stock Bushmaster A1 Patrolman Carbine that I got for $725-ish IIRC. Understand that Bushmaster was a completely different company in 2001 when i bought that thing. |
Crap Magnet Extraordinaire
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Does your agency have any guidance regarding what is approved? Local agency to me that allows personally-owned rifles has (or had last I checked) an approved list of manufacturers; Colt, Bushmaster, etc. My agency is "issued rifles" only and we're running SBRs from Colt or FN, but we have an approved list of allowed accessories/optics. |
I ran a personally owned 12.5" BCM SBR at my last agency, pictured below. Thousands of rounds through it without a single hiccup. My new agency issues nice 11.5" SOLGW SBRs so I now use that. I still run the BCM for all my personal classes. 
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Montanan and Alaskan
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Originally Posted By bwideman: We are agency owned only for on duty, and agency paid training. If it is personally paid training, we can use whatever we want. Issued rifles are HK 416A5s with B&T cans, Surefire lights and either NF LPVO or Aimpoint micros. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/182293/IMG_1857_JPEG-3633811.jpg That’s nice for a department issue. Ours are colts with aimpoint or Eotech. No suppressors allowed on duty rigs. Swat guys and swat auxiliary only have suppressors. |
Gonads & Strife
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Originally Posted By fergus556: Retired but gueissle offered an AR on police price. 750. Easily a 1500+ rifle. Best flip up irons I've ever seen. Aimpoint pro on it. I'd carry it any day. For the folks with questions regarding policy. Right now we have to use a department issue rifle on duty. Those rifles must be checked in and out of the armory on every shift. We are in a period of transition to be more aligned with neighboring agencies so it looks as if personal weapons will be allowed with instructor approval. That policy is in limbo because I haven't gone through the instructor school yet. My goal is to get the rifles in to our officer's hands more readily than they are at this time. Admin supports this goal. It will boil down to a list of approved models. Same with optics. Same with suppressors. Same with lights. The rifle I'm looking to buy needs to comply with what eventually will be our required spec. In addition, it needs to be able to get me through the instructor school. My current "Poors" rifles are all "gud enough" and all but I really don't see being able to push them that hard. It's just me looking for a balancing act between normal cop pay versus the bottomless fountain of cash that some agencies seem to have. |
| Used to run a 6933 when I could run a personal rifle. Still have it, still love it. If I were buying these days, I'd go Colt 6933 EPR and a Huxwrx Flow 556k. I don't think you can beat the 6933 EPR for the price and it's ready out of the box. |
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Not allowed SBRs so mine a 14.5 PSA Sabre with an FN CHFCL bbl and G$ rail. Great rifle. Attached File |
| Mine is a 16" Daniel Defense M4V11 with a Primary Arms 1-6 (need to add a light). My Chief did not approve our request to run privately-owned suppressors. Don't know yet if he will approve privately-owned SBRs, but we issue 11.5" SBRs to SWAT guys, so he would be hard-pressed to justify a disapproval. |
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Originally we had a list of approved rifles. Rock river, bushmaster, armalite, colt, spikes... Maybe one or 2 more. I used a rock river and eventually changed to a palmetto upper. We eventually went to BCM SBRs. Optics were irons or approved 1x RDS. Aimpoint or vortex. And you could add a magnifier. Issued rifles were aimpoint pro. |
| When I was carrying my own personally owned rifle, it was an LWRC M6A2. That and the M6 IC were the only two authorized from that company for personally owned. We could also carry rock River LAR15 I think it was, because that’s what was issued at the time. I’m probably a little dated now since I retired 10 months ago and wasn’t really keeping up with the rifle policy at that point in my career. Mine was a 14.5 inch pinned and welded. Suppressors were not authorized, even though there was a big push for them to be, but I still think they are verboten. |
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This was my -personally owned carry rifle before we were issued rifles. Spikes lower with a BCM 14.5 upper. Aimpoint T1. This was grandfathered in before policies started dictating things like no pieced together rifles. I had a BCM lower if it can down to that, but this rifle never had a failure in about ten years of qualifying so didn’t want to change anything. It simply ran. Almost killed a guy with this rifle. Came as close as you can in a standoff situation where I was squeezing the trigger but the guy never actually pointed his gun at me, just held it to his side while looking directly at me after killing another person. Then he pointed his gun at my co-worker on the other side and got killed. 
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Get one of those rock river tradeins at aim....put on your handguard of choice and go. You aren't going to be lugging it all day...it's going to sit in that rack between the seats. Sorry it's true I've created and implemented a 100 officer agency program and been to more training that I care to remember. If you get on swat spend the money on something slicker. |
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Originally Posted By Czechers: I'm curious what people are currently using as well. 20+ years ago we weren't allowed optics so I carried a stupidly accurate and bone-stock Bushmaster A1 Patrolman Carbine that I got for $725-ish IIRC. Understand that Bushmaster was a completely different company in 2001 when i bought that thing. YEaH, them original Bushie's were good. I got one of those XM15-E2's with the 11" barrel and long flash hider to make it 16. Put an A1 fixed stock on it, used it in a bunch of rifle and rifle instructor classes. darn thing shot better than I did but routinely did sub-MOA if I did my part. The old NRA patrol rifle instructor class was a cast-iron biach. About a quarter of the class failed. |
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Originally Posted By jeepnstein: What are you guys using that are not being paid for directly by the hard working taxpayers? I'm going to buy one soon for some upcoming training. Lots of rounds down range and a fair amount of pressure for it to work. I'm going with a SBR and a can. On a cop's salary, I'm not swinging for the fences on "top-tier" but do want something that meets mil-spec. Chrome lined barrel is non-negotiable. I would like to keep the weight down even though my optic of choice is kind of porky. My department issue rifle is a 16 inch Smith and Wesson with some gawd awful foregrip light attachment that adds about 87 pounds to the front of the gun. That goes well with the 87 pound trigger. We use a very early model of a Vortex optic that is, well, always kind of vague for me for some reason. I shoot it well but I really don't want to lug it around for 12 hours a day. I think I already have my optic chosen out of my collection. I REALLY like my Primary Arms 2.5 prism. My light is already bought since I have a box full of Streamlights. I still need to settle on a sling and the Vickers is a front-runner at this point. Issue rifle for us is the S&W M&P Magpul edition. They're issuing them with InForce lights and Aimpoint CompM4's. Sling is a pretty basic strap but you can put whatever you want on it. I'm pretty partial to what used to be called the Giles Sling. (look it up, Wilderness Tactical) Wilderness Tactical I run my own stuff. DPMS Pencil barrel 16" Carbine, Magpul ACS stock/forend, Vortex StrikefireII cuz I like GREEN dots. Used to run an LVPO but I got to not liking how it made you into a tunnel visioner. No Bueno. Sayanora Sweet 1-6 herro Old Reliable..... |
| Not agency but I bought a Wilson Urban Tactical through their LEO program.... Nice weapon... |
Ad Lucem: Towards Light
This information is a general statement of law and procedure and not a substitute for specific legal advice from a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.
This information is a general statement of law and procedure and not a substitute for specific legal advice from a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.
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Department issues Sig ARs with Sig red dot. I choose to carry my own. Personally owned Geissele 14.5 with T2 and SF Turbo. Attached File |
Surprise, Speed and Violence of Action
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Thanks for all the input. My Dept. decided that I could do a Form 1 on a pistol. This was a very welcome interpretation of the Policy. I'm picking up a Giessle from my FFL on Saturday. For now it will get my favorite Primary Arms SLX MD25 for now. I just used that optic an a couple others on a 16 incher at a training and I just keep going back to it. The can will most likely be a cheapo Yankee Hill. I have a 1200 round pistol class in two weeks and then a roughly 750 round shotgun class a month after that. Then I will fiddle about with the rifle. |
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Honestly man I'd be looking at a budget 16" mid-length AR. A2 flash-hider. Toss a stream-light on it and either a LPVO or Red dot + 3x magnifier that can swivel out the way. Also put a decent sling on it. As long as its reliable and reasonably accurate that's all you need. I do not care for SBR's with a suppressor at all. Don't like the weight. Don't like the balance. I'd rather a 16" barrel and the velocity it adds. As far as the noise just drop in some electric ear buds that dampen noise if you're deploying with the rifle. Just my 2 cents. |
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Issued for specialty teams: 2 different build outs of DDM4V7S 11.5 with Eotech EXPS2-0/Griffin Recce5 can and Triji MRO/SF RC2s Patrol: FN 11.5 shorties with Aimpoint Duty RDS and Streamlight Protac lights, some with old SWAT issued DD Wave .30cal cans. Personal: any mil-spec "big name" vendor- Spikes, BCM, Geiselle, Griffin Armament, Daniel Defense, LMT, Colt, Smith and Wesson, Aero.. That list goes on. Optics were narrowed down to Aimpoint, Eotech, Vortex (Razor line only), Nightforce, Leupold, Holosun (515 series only) I've got an issued DD-M4V7s 11.5 (EXPS2/Recce5) and DD-M4V7 Pro 18" (Eotech Vudu 1-10x/Triji SRO on Badger 1.54/j-arm) then my Mk18 with a Duty RDS/Griffin M4SDK and a Spikes 14.5 rocking a Vortex 4.5x25/micro dot and SF SB2 .223 gasser for my go-to DMR work. |
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Thanks for all the input. I did a Form 1 on an ALG Defense pistol. B5 stock, Vickers sling,, Yankee Hill Turbo K, Eotech, and a Valhalla Tactical light. It didn't burn a huge hole in my pocket. And it shoots way better than what I can get out of it so far. Dead reliable at 1500 rounds. Your input was really appreciated. Attached File |