Question for you active-duty LE professionals,

When your department or agency is looking at selecting a new service weapon (be it carbine, shotgun, or handgun), who does the test and evaluation of the candidate firearms before a purchase decision is made, and how rigorous are the tests?

I'm asking because I have 3 years of weapons test & evaluation experience from the military, and am considering starting a contracting/consulting company to do that full-time for agencies when I get out. I'm trying to see if there's any market demand for such a service.

Thanks.

We have 80 employees that carry guns.  
Not only do we have to evaluate the firearms themselves, but holsters, pouches, slings, magazines, buckshot, slugs, all kinds of crap.   Then we have to be able to afford whatever it is we select.  (We are going through this right now with ECW's)
It has to be serviceable by someone factory trained.   So we invest a good bit in selecting the firearms based on a large number of factors, including warranty repairs, etc.
In our agency the firearms instructors and various patrol or CID guys make a recommendation and it goes up the CoC.
As many distributors want our money, I can't imagine paying someone to do it for us.  We will be the one's carrying them...the guys and gals should have a say so.

The genius that did our testing and development retired after the department bought 100 Springfield Armory XD-40s, without night sights. Didn't want glocks because you had to pull the trigger to take it apart (Ironically you have to pull the trigger on the XD to take it apart.).  Didn't matter that the majority of the officers carried a glock and was familiar with it. Everyone else carried a sig p220.

My agency has over 500 officers and when it comes to firearms and gear, our training division selects different firearms for evaluation and after they evaluate them they ask us to try them too. We were going to switch from Glocks to S&Ws because they were liked by the training division. After having officers test them we decided the majority of us did not like them and wanted to stick with Glocks.

That is when we changed from the Gen 3s to the Gen 4s because the majority of us liked the ability to have interchangeable backstraps.

Thanks for the information. My intent at providing a third-party test and evaluation service isn't to ignore the inputs of the officers that will be using the equipment. In fact, it would be quite the opposite. From my own military experience, a huge part of the test & evaluation process is to have representative members of the department test the equipment in live-fire scenarios and to receive their feedback. I would actually use officers as test samples to determine the following information: Whether or not the firearm is operationally effective (in addition to meeting a set of technical requirements), whether or not the firearm is interoperable (with other gear and equipment), and Human Factors issues (compatibility issues with human physique).

I guess the big question is: Why have a third-party test something our own operators can test by themselves?

My answer is: because a dedicated test engineer with analytical experience will enable you to maximize the comprehensiveness of the test, and will drive a purchase decision supported by objective (as opposed to subjective) data. For example, I can use experimental design concepts to create a very comprehensive test of the firearm, and, if your department is choosing from multiple firearm options, make an objective determination of which firearm is the best choice, based on statistical analysis of the data, and using Decision Analysis concepts.

In my own military experience, test engineers and SMEs work hand-in-hand to design a comprehensive test plan, the test engineer collects the data from testing, analyzes the data, and presents the findings to the SMEs and decision-makers for consensus. Not only can this method help you make a decision based on objective data, but, politically, it's an insurance policy in case any higher-ups ask any questions on why the purchase decision was made. In the end, you make the purchase decision. My job would be to help you justify it as much as possible with as little bias as possible.

I appreciate what you are saying but I can't imagine the boss being convinced.   What you are saying you do are the same things we do now.  We get a recommendation that satisfies MOST of the employees. (Cops bitch if you hang 'em with new rope, so trying to please everyone with issued gear ain't ever gonna happen)  We allow our sworn personnel discretion, as in they can supply their own handgun, shotgun or rifle provided they can qualify with it and that it is approved for use.  
You would have to find a service we can't provide for ourselves, or take skills to a much larger agency.  However, in a large agency they have large training divisions and SWAT type guys who do that stuff now.

ETA:  The expense of putting that team together would be cost prohibitive for us.  I wouldn't even take that to the boss without a figure attached to it.  Even then I wouldn't give it much of a chance for success.  We don't explore cutting edge technology, we choose between Glock, Sig, Smith and Wesson and HiPoint.

ETAA: I am a higher up.

Hmm, interesting. Thanks for the information

Our firearms and use of force instructors do it in house. We have 35 sworn. My guess is that large depts do it in house because they had the people and the budget and small/ medium depts do it in house because they have to save on their budget, either way your "pricing" and what you offer for it will have to be stellar.

J-

Our agency is rarely cutting edge on anything
They let everyone else buy something first and then follow the leader.

I heard a story from a range guy, and I believe him, that we had some hack once who forced the 147 grn sub sonic 9mm on all of us back in the '90s because it shot the most accurate out of HIS personal gun and since he liked to compete and shoot a lot  he adopted it for the entire Dept. so he could get them free. He did it even tho the State PD had excellent results with the 110 +P+'s.

So we went years shooting BGs 10, 15, 20 times only to find out they were still kicking. Im telling you this story so you dont get the idea its allways on the up and up in civvie PDs.

I've got a somewhat similar story about one of our range guys from the old days
He had us transition to subsonic rounds because he thought subsonic meant the round went faster.
Just think about that a minute.
We never had an OIS with that ammo, thankfully. Just putting injured deer down with that ammo would require multiple rounds for what previously had been single shot kills....

The same guy, when he retired, threw everyone's firearms training records in the trash
As if, now that he was gone, the dept was never going to have to prove any firearms training that took place during his tenure.
I fished my records out of the trash can because I knew better

Here all the firearms instructors do the T&E.  We'll try out the new gear we want, then run it up the flagpole, and they look at the budget.  If we decided it was worth buying, and we can get it into the budget, then we get it.

Similar here. Except personal weapons are an option and we have to approve weapon brands. Also, get approval for modifications (optics, magnifiers, red dot on pistols, etc.).

I would NEVER trust an outsider to pick our stuff. Too easy for corruption. At least having a group of unconnected employees testing the items helps lessen the likelihood of someone getting kickbacks and us still getting to use a reliable and effective product.

I'm sorry, I just don't see what you want to do being a viable business model for the reasons already mentioned.

No one is going to pay you to test equipment when you have folks in house that want to do it already.

We do our own... I highly doubt such a business would make it. Understand, most departments can barely afford the minimums.

Would this be the UAB Police in Birmingham?

Our in house firearms guys do all the T&E and final recomendation.

I really don't think thats going to fly.  Agencies big enough to afford your services will do their own testing.  Agencies so small they need your services as they cant do the testing on their own wont be able to afford it.

I think you're going to find that's a very hard market to fill, since most departments, even security companies, have policies and procedures in place already which outline what they can carry and use.  When our department decided to go away from everyone carrying what they wanted to what the department was going to issue, it was an in-house panel put together from several officers/supervisors.  When the department later decided to open it back up to being able to carry what we want, and to open up the issued weapons from one brand/model to more, it again went to the rank/file for opinions, with the final decision being made by rangemaster/chief.

I think you'd be better off doing a couple of really well done write-ups and then try sending them in to a gun magazine, or posting them on a website like this one, to get your name out there.  Granted, there's no money in the first couple, but if you can your name out there, who knows what might happen?