Wednesday, June 25, 2008 Rama: Cebu City cops and the ChiCom .40 By Karlon N. Rama Stage Five
A policeman approached me at the Palace of Justice yesterday, happily reporting that he and a few other officers at the Cebu City Police Office are packing new service pistols–high-capacity Norinco nineteen-elevens in .40 caliber.
The guns, paid for by City Hall, were jam-a-matic when it arrived. His, he said, choked and croaked even when fed with round-nosed full metal jacket (FMJ) rounds.
But, the policeman quickly added, a simple throat and polish from a local gunsmith cured the piece. Now, he said, it’s good enough to patrol dark alleys with.
Cebu City Councilor Jack Jakosalem, in a phone conversation yesterday, confirmed that the Cebu City Government bought forty pieces of these Norinco nineteen-elevens from Trust Trade Inc.
The gun store is based in Mandaue City and the franchise in Cebu is held by Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s cousin, former city councilor and ex-Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board director Rogelio “Jingjing” Osmeña.
Councilor Jack said each unit cost City Hall P19,000. The amount already covers the licensing cost; making it a good enough deal. The city government paid more for the single-stack pistols it bought from Armscor in 2006.
TO THE FIELD. The Chinese firearms arrived last month and came with three magazines. Each mag loads 14 rounds, giving policemen 42 rounds–43 if they carry the gun with a full clip and a round in the chamber–of crime-busting firepower.
The city has assigned the guns to hand-picked members of the Swat Team and the Mobile Patrol Group, these units being front-line troops against bad guys, who nowadays, carry submachine guns.
For non-front line troops, those who top the police department’s regular marksmanship qualification examinations are given priority in the assignment of the new pistols.
Undeniably, the nineteen-eleven is a sound design. And if one has doubts, one only needs to consider how the gun is still in service ninety-seven years after they were
first adopted by the United States military.
Likewise, Norinco makes good guns.
And while a piece I wrote months ago exposed variances in tolerance between a standard GI nineteen-eleven (measurement published by Jerry Kuhnhausen), and a ChiCom specimen owned by Sgt. Ernie Aliviado of the Army Reserve, I clearly pointed out that the variance had no perceivable effect on the reliability and accuracy of the Norinco pistol.
PROBABLE ISSUES. The only problem I can see is with the round these newly bought City Hall guns are chambered for. I’ve always been partial to the .45 cal. cartridge. The big, bad forty-five was the gun the nineteen-eleven was originally married to. But my concern goes beyond personal preference.
There have been many instances of guns in .40 cal., not just Glocks but all-steel nineteen-elevens, blowing up in the hands of their owners.
In 99 percent of these incidents, reloaded ammo–and, unfortunately, this is the only kind of ammunition cash-strapped honchos like me and policemen can afford–was used.
This is because the .40 cal. cartridge is so easy to double charge.
The cartridge case is so wide and deep, vis-à-vis the amount of propellant powder needed to power it, that it can be inadvertently given twice the needed amount of propellant powder and nobody, certainly not the shooter, would notice. Well, not until the gun blows up in the shooter’s hands anyway.
This can’t happen in a 9mm cartridge. The cartridge case is so small that if one inadvertently gives it twice the amount of needed propellant, the powder would overflow or fill the case up to the neck.
And on a .45 cal. cartridge, a double-charged round would hardly do any damage. The excess pressure the double-charged round generates would only cause the case to rupture and blow the magazine down and out of the frame, without damaging the pistol or the shooter.
