I'm trying to find out what mods the FBI made to the M-1076 before they bagged the program. I've heard they asked for the mag safety to be dropped, but don't know if it's true. Also, I've heard that S&W had a recall on the 1076, but I've not been able to find out what it was. Any and all info would be appreciated, as I'm in the process of looking to buy a 1076. Thanks in advance.
S&W 1076
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I am not sure what Mod's the FBI made, but I know there are alot of the FBI traded in guns that hit the marketplace a number of years ago. IIRC Davidson's in Prescott AZ ended up with em. At that time I got in and moved over 10 of em to friends. I think I kept one for myself, but I would have to check my A&D book.
Mike
Mike
According to The Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson by Supica and Nahas, the 1076-FBI Version was built without a magazine disconnector, with two-dot modified sight and a special trigger group. All have the early 3rd triggerguard.
11- and 15-shot mags were supplied extra but never available outside the FBI contract.
An original order of 10,000 was placed, but early samples were rejected by FBI and sent to S&W for rework and the contract was reaccepted in 1993.
Approx. 2,400 finally delivered in 1990 [sic].
Product codes for the FBI Purchase guns: 105901, 105018, 108259.
11- and 15-shot mags were supplied extra but never available outside the FBI contract.
An original order of 10,000 was placed, but early samples were rejected by FBI and sent to S&W for rework and the contract was reaccepted in 1993.
Approx. 2,400 finally delivered in 1990 [sic].
Product codes for the FBI Purchase guns: 105901, 105018, 108259.
And about the recall...
you can read the recall notice here:
http://www.firearmsid.com/Recalls/FA_Recalls%205.htm
you can read the recall notice here:
http://www.firearmsid.com/Recalls/FA_Recalls%205.htm
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I was involved in the 1076 quite a bit back then.
The easy way to identify FBI pistols compared to regular production is the magazine disconnector. FBI guns do not have them, civilian guns do.
In all, three different iterations were delivered to the FBI. The first 200 guns had serial numbers beginning with "TEU" and were test samples. They did not have night sights.
Based upon feedback on those guns some changes were made. The most visible is a change in the slide stop pin to prevent it from interfering with the decocker. The pin has the same dimensions, but the rear portion of the area you hit was blended in to get some clearance with the decocker. These had night sights. They also developed an optional set of grips that had a slight palm swell and a more arched backstrap (thing 1911 arched housing).
The third version which is the one that was actually issued to street agents was supposedly assembled in the Performance Center but I do not remember any sighnificant mechanical differences. These also has night sights. When the program ended individual agents were able to buy their guns and some continued to carry them for quite a while.
Rob is right about the magazines although very few of the 15 rounders were made and none were issued. One or two may have escaped ...
If you do not have the original box, most of which were marked "FBI", the only clues will be the magazine safety or a factory letter.
Many of the guns I have seen that were reported to be FBI were civilian.
The easy way to identify FBI pistols compared to regular production is the magazine disconnector. FBI guns do not have them, civilian guns do.
In all, three different iterations were delivered to the FBI. The first 200 guns had serial numbers beginning with "TEU" and were test samples. They did not have night sights.
Based upon feedback on those guns some changes were made. The most visible is a change in the slide stop pin to prevent it from interfering with the decocker. The pin has the same dimensions, but the rear portion of the area you hit was blended in to get some clearance with the decocker. These had night sights. They also developed an optional set of grips that had a slight palm swell and a more arched backstrap (thing 1911 arched housing).
The third version which is the one that was actually issued to street agents was supposedly assembled in the Performance Center but I do not remember any sighnificant mechanical differences. These also has night sights. When the program ended individual agents were able to buy their guns and some continued to carry them for quite a while.
Rob is right about the magazines although very few of the 15 rounders were made and none were issued. One or two may have escaped ...
If you do not have the original box, most of which were marked "FBI", the only clues will be the magazine safety or a factory letter.
Many of the guns I have seen that were reported to be FBI were civilian.
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This is a subject to which I can clearly warm…
Upon recollection and information, as this was an on-going story I worked during my tenure at GW, the original contract between the FBI and Smith & Wesson called for 9600 "Models 1076-NMS," being as Rob notes without S&W's traditional magazine disconnecting safety (that's the "NMS" part), the Quantico-specified sights and a trigger (here's the rub) with a non-S&W-standard release point meant to accommodate the then-FBI instructed "trigger-prepping" presentation [VIOLATION OF RULE #3]. I'm unsure about the trigger guard which Rob's research references, but I don't think it was the recurved version… some of the earlier ThirdGen (AIP) S&W's had them, but Tom Marx was instrumental in getting that feature consigned to the scrap heap in the rear yard of 2100 Roosevelt Avenue.
These went to Quantico in fits and spurts throughout 1990, but in the first five months of 1991, three events occurred… two on ranges in Oklahoma City and Tampa, one in a potentially "hot" situation in Miami (yeah! imagine that!)… where the pistols "froze up" so seriously that they had to be shipped back to Massachusetts for repair.
The event which quite directly signaled the beginning of the end for the Models 1076-NMS came when the Miami unit went into the field after a bank robber. The op went well… no shots were fired, an arrest was made… but when the team returned to HQ and one of the SAs attempted to clear his weapon, he couldn't! The slide was locked shut on a chambered round.
On 31 May 1991 an unhappy S&W and the FBI jointly issued a recall announcement, and all the Models 1076-NMS accepted to that point were returned en masse to Springfield for remedial work, and some additional "tweaking" that Quantico decided they desired beyond the "lock-up" problems.
The FBI immediately issued a contract to SIGArms for 1,000 Models P226, with an option for 1,000 more… which they exercised at the same time. (Before the year was out, they "piggy-backed" on a DEA contract and acquired 5,000 Models P228 since the Congressional oversight process frowned on excessive "emergency acquisitions" such as the one let that first week in June.)
In the subsequent months, while CeePee and I quietly heard the FBI's progress reports from our respective sources at Quantico, and I filed regular Industry Intelligencer updates, S&W was in a bind… our pal Sherry Collins (a/k/a "Scorpia Mossmoon" in her earlier dayglo and tie-die days), the company flack-catcher, tried to but the best face on the issue, back-grounding us that the source of the problem was "that $#%*&^@ special trigger the Feds demanded!" Hers was a tough job… but she was uniquely equipped for it. A hard-drinking, salty-speaking gal (her vocabulary suggested that between her days as a flower child and her entrance, first into into the insurance industry before landing at S&W, she'd done a seasoning tour on the back of a Harley) who easily connected with the gunwriter crew, she was never reticent about back-grounding any of us on what was going on, although invariably with a weather eye on which side her bread was buttered.
S&W… this was on the Steve "I propose, you depose!" Melvin¹ watch… was corporately ham-strung. They had had the FBI "bragging rights," and were embarrassed as Hell at the failure of the Models 1076-NMS… which they were institutionally convinced was as a result of Quantico's insistence on the non-standard trigger group. (Well, hey! Steve, accept the contract, deliver a working product!) But they didn't want to damage their relationship with the FBI, so they were pretty much forced to suck it up and say nothing that would engender further hard feelings.
Between the end of May 1991 and October 1992, the Performance Center, Paul Liebenberg presiding, worked diligently at a "fix" for that trigger problem, as well as other "modifications requested²." My guy in Quantico was pretty constant in his "Any day now" responses to my regular inquiries as to progress on the Models 1076-NMS front, always very careful to not knock S&W. (But at the same time, letting slip tidbits which suggested that the FBI was starting to get interested in the .40 S&W platform which, ironically, Melvin had directed be developed after the FBI had specified a "down-loaded" 10mm round for their duty load. This is a fascinating and complex multi-faceted story which Charlie was in on well before I got into it, and part of this is related in his "The Far Reaching Effects of that Miami Firefight" story.)
Finally, in Fall 1992, the FBI was sufficiently satisfied with the Models 1076-NMS rev.3 that they were willing to accept approximately 2500 of them them for issue… but much time had elapsed, and their 10mm program was, if not moribund, then stalled. The .40 S&W was an enlarging blip on the radar screen for a number of reasons, and some years later, was adopted.
There were, when last I spoke with Quantico on the subject, a relatively modest number of those Models 1076-NMS in service³… I think it was about 400-500 as of November 2002… but those were "grandfathered holdovers," and no new ones had been issued in years.
I never got a hold of one of those almost mythical 15-round magazines, but I do have one of the "palm swell" lexan stocks Charlie has referenced.
¹.- Commonly referred to as "Ol' Gun o'the Week Melvin."…
².- An example: many of the guns were rejected on the basis of an "off center firing pin strike." And, in fact, many strikes were off dead center by a few thousandths of an inch that had absolutely no harmful effect.
³.- But then the FBI's roster of authorized duty guns and "Special Agents Personally-Owned Pistols" is surprisingly eclectic, and far more extensive than it once was.
Upon recollection and information, as this was an on-going story I worked during my tenure at GW, the original contract between the FBI and Smith & Wesson called for 9600 "Models 1076-NMS," being as Rob notes without S&W's traditional magazine disconnecting safety (that's the "NMS" part), the Quantico-specified sights and a trigger (here's the rub) with a non-S&W-standard release point meant to accommodate the then-FBI instructed "trigger-prepping" presentation [VIOLATION OF RULE #3]. I'm unsure about the trigger guard which Rob's research references, but I don't think it was the recurved version… some of the earlier ThirdGen (AIP) S&W's had them, but Tom Marx was instrumental in getting that feature consigned to the scrap heap in the rear yard of 2100 Roosevelt Avenue.
These went to Quantico in fits and spurts throughout 1990, but in the first five months of 1991, three events occurred… two on ranges in Oklahoma City and Tampa, one in a potentially "hot" situation in Miami (yeah! imagine that!)… where the pistols "froze up" so seriously that they had to be shipped back to Massachusetts for repair.
The event which quite directly signaled the beginning of the end for the Models 1076-NMS came when the Miami unit went into the field after a bank robber. The op went well… no shots were fired, an arrest was made… but when the team returned to HQ and one of the SAs attempted to clear his weapon, he couldn't! The slide was locked shut on a chambered round.
On 31 May 1991 an unhappy S&W and the FBI jointly issued a recall announcement, and all the Models 1076-NMS accepted to that point were returned en masse to Springfield for remedial work, and some additional "tweaking" that Quantico decided they desired beyond the "lock-up" problems.
The FBI immediately issued a contract to SIGArms for 1,000 Models P226, with an option for 1,000 more… which they exercised at the same time. (Before the year was out, they "piggy-backed" on a DEA contract and acquired 5,000 Models P228 since the Congressional oversight process frowned on excessive "emergency acquisitions" such as the one let that first week in June.)
In the subsequent months, while CeePee and I quietly heard the FBI's progress reports from our respective sources at Quantico, and I filed regular Industry Intelligencer updates, S&W was in a bind… our pal Sherry Collins (a/k/a "Scorpia Mossmoon" in her earlier dayglo and tie-die days), the company flack-catcher, tried to but the best face on the issue, back-grounding us that the source of the problem was "that $#%*&^@ special trigger the Feds demanded!" Hers was a tough job… but she was uniquely equipped for it. A hard-drinking, salty-speaking gal (her vocabulary suggested that between her days as a flower child and her entrance, first into into the insurance industry before landing at S&W, she'd done a seasoning tour on the back of a Harley) who easily connected with the gunwriter crew, she was never reticent about back-grounding any of us on what was going on, although invariably with a weather eye on which side her bread was buttered.
S&W… this was on the Steve "I propose, you depose!" Melvin¹ watch… was corporately ham-strung. They had had the FBI "bragging rights," and were embarrassed as Hell at the failure of the Models 1076-NMS… which they were institutionally convinced was as a result of Quantico's insistence on the non-standard trigger group. (Well, hey! Steve, accept the contract, deliver a working product!) But they didn't want to damage their relationship with the FBI, so they were pretty much forced to suck it up and say nothing that would engender further hard feelings.
Between the end of May 1991 and October 1992, the Performance Center, Paul Liebenberg presiding, worked diligently at a "fix" for that trigger problem, as well as other "modifications requested²." My guy in Quantico was pretty constant in his "Any day now" responses to my regular inquiries as to progress on the Models 1076-NMS front, always very careful to not knock S&W. (But at the same time, letting slip tidbits which suggested that the FBI was starting to get interested in the .40 S&W platform which, ironically, Melvin had directed be developed after the FBI had specified a "down-loaded" 10mm round for their duty load. This is a fascinating and complex multi-faceted story which Charlie was in on well before I got into it, and part of this is related in his "The Far Reaching Effects of that Miami Firefight" story.)
Finally, in Fall 1992, the FBI was sufficiently satisfied with the Models 1076-NMS rev.3 that they were willing to accept approximately 2500 of them them for issue… but much time had elapsed, and their 10mm program was, if not moribund, then stalled. The .40 S&W was an enlarging blip on the radar screen for a number of reasons, and some years later, was adopted.
There were, when last I spoke with Quantico on the subject, a relatively modest number of those Models 1076-NMS in service³… I think it was about 400-500 as of November 2002… but those were "grandfathered holdovers," and no new ones had been issued in years.
I never got a hold of one of those almost mythical 15-round magazines, but I do have one of the "palm swell" lexan stocks Charlie has referenced.
<-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=->
¹.- Commonly referred to as "Ol' Gun o'the Week Melvin."…
².- An example: many of the guns were rejected on the basis of an "off center firing pin strike." And, in fact, many strikes were off dead center by a few thousandths of an inch that had absolutely no harmful effect.
³.- But then the FBI's roster of authorized duty guns and "Special Agents Personally-Owned Pistols" is surprisingly eclectic, and far more extensive than it once was.
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Great post Dean... although my life could have passed pleasureably without any further mention of Collins.
I was in a very interesting position to observe all of the back and forth and it really became a black comedy of errors. First S&W would step on their corporate johnson and then the FBI would.
There was also an incredible internal political struggle and evidenced by the firing pin hits you mention. That became a major cause celebre and the fact that it did absolutely no harm was conveniently overlooked by the gun vault.
I know where those grips ought to be.
I was in a very interesting position to observe all of the back and forth and it really became a black comedy of errors. First S&W would step on their corporate johnson and then the FBI would.
There was also an incredible internal political struggle and evidenced by the firing pin hits you mention. That became a major cause celebre and the fact that it did absolutely no harm was conveniently overlooked by the gun vault.
I know where those grips ought to be.
G
Guest
·funniest part of Miami fiasco was
the recommendation that guys 'fall back" upon the "penetration" offered by the 158 gr plus P 38,when 4 out o4 of such rds, from 3-6 ft from the muzzle of a 4" revolver, failed to pierce the craniums of the robbers. Mirules walked right up to 2, unarmed, bled out men, and fired 6 execution style shots into their heads. two of those bulles, one per man, deflected down into their necks, severing major blood vessels and killing them.
the recommendation that guys 'fall back" upon the "penetration" offered by the 158 gr plus P 38,when 4 out o4 of such rds, from 3-6 ft from the muzzle of a 4" revolver, failed to pierce the craniums of the robbers. Mirules walked right up to 2, unarmed, bled out men, and fired 6 execution style shots into their heads. two of those bulles, one per man, deflected down into their necks, severing major blood vessels and killing them.
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Actually I wish he would... :007:
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Erratum…
…in re "funniest part of Miami fiasco was"…
That said, the quoted post is demonstrably replete with factual errors. The good information may be found in The Ultimate After Action Report! (he posts modestly as possible under the circumstances).
…in re "funniest part of Miami fiasco was"…
In the hard-won wisdom which usually comes with age, it's usually best to let moribund mutts remain at rest, but experience has also demonstrated that an uncorrected record too often propagates as a verity.the former Member known as 'jumpy' said:
That said, the quoted post is demonstrably replete with factual errors. The good information may be found in The Ultimate After Action Report! (he posts modestly as possible under the circumstances).
M-1076 Responses
Gentlemen:
Thanks for the great and informative responses. At least I'll know what to look for when I see a used M-1076. I've owned a 1006 for a number of years, and I'm thinking of 'downsizing' to the 1076 now, plus I really prefer the decocker on the frame rather than the slide. Any thoughts (pro or con) on the 1076 will be appreciated.
Harvey
Gentlemen:
Thanks for the great and informative responses.
At least I'll know what to look for when I see a used M-1076. I've owned a 1006 for a number of years, and I'm thinking of 'downsizing' to the 1076 now, plus I really prefer the decocker on the frame rather than the slide. Any thoughts (pro or con) on the 1076 will be appreciated.Harvey
Other law enforcement 10mm's
The Virginia State Police purchased S&W 10mm's in the early 1990's(I'm almost certain they were Model 1076's), and within a short time, had switched to a SIG 9mm. My recollection is that the VSP pistols had feeding problems. I don't know whether the FBI-style triggers were used in these pistols.
The Kentucky State Police recently traded in their 10mm's (I believe these were the mid-size models with slide-mounted decockers). The KSP may have been the last large agency to issue this caliber.
Initially, KSP selected a S&W .45 auto, but, according to news reports, had so many problems, the contract was cancelled and .40 Glocks were purchased (troopers were already issued a Glock 27 as a back-up/off-duty pistol). For a while, there were a lot of ex-KSP 10mm and .45's on the used market, many of the .45's may have been unfired.
The Virginia State Police purchased S&W 10mm's in the early 1990's(I'm almost certain they were Model 1076's), and within a short time, had switched to a SIG 9mm. My recollection is that the VSP pistols had feeding problems. I don't know whether the FBI-style triggers were used in these pistols.
The Kentucky State Police recently traded in their 10mm's (I believe these were the mid-size models with slide-mounted decockers). The KSP may have been the last large agency to issue this caliber.
Initially, KSP selected a S&W .45 auto, but, according to news reports, had so many problems, the contract was cancelled and .40 Glocks were purchased (troopers were already issued a Glock 27 as a back-up/off-duty pistol). For a while, there were a lot of ex-KSP 10mm and .45's on the used market, many of the .45's may have been unfired.
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It is my understanding that VA bought the same thing as the FBI. I know they didn't last long there but there was little public notice of the passing. I don't know why.
Dean- or anyone- do you know the disposition of the various FBI guns? I'm pretty sure many of the third batch were bought by agents but wonder how many reached the commercial market. I am also guessing that quite a few were scrapped.
Dean- or anyone- do you know the disposition of the various FBI guns? I'm pretty sure many of the third batch were bought by agents but wonder how many reached the commercial market. I am also guessing that quite a few were scrapped.
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10mm Information pages
According to the "10mm Information Pages" the refurbished FBI models were available through the year 1996. It doesn't say but I'm assuming (I know, I know) that means from S&W.
There's a great deal of information on that site abuot the various guns that were manufactured for the 10mm as well as a listing of agencies that adapted the 10 as a standard issue. Of course the pages are very old and have not been updated in sometime.
Ed
According to the "10mm Information Pages" the refurbished FBI models were available through the year 1996. It doesn't say but I'm assuming (I know, I know) that means from S&W.
There's a great deal of information on that site abuot the various guns that were manufactured for the 10mm as well as a listing of agencies that adapted the 10 as a standard issue. Of course the pages are very old and have not been updated in sometime.
Ed
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That's true but those weren't trade-ins and if the agents didn't buy them they went back to S&W. What I'm more curious about is what happened to the first two groups. I'll do some checkinhg.
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