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Guns Magazine, August, 2004 by Charles E. Petty
There is always going to be debate over what are the right supplementary guns for law enforcement. Shotguns are commonly found in patrol cars riding along with officers who hate them. What we don't see as often are rifles or carbines, but that's beginning to change.
Right now I am working with the Beretta Cx4 Storm, a compact semiautomatic carbine available in 9mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP. It follows a precedent set way back in 1873 when--we are told--cowboys carried a single-action revolver and lever action carbine or rifle chambered for the same cartridge.
Perhaps the greatest fallacy in the cowboy mythology was that the longer barrel gave more power. While it is often true that longer barrels generate higher velocities with handgun cartridges, it is not something upon which one would want to bet too much money. I've seen it more than once: A pistol cartridge traveling slower out of a 16-inch barrel than it did from one that was just 4 inches in length.
There's no mystery here, the fast burning pistol powder was consumed prior to exiting the barrel and the principles of gas expansion and friction did the rest. In order to keep accelerating, a bullet needs gas behind it that is expanding more rapidly than the volume of the bore behind the bullet is increasing. Gun barrels are just like any other pressure driven machines, pressure decreases as volume increases. The other enemy is friction, which wastes energy by converting it to heat.
Why The Long Gun?
But if the cowboys didn't get more power by stuffing their cartridges into a carbine, why would they bother? It has never been, nor will it ever be, the case that anything other than accuracy will win a gunfight. It is so elementary. The carbine multiplied the effective range of the same cartridge by a huge factor. In the cowboy days gunfights were mostly close encounters of the worst kind and there is little difference today with most still taking place within seven yards. But if we look at statistics of rounds fired versus hits, even at that close range there are more misses than hits.
Stretch it out a bit and it only gets worse. Most law enforcement handgun training is limited to 25 yards, but once in a blue moon something two or three times that distance needs shooting. Or maybe, like the West Hollywood bank robbery, they need shooting in a real small spot--like a head--and at 50 yards.
And in that event there was much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth because the officer's weapons did not have enough power to defeat the body armor worn by the bad guys. That may be true, but totally ignores the other part of the equation--accuracy. This is not meant to be critical of the cops there either for you could plainly see their bullets hitting without effect. They were simply beyond the accurate range of most handguns.
Only Hits Count
We get lessons from the strangest places sometimes. I was browsing through the October 20, 2003 issue of Time Magazine and a headline on page 18 stopped me cold. It said, in letters .35" tall, "SPEED IS NOTHING WITHOUT ACCURACY." It was an ad for the Reuters news agency, but their point applies to gun stuff too.
Shooters today demand things that are often counterproductive to the use of a firearm. People want big calibers, more power, velocity and lighter weight. All of those are counterproductive things which make accuracy a more difficult job. The simple truth is that one guy with a good .22 rifle could have solved the Hollywood problem just by putting little bullets in the places that weren't covered. Accuracy always wins.
So here's the case for the Beretta or similar carbines. They multiply the effective range of even the most marginally qualified shooter. I've seen police officers who could barely qualify at 25 yards with a handgun simply cat the heart out of a target at twice that distance with a carbine. And with a little training (and good sights) do head shots that far or further.
The Beretta Cx4 Storm shows us how far we've come with the use of high tech polymers and the molding of complex shapes. It is racy and black but really handles well. It will be available in 9mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP. The action is straight blowback and, of course, it uses magazines from Beretta's pistols of the same caliber. The molded stock is the most striking feature with what amounts to an exaggerated thumbhole, but it's well shaped and fits both hand and shoulder nicely. There are spacers to adjust length of pull if you wish.
Ambi-Operation
A major feature and selling point is the fact the gun has many ambidextrous controls. The user can easily convert from right to left side ejection and bolt operation. With some blowback guns this would be a big deal but, frankly, it was no trouble to shoot from either side with the brass ejecting in front of your face. The ejection pattern is forward at about a 45-degree angle so brass doesn't bounce off your nose. Nor were there any of the unpleasant gas and powder particles sometimes discharged by blowback designs that let the bolt open a little too early.
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