http://www.tactical-life.com/military-and-police/pennsylvania-state-capitol-police-tavor/
Interesting… why would a law enforcement agency adopt a novelty gun to equip it’s officers when there are superior options available at a lower cost?
What evaluation criteria could you possibly cook up that would leave Tavor at the top of the heap?
How many other platforms were evaluated?
Being that IWI’s U.S. headquarters is located right here in Harrisburg…
Oh…
I hope that picture is not the actual PA State Capital Police and is just some add copy photo. If it is real, do you think they’re planning on activating those X300s with their noses?
I didn’t realize I couldn’t keep my M4 on target while reloading.
Saying the Tavor is a novelty when it has seen more combat than most firearms this century? Might be selling it short.
When has the Tavor ever seen real combat?
(against an armed adversary… and slingshots don’t count)
I still want to know if it passed an actual evaluation board in real trials, or if it was some tax drunk bureaucrat picking up “duh new hawtness.”
I am really not sure if you are serious at this point or not?
You made an absurd statement… can you support it?
ETA: On second thought, since this is in “Other Semi-Automatic Rifles” and I’d rather not get side tracked… let’s stick to the OP/ “Agency Spotlight.”
It’s clearly just free candy for a local cat.
Hopefully they got a good deal from Kassnar so he can boast some professional users.
(…and hopefully they don’t have any procurement regulations.)
PA police departments seem to have an interesting history with long gun procurement. I seem to recall that the PA Highway Patrol had SIG 551-2s at one point.
IWI USA is headquartered in PA I believe. I’m guessing they just made a sweetheart deal to PA PDs. Frankly I’d rather have a Tavor than an AR made by some bottom feeder manufacturer.
I tried to PM you Kev to continue our conversation, but your inbox is full.
Fairfax PD has G36K’s.
I know they did however have to write the spec to disqualify all platforms other than the G36K.
Cleaned.
Only the SERT team had the SIG rifles. They have since switched to the M4 platform. Uniform Troopers use either personally owned AR’s or pool guns.
I don’t own a Tavor, nor do I have plans to do so, and I have no skin in this game. But it’s not like they went with a Kel-Tec. The Tavor is not an entirely unknown quantity.
Who knows, maybe they had some overall length requirement, while also having some muzzle velocity/ballistics requirement that ruled out a short barreled AR/M4.
I’d like to see what the criteria used for evaluation was too.
I own a Tavor and like it a lot. I took a carbine class with mine last year, had zero real problems and learned to like it even more after 1,500 rounds.
BUT, my FIL lives in the Harrisburg PA area and he was at a range when some of the Capitol Police were there with their new Tavors. Apparently the results weren’t very pretty. Hopefully they made it thru the learning curve without too many problems. It’s not a bad law enforcement platform at all, I’d have loved having one in my cruiser thirty years ago.
Hezbollah must be pretty mean with a slingshot to have killed 121 IDF soldiers and 44 Israeli civilians and wounded another two or three thousand in the course of a month…
This. Given the choice between a Bushmaster (or a DPMS or an Olympic or a Rock River or an Eagle-Armalite or…) and a Tavor, I’d take the Tavor.
I understand why someone might hypothetically want to be able to keep a gun on target while reloading, but I prefer to do it in my “workspace”. And I’m not alone in this.
So even if it were true… it’s still not an advantage outside of those (few) schools that teach to keep the gun on target while reloading.
Well, perhaps they wanted a gun with a short overall length (for ease of maneuvering in vehicles and in homes and buildings), a minimum barrel length of 16 inches… IOW a bullpup.
So that means they have the Tavor, the AUG, and the FS2000 (plus several options that are out of production - FAMAS, SA80 - or difficult to import - SAR-21, CR-21). Plus whatever the Kel-Tec thing is.
The Kel-Tec isn’t available yet - and it’s a Kel-Tec. The FS2000 is being or has been dropped from import. And between the AUG and the Tavor, I would only take the AUG if you told me that I’d have to walk into a Jagdkommando NCO club and start badmouthing yodeling, Glock, Steyr, and lederhosen if I don’t pick the AUG (with the understanding that picking the AUG doesn’t mean that I have to goose-step into a Shayetet 13 NCO club and start talking about how the holocaust never happened and what a great guy Hitler was). In fact, I cannot think of a single bullpup currently or previously in production that I would choose over a Tavor, except for collector or novelty value.
Nice to see they’ve adopted it as it will be a good data point to see how it works out for them. That rifle has interested me since its introduction. The Israeli’s tend to do things generally pretty well. I will eventually pick one up to add to one of my safes.
OP- Check your PM.
Really? Fairfax, VA? Didn’t know that.
IWI is in Harrisburg, PA as is the capital. They were given the Tavor’s for free. I have had some time behind the Tavor and I am a certified armorer. I truly believe that with the adaption of the Geissele trigger, the Tavor is a great weapon. Would I choose it over my M16? Nope, but it is a solid choice for a fighting carbine parts wise.
The PA capital police is NOT a tier 1 organization. It is more like a well equipped security company. PA isn’t the greatest when it comes to recognizing police agencies, even it’s own capital security.
And for the record, PA State Police have only ever had Colt 6920’s and 6520’s as issued patrol rifles.
Slightly off topic but IIRC Fairfax actually went to 416s as their special go to gun. Which means nothing as they have the money to get what they want. Edit:Assuming we are talking Fairfax County and not the city of Fairfax)
On topic, for the most part (and hopefully never) police don’t get into protracted firefights like the military. Personally, I tried a Tavor and decided it wasn’t something I’d spend my own money on. No reason or discredit to the rifle, I simply didn’t feel like investing in it. That said, if I had to carry it for road use with a decent red dot; I wouldn’t feel undergunned. It is compact, fits in a car easier, takes a common magazine, and so on. If it comes out that IWI merely gave them a good deal to say “A police agency uses our gear”, that is fine. If they actually spent time and money and found the Tavor to be ‘best’ by its own merits. That is okay too.
It is still a rifle and will still fire a 5.56 and I doubt they would use it past 70 yards if something bad happened. Just overall statistics. Plus I thought the Tavor was built with MOUT and urban warfare in mind anyways
Maybe a Police procurement guy can answer this. Do police agencies have to jump through any Hoops to get SBR’s and suppressors? If so, maybe a Tavor would make some sense?
This day and age and time and budgets and Operation choke hold and ……most agencies would be happy to get any new toys, as long as they ran and were properly trained.
I think all these all bull pups …Augs …are cool even though the triggers typically SUCK, but a SBR owner is hard pressed to consider such a weapon. Or this one is.
PB