THE SHERIFF, THE GUN MAKER, AND THE ZERO DEFECT ENVIRONMENT

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My experience with Adams Arms and Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office

I watched the recent coverage of Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri ordering the removal of all agency purchased Adams Arms rifles from service with more than passing curiosity. I was a deputy in the training division at Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office during the process of the agency procuring those rifles. As the story goes, a rifle failed to fire at the range, prompting the sheriff to pull the rifles from the street. He demanded Adams Arms refund $300,000 for all of the rifles or he would be forced to sue them. When the story finally escaped the vacuum of the agency’s political self preservation the public was fed inaccurate information by the main parties involved, transparency and all that. The media was eager to report this “information”. Continue reading and you well learn that one of these rifles failing to fire is far from the most dangerous thing we faced when the rifles were forced on us. 

Perhaps the topic of hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds being squandered, or deputies knowingly being issued faulty and unsafe firearms isn’t a big deal to you. To me it is, and I am not soon to forget the level of frustration I encountered during my portion of the debacle. To that end, this isn’t an exact timeline and I will be as accurate as my recollections and few reference materials will allow. 

I was forced to resign in early 2017 after some memes and photo/video that were deemed inappropriate were recovered from my personal phone during an IA case I was part of. The sheriff used unprecedented zeal in getting rid of me. That is another story altogether and best reserved for part of book, if I ever get around to writing it. Although I resigned without discipline and kept my law enforcement certification my nearly 24 year career was essentially over. 

I was assigned as a full time high liability trainer in law enforcement training/support service from 2010 until my resignation in 2017. From 2012 until my resignation I was the lead rifle instructor for the agency. From 2014 or 2015 until the end of my career I was the corporal and lead high liability instructor in law enforcement training. My duties as the lead rifle instructor continued while I served in this capacity. I did, in fact, write the rifle/carbine manual for the agency. 

In 2013(?) our armory took delivery of 20 Adams Arms rifles for issue to deputies. A newly transferred corrections deputy assigned to corrections training had more than a passing interest in Adams Arms. He convinced the support services Lieutenant and Major to “try” the rifles. At the time we had no need for additional rifles, having at least 50 plus available in our armory at any given time. I would describe the carbine program at that time as fairly robust. Generally, deputies that wanted a rifle had one. We put on

several carbine schools per year to accommodate them. We issued agency owned Rock River Arms, Colts, or Bushmasters, the majority being Rock River Arms from a large purchase of them in 2005/2006. Deputies could also provide their own rifle for duty use as long as they qualified with it and their rifle was on our approved list. 

We issued the Adams Arms rifles during the next subsequent carbine school that I taught. Two of the rifles failed due to broken parts. Those failures should have been a giant clue. The rest survived the class. I reported that although minimally acceptable overall, the flip-up sights were substandard and I saw no advantage with the rifles compared to what we were already using. During this class we had to deal with personnel from Adams Arms attempting to take pictures of the class holding their Adams Arms rifles. I wouldn’t let them take the picture and told the corrections trainer to not invite them back to our range. I briefly had one of these rifles issued to me but ultimately returned it to the armory. Again, the rifle and its piston driven operating system offered no benefit over the rifle I was previously issued. 

In late 2015 or early 2016 the sheriff decreed that all deputies who could potentially respond to calls for service or emergencies would be issued a rifle. My sergeant told me that the sheriff knew we would have to buy more rifles and we were going to begin the process of finding a rifle to recommend to the sheriff. 

I obtained one of our existing Rock River Arms and Adams Arms rifles from our inventory. I also received Test & Evaluation rifles from Sig Arms, FN Herstal and Smith and Wesson. Colt and Remington were unresponsive to my requests and Bushmaster was now defunct. For the next several months, leading up to a staff meeting where a rifle had to be recommended, the rifles were shot whenever the opportunity presented itself. We kept the rifles accessible at the range and encouraged deputies who were at the range attending training to shoot them. All of the law enforcement training staff shot the rifles also. 

The rifles were essentially the same except for minor nuances like handguards or grips, with the exception of the operating system of the Adams Arms rifle. Nearly to a man (woman) the deputies choose the S&W M&P. It was the smoothest shooting rifle, it was lightweight and overall our personnel liked it. Of the 5 rifles we tested, Adams Arms was the least popular. There was no written evaluation or ranking for the testing we did. This was an oversight on our part as we were told Training could pick whatever rifle we wanted for the agency. 

I knew the S&W rep for our region from previously meeting him at a product demo at our range. I recall his name was Brandon. The price he quoted me was significantly less than $800 per rifle. That included a suitable sling, three 30 round magazines and our choice of stock colors; green, black or tan. More important to me was S&W’s ability to support their product through their renowned customer service. S&W also had the production capability to provide us with 50 to 500 rifles within a week’s time. During this time I was able to successfully pitch the idea of including a red dot on all of the agency’s new, issued rifles. I T&E’d an Aimpoint Pro and the bosses signed off on my review and recommendation of the optic. We later obtained these red dot sights through a local vendor.

Around this time I noted that the chief deputy came to the range to qualify with a new Adams Arms rifle. While I called the line for his qualification he explained that he ran into the previous Pasco County Sheriff at the Florida Sheriffs Association meeting, or similar event. The chief said the past sheriff was now a law enforcement representative for Adams Arms and had a booth set up near the main meeting room for the event and was showcasing the Adams Arms rifles. The chief said he really liked the company and now had several of their rifles, to include one in .308 for hunting. I commented that in our (Training’s) experience, their rifles were not that great and were fairly lackluster overall. I told him in my experience their was far better on the market. If looks could kill. 

I subsequently ran the range while several other sheriff’s staff members and showed up with new Adams Arms rifles. Several of them were not people I would consider “gun types”. 

In 2016 my sergeant attended one of the sheriff’s staff meetings where he was to present our recommendation for the new rifle. He returned from this meeting to our offices with a dazed and what I would describe as a shocked look on his face. He called me into his office and closed the door. 

He explained that he was giving his results of our testing to the sheriff and explained that we were recommending the Smith & Wesson M&P 15 rifle. He began by explaining how we came to that conclusion and what the per unit cost would be when he was suddenly interrupted by the chief deputy. The chief reportedly admonished the sergeant for even considering any company other than Adams Arms. The Asst Chief Deputy piled on and lectured the sergeant that we had previously tested Adams Arms rifles, apparently a reference to the class equipped with Adams Arms rifles several years ago, and that's what we, the agency, would go with. 

The chief deputy then reportedly told the sheriff that Adams Arms was the “only company that made a piston driven AR”, making it the best rifle available from a sole source vendor. Even better, they were located next door in Pasco County. With that, the sheriff directed the sergeant to obtain rifles from Adams Arms, via Purchasing. 

I was stunned. Anything we tested had a far better and proven pedigree than Adams Arms. I pleaded with him to try talking to the sheriff. He said he couldn't do that and we had our orders. I told him the chief deputy had more than average knowledge of firearms and he had to know Adams Arms rifles were unacceptable for law enforcement duty use. I told him I heard Adams Arms wasn’t paying their bills or their employees and they were having significant quality control issues. The sergeant told me it was too late, that's what we were getting. I recall the cost of the Adams Arms rifles being just over $1000 per rifle. 

We subsequently toured the Adams Arms factory. The staff that we spoke with seemed to have more interest in the pistol slides they were machining for Salient Arms than rifles. I’m not aware of any of our training division members knowing anything about production or manufacturing to have the ability to evaluate the facility. I recall that the employee repairing returned rifles appeared to have plenty of rifles that needed service. We were shown the test firing facility which was constructed from a CONEX box with bullet trap material at one end. The staff explained that “every” rifle was test fired before it leaves the facility.

We began trying to identify every deputy that was required to have a rifle and the daunting task of scheduling carbine schools at our already busy and sometimes overbooked range. I was given the ultimatum that every deputy had to get a rifle and attend carbine school by Christmas of 2016. Why that specific date was chosen is beyond me. 

In late summer or early fall of 2016, we received or first shipment of Adams Arms rifles. In our squad bay my sergeant called me over to him. He removed an Adams Arms AA-15 from a rifle bag. It was equipped with a Magpul 2 point/single point convertible sling and an Aimpoint Pro optic. Included with the rifles were three new Magpul Pmags or Lancer magazines. He handed me the rifle and said “That’s the one, I’m on my way to show it to the sheriff at his staff meeting”. Out of habit I insured it was empty and then performed a basic function check. I was startled when the hammer fell as I released the trigger to reset it. I tried it again and received the same result. I attempted to extend the collapsable stock and found it stuck in place. I handed it back to the sergeant and told him “I don’t know how much the sheriff knows about AR’s but don't show him that one, it fires when you reset the trigger”. The sergeant replied “No way” as he performed the same function check. He received the same result and began to panic. 

We went to the armory and I observed new Adams Arms rifles everywhere. I believe we received 110 in the first shipment. As we randomly began checking the rifles for function we found something wrong with nearly all of them. The buffer tubes were out of spec, or the stocks were, and the stocks would not extend or collapse on a large portion of them. Some of the selector levers were nearly impossible to manipulate, etc. etc. In my opinion the gravest concern was that the rifles were unpredictable in reference to the hammer dropping upon resetting the trigger. Also, with the selector on FIRE numerous rifles would fire if one applied the slightest amount of rearward pressure on the trigger and then released the trigger. To me this problem was indicative of out of spec trigger components. 

The sergeant found a suitable example and made it to the staff meeting to showcase the agency’s new rifle. Behind the scenes one of the armorers began making phone calls to Adams Arms, as did my sergeant. I was told the assistant chief deputy had also called Adams Arms. It appeared to me that they were in a panic. Soon after this delivery our armorer’s point of contact at Adams Arms quit and reportedly took a job as an armorer with a federal agency. 

I was at the range the following day when one of the corrections trainers assigned to the armory arrived to test fire several of the new rifles. I asked him to load only one round and then two rounds etc. in the magazine until he determined the specific rifle was functioning properly. I watched as he loaded one of the rifles and it fired in fully automatic, expending all the rounds he put in the magazine. Full Auto was not a design feature of the gun. I recall he found something wrong with all of the rifles he brought out to shoot. 

The following week at the range we were forced to move our inservice class at the range out of the classroom to the break area first thing in the morning. Our classroom had been taken over by representatives from Adams Arms and our armorers. They were collectively going through the rifles and reportedly replacing parts in the lower receivers as deemed necessary. I was astounded and vocal. I had

lost friends in this job and I took the deputy’s safety very seriously, and personally. I asked my sergeant why on earth we were doing this when we should cut our losses, return the rifles and get something else. He cautioned me to not get in trouble with my opinions. He said Adams Arms told them they simply received a bad batch of parts. 

I recall that even after the rifles were “repaired” we still had problems with them. The sights weren’t mounted properly on some of them, Some rifles were difficult to charge or function and some magazine wells were out of spec, making inserting a magazine difficult, and on some impossible. On some examples that I fired I noted that the rifles would not reliably function with frangible ammunition if there was any type of pressure applied to the magazine. I relied heavily on frangible ammunition for inservice training for rifles and handguns. In hundreds of semi-auto “AR” type rifles I only recall one other not working with frangible ammunition. That was a deputy’s personally owned Sig MCX. Some of the Adams Arms rifles suffered the same malfunction with frangible, 55 Gr XM193 ball and our duty round, a Federal 55 gr bonded soft point. 

At this point I was at a loss about what to do about it. I emailed and send text messages to my sergeant expressing my dismay. I emailed or sent a text of video of this specific malfunction to my sergeant and lieutenant. 

I believe it was the following week, or possibly the week after, when all the law enforcement and corrections trainers were summoned to the sheriff’s range. When we arrived we were met by the support services captain. He told us he was there to supervise us shooting some of the Adams Arms rifles to see if they were “as bad” as I, yours truly, was making them out to be, or if I was just mad that the sheriff didn’t pick the rifle I liked. (On a side note this was one of the most stunning Catcher in the Rye moments I recall experiencing in my Alice in Wonderland world of law enforcement). 

We were each given three of the Adams Arms rifles. For each rifle we were to shoot 200 or 300 55 grain XM193 practice rounds, 200 or 300 Federal 55 gr bonded SP and the equivalent number of frangible ammunition. We were to note the malfunction and where it occurred in the round count for the specific ammunition and rifle. We had approximately 15 trainers on the 25 yard line. Each mindlessly banging away hundreds of rounds and thousands of dollars worth of ammunition in a pointless exercise to see if I was exaggerating the issues with the rifles. I recall that the malfunctions and problems were frequent enough that the captain soon lost his ability to keep track of our results and record them in his notebook. We expended approximately 30,000 rounds that day. That was approximately the amount of ammunition we would use in three carbine schools. 

After the “test” the captain pointed out to me that when someone shoots an AR type rifle they were not supposed to let the magazine touch anything anyway so that specific problem wasn't a big deal. I demonstrated how we were teaching deputies to shoot prone with the magazine touching the deck. I explained that technique was never an issue with a properly functioning rifle. I also demonstrated how easy it was for the deputy to inadvertently touch the magazine of their rifle to their cruiser or other obstruction they were shooting near.

I retrieved an old, beat up and barely maintained Bushmaster AR15 I kept in a safe at the range for demonstrations to the public, etc. I loaded a duty round, practice round and frangible round in that basic sequence until I filled a 30 round magazine. I then fired all 30 as fast as I could pull the trigger. I explained the condition of the rifle and its approximate service life with us, 15 years, and it still functioned perfectly, with all three types of ammunition. The captain wasn't impressed, and in hindsight I once again wasn’t doing myself any favors. 

We were given our orders. If we encountered a problem with a rifle we were to notify the assistant chief deputy. The calls were so frequent that this order soon morphed into eventually just telling the armorer and then just taking care of it ourselves by returning the rifle in question to the armory. 

I completed a memorandum and gave it to my sergeant. In it I wrote that I had no confidence in the rifles and in good faith I was very uncomfortable issuing the rifles to our deputies. 

Around this time my sergeant showed me a video he recorded at SWAT training the night before on his mobile phone. The video depicted a newer SWAT member who had been issued an Adams Arms rifle during carbine school. He was part of the class that was equipped with all Adams Arms rifles in 2013. He was using his patrol rifle until he could attend submachine gun school. His rifle was now shooting in 3 and 4 round bursts. 

I pleaded with the sergeant to talk to somebody about this. He told me his last conversation with the assistant chief about the rifles ended with the assistant chief ordering the sergeant to “make it work”. Further, the assistant chief reportedly told him the “program was not allowed to fail”. My sergeant ordered me to no longer complain or voice my concerns to him or anyone else about the rifles. 

We began teaching carbine school to the masses in October 2016. We worked doubles nearly everyday in an effort to get every law enforcement deputy through carbine school by December 23rd, our cutoff date. We worked approximately $63,000 worth of overtime and comp time during that period of time. Mandatory overtime. We were forced to bring in trainers who had no experience with rifles to teach some of the classes. The instruction in some of these classes was not of the same quality as the previous ones. Although the rifles were performing better they were still far from what I would call duty grade. Rifles that we determined were not performing had to be returned to Adams Arms. This occurred frequently enough that one of our trainers, who had a lockable box in his take-home vehicle and lived closest to Pasco County, would collect rifles that we identified at the range or from the armory that needed service and secure them in his vehicle. Once he had a dozen rifles or so he would leave home early enough in the morning to deliver the rifles to Adams Arms in Pasco County and pick up “repaired” rifles that he previously dropped off. He would then drive to whatever training sight we were assigned for the day. He sometimes did this “EVERYDAY”. This resulted in mandatory overtime for him. 

Many of the deputies who were being issued the rifles had no faith in them. Its really difficult to sell someone on a rifle they don’t want when the rifle in question is known to be unreliable. I’ll let you imagine the morale problem we began encountering. On one occasion during a class I found the armorer assigned to our squad filing the holes for the takedown pins on a rifle because the upper and lower of the

rifle wouldn't go back together after a student/deputy field stripped the rifle as part of training. Another time I found deputies attending training passing pliers and vice grips around the classroom to use in removing the piston plug from their rifles just issued to them. The piston plugs were so cross threaded they couldn't be removed by hand, as designed. Imagine a deputy feeling lucky that he or she was issued an old, used Rock River or Bushmaster instead of a brand new rifle. 

We completed the last “Every deputy gets a rifle” class in January for deputies that had been injured, on military duty, etc. We had another rifle class in February of 2017, possibly composed mainly of recruits. The rifles were still not 100%. Functioning on some of them was erratic and in my opinion still lacked the reliability required of a firearm that will be used on the street. Nothing had changed. 

By March of 2017 I was gone from the agency. About a year and a half ago I received a call from an acquaintance that was by then working as a salesman for Adams Arms. In conversation he told me that PCSO had just taken delivery of 50 new Adams Arms rifles and the agency was “thrilled with them”. I don’t know if it was this or a subsequent batch of rifles but after my departure approximately 50 lower receivers had to be exchanged with Adams Arms when magazines couldn’t be inserted in the rifles. On some of them once inserted the magazine couldn’t be removed. I read that Adams Arms blamed aftermarket magazines(?) for that problem. 

In the aftermath of the sheriff removing Adams Arms rifles from service, I anticipate that deputies issued one of these weapons would have to turn it in at the armory. Non-essential personnel would have to turn their non-Adams Arms rifles in so they could be issued to Patrol deputies, who would then have to make a trip to the range to sight the rifles in and then qualify with them. When replacement rifles are obtained non-essential deputies would have to go through the same process of sighting the rifles in and then qualifying with them. This takes a great amount of scheduling, ammunition, and trainer’s valuable time. This is a logistical nightmare. 

While deputies are making special trips to the armory and range and back again they aren’t working on your case or patrolling your neighborhood. The time they are wasting making up for others mistakes could be used for training. 

In my years in this business I have never heard of a situation like this. Not with a recalled cruiser, radio, body armor, and certainly never with a weapon. Firearms manufacturers are extremely sensitive to any reliability rumors or bad press. They do whatever they can to get these issues squared away ASAP, because their reputation depends on it. I don’t know what the straw was that broke the camel’s back and finally prompted the sheriff to pull the rifles from service. I doubt it was a rifle failing to fire. One would think it would have been far more serious than any of my experiences with the rifles that I notified my chain of command about. 

My experience with Adams Arms ranges from the initial 20 we purchased to the last carbine school I taught in February of 2017. Knowing how bad that sampling of approximately 130 was Pinellas County SO doubled down and bought more, a lot more. Now they have 300 taking up space. Besides the cost of the rifles the agency has spent thousands of dollars on manpower and ammunition. The rifles have been replaced by Rock River Arms rifles, which we had to begin with.

Adams Arms was over 5 million in debt when the company was bought by its creditor in May of this year. Perhaps the new owners have the money to buy the rifles back. The old ownership certainly couldn’t have. 

I want to address several disingenuous or erroneous statements. 

I read many internet experts proclaim that the sheriff didn’t know what he was talking about when he stated that the AR-15 rifles would sometimes shoot fully automatic because AR-15’s are not full-auto. That's the point. The rifles in question have two positions on the selector, SAFE and FIRE. They are not supposed to operate as machine guns, but some of them certainly would. 

These rifles were not purchased for SWAT use, as one news outlet reported. SWAT has their own specific model from a completely different manufacturer. 

According to the sheriff one of the reasons he bought the rifles was because the “price was right”. At least one news outlet reported that the price was under a $1000 per rifle, including the optic. The rifles cost approximately $1000 a piece. That’s why the sheriff wants Adams Arms to pay him $300,000, for the 300 he bought. The optic was purchased separately for approximately $320. In fact, the agency purchased enough Aimpoint Pro Optics to equip all the AR/M4 type rifles in its inventory, not just the Adams Arms rifles. Its my recollection that the Adams Arms rifle was the most expensive rifle we evaluated. 

As often as Adams Arms spoke with our armorers and for all the times we dropped off non-functioning rifles to them and picked up “repaired” rifles, there's no way the company can claim they didn’t know about the extent of the problems with their product. 

Now that the dust has settled its time for accountability. Someone will have to be blamed. You can bet it won’t be anyone of rank. No, the sheriff publicly laid the responsibility for the decision on the shoulders of the deputy that initially recommended the rifles. The issue has been fixed. No one was hurt or killed. 

No harm, no foul. It’s just money. Yet, it is inconceivable that a deputy would be allowed to make the decision on what rifle an agency the size of Pinellas County S.O. would buy. I remember the training division lieutenant and major giving that specific deputy input on the memorandum in question. He’s the fall guy and an easy target. I know the feeling. 

For anyone else that may read this, remember that just because law enforcement uses a certain weapon doesn’t mean it’s the best one available. Or even the second, third, or fourth best. As a private citizen you have the luxury of many options from companies that are competing for your business and hard earned dollars. 

In closing, I have no interest in the parties involved other than the deputies. My concern and loyalty will always be with them. In this particular case these deputies were not treated like the tip of the spear, but they were surely beaten with the short end of the stick. I apologize to each of them for whatever my part was in this story. You deserved far better from everyone involved.

In defense of themselves some may claim that I have exaggerated here, or even lied. Those opinions mean nothing to me. Clearly something was wrong with these rifles or the sheriff would not have taken them out of service. The more pertinent question is why were deputies carrying questionable rifles for three years? This type of situation is what an organization can end up with when they breathe their own exhaust for too long in a zero defect environment. 

Shawn is currently a staff instructor with Suarez International where he teaches several handgun courses. He runs a one man training company based in Clearwater, Fl called Fare Thee Well Concepts. He holds numerous instructor certifications and D, G, and K licenses through the state of Florida. He teaches martial concepts to people who take responsibility for their safety. He can be reached at

Faretheewellconcepts@gmail.com and Warriortalk.com.