Thinking Man's Corner

Article by: William G.

I don’t do full on product endorsement much these days. Has to be pretty special, and has to have a human element behind it to catch my attention. This is the case with PE3D: 

A year or two ago at the GALEFI conference I met Nolan, the owner of PE3D. He is a police officer full time, and had a hobby of 3D printing (inert guns, and no functional gun parts). During active shooter training at a D1 college, he noticed a female officer that was short in stature was having issues with her inert AR in the stairwells.  The model she was using was 16” barreled, and a fixed stock. That night he went home and 3D printed a shorter (INERT – not capable of being loaded, firing, nothing. Just a plastic place holder for the real thing) AR with a telescopic stock. He added a rail for a light, and put a red dot, and sling on it. Would you believe that this one simple thing helped that officer tremendously? She can now function like with her real issued gun. She can control it, and is not fighting with a piece of outdated equipment when she needs to be learning the floor plan, communicating with team mates, and gaining skill for when she has to hunt down an active killer to protect the kids at that school. Just because another cop gave a damn, saw a problem, and took initiative to find a solution. 

I talked with Nolan, and was very impressed with him, his ideas, his display of ingenuity, his love of his family, his dedication to his team mates, and his sincere desire for other police officers to have good, functional, cost effective, safe, replica training equipment. I consulted with him a bit on his business, and gave him some ideas.

GPSTC uses his inert Glocks and AR’s. Multiple municipal, county, and state agencies across several states are now using his products. He keeps improving them, and adding options. Just a few of the unique things he can provide: whatever color you want, or a combination of colors to readily identify it as a training gun, engrave the agency name or abbreviation on it, engrave individual names on it, add a molded light or leave a rail to add a real light, add a 3d printed quasi place holder “optic” or mount an actual optic on the gun. 

He has replacement training barrels. Inert rounds with brass cases, and a bright color primer and nose to readily ID them as inert. Some even glow in the dark, which is brilliant for night training. He has bail out brackets for keys, tourniquet holders, NARCAN holders, and a lot of other neat things that he saw in need of a solution. 

It is a small family owned business (he works on it when he is not a his LE job, or being a dad and husband), and puts a great deal of pride into his work. It is the American Dream in infancy stages with this company, and I am 100% supporting and endorsing his products, and him. 

We can all use inert training guns. For weapon retention, to practice draws, to practice building clearing, as aids in class, for new shooter familiarity, as props in use of force training, for public training events through the agency or your Church (if you go), and for a lot of other reasons too. 

If you don’t have inert training rounds, get at least 50, they are invaluable, and I don’t see how a training program is complete without them. You can use them to proof new guns, and demonstrate how a gun, magazine, and ammo works with new shooters; and have a very high safety margin in place at the same time. 

He has weighted magazines for common pistols and the AR so you can practice reloads without introducing live ammo into your classroom, scenario, or dry training. The first ones I got were from Ben Cooley back in the day (look him up, he was something else, and I think there may be some training videos of his around the internet. Still highly relevant from a skill and weapons handling perspective.)

One of the coolest things he has is a terminator skull helmet display. That thing is just straight awesome. I usually do not display my armor at home, but this one is going in the living room. 

(You cannot tell me this isn’t just plain cool. Go ahead and order one up, or two. Reasonable price for the actual end product, it will make you cooler, all your buddies will want one, but you’ll have bragging rights as the first. Your wife will admire your taste, and want to put it next to her Van Gogh. You are supporting another cop. There are zero reasons not to buy this. If you don’t have a helmet, and get this, then there is your reason to get one. Add some coms and nods while your’e at it for those trips to Circle K for three white monsters, and a honey bun……..)

Check out his website, and see if you can find something that will help you while you help a young cop who loves his family, God, his country, other cops, and the good and fine citizens of this great nation. Good men and good companies are few and far between these days. Let’s do what we can to support the American Dream while it is still achievable. 

pe3d

pe3d

Get them while they’re hot, boys. They are going fast. I really like mine, and use them every week. Cops helping cops, and good citizens supporting small businesses – that’s just what us American’s do.