The dreaded 40 conundrum

[Supermoto]

Food for thought- go take or just look at online, serious handgun training courses. I would bet that most of the trainers are running 9mm's- There's a good reason for this, that you don't find out until you're pushed a little in training. Some of it is ammo cost, sure, but the timer speaks volumes at the end.
-Mike

The more training you get the less there is a difference in the timer. Eventually it doesn't matter 9, 40, 45, they all shoot the same

 

[kalash]

You're so right. After testing showed the full power loads had poor performance, someone woke up the next morning and deliberately on purpose said, hey, we need to downsize the case so that it will fit in a 9mm sized gun. Go troll somewhere else.

It's not trolling when it's a fact - .40 was born out of the realization that reduced velocity 10mm can be made using a shorter case. This is just a fact, idk what you're trying to argue here.

 

[weekendracer]

Years later, I got a G22 Gen4 on a lark about a year or so after it came out. I took it out a few times, it ran well enough, but while constantly fighting to keep my support grip on the thing (and not having to do this even with other more powerful guns, like my G30SF at the time ) I realized the futility of the whole idea and sold it about 2 months
later. The only way I'd ever go back to .40 in a "serious" way is if I wanted to get into USPSA Limited or similar kind of competition, where the allure of cheap reloads, and cheap, disposable
brass, and great accuracy (in some guns) is undeniable.

None of this changes the fact that I still think the origins/genesis of the cartridge are kinda f***ing stupid. Nothing will ever change that in my mind. . It reminds me of a Smart Car or something like that, although
that's probably a little harsh. The whole thing just reeks of intentional mediocrity, one that the juice is often not worth the squeeze on. .40 doesn't have a "big win" on the back end in common use.

Food for thought- go take or just look at online, serious handgun training courses. I would bet that most of the trainers are running 9mm's- There's a good reason for this, that you don't find out until you're pushed a little in training. Some of it is ammo cost, sure, but the timer speaks volumes at the end. Carrying .40 to me is like using a leather holster. Well not quite that bad, but still.




-Mike

So basically, you need to work on your grip? I wrote out a long paragraph that probably belongs in another thread, but basically, yeah, so do I, we all need to. A solid bio-mechanically sound grip and .40 is nothing. I was shown the way, walking the path is a lot harder. I went from shooting perfect quals down to mid 340's/360 changing my grip, but I'm WAY better now when I don't mess it up (have not had a successful qual yet, but shooting before and after was incredible). No resetting my left hand at all, gun doesn't move when I fire. One day......maybe....I'll be good.

I'm no .40 fanboi, I'm not unhappy my agency is switching to the 9mm. Now I just have to transition my personal guns from .40 since I won't have 'free' ammo for them any longer.

 

[180 GRAIN FMJ]

So everyone (mostly) hates on the .40 because it's 10MM short. So, what if the 10MM had never been invented and forty just evolved on it's own? What would be the rationale for hating it then?

 

[wahsben]

So everyone (mostly) hates on the .40 because it's 10MM short. So, what if the 10MM had never been invented and forty just evolved on it's own? What would be the rationale for hating it then?

There is no rationale in hating an inanimate object but it sure leads to long discussions about why we should hate it.

 

[drgrant]

So basically, you need to work on your grip? I wrote out a long paragraph that probably belongs in another thread, but basically, yeah, so do I, we all need to. A solid bio-mechanically sound grip and .40 is nothing. I was shown the way, walking the path is a lot harder. I went from shooting perfect quals down to mid 340's/360 changing my grip, but I'm WAY better now when I don't mess it up (have not had a successful qual yet, but shooting before and after was incredible). No resetting my left hand at all, gun doesn't move when I fire. One day......maybe....I'll be good.

I'm no .40 fanboi, I'm not unhappy my agency is switching to the 9mm. Now I just have to transition my personal guns from .40 since I won't have 'free' ammo for them any longer.

I never would lose grip on my p229s, usp, p2000 etc.. it was just that G22. No matter how I crushed the thing, it would still shift a little on the left. I have small hands but probably halfway decent /above average grip strength but still likely could be better. There's always room for improvement. I usually don't have that shifting problem with much of anything. I usually use a thumbs forward type deal.

 

[weekendracer]

So everyone (mostly) hates on the .40 because it's 10MM short. So, what if the 10MM had never been invented and forty just evolved on it's own? What would be the rationale for hating it then?

In short, yes. The race for bigger/badder/harder rounds out of a handgun finally reached the point that groups of shooters could no longer reasonably control the gun. Larger agencies wanted the highest 'stopping power' they could get before the recoil became unmanageable for the EEO applicants that couldn't handle the .357 or 10mm. Therefore, the .40 was born. I think the biggest problem is the shift towards lightest possible platform. My 90's Sig 229 is a heavy gun, it's plain old heavy, but it is fun to shoot .40 out of. My G23, is fun, but it takes all my effort to keep it under control during rapid fire.

 

[weekendracer]

I never would lose grip on my p229s, usp, p2000 etc.. it was just that G22. No matter how I crushed the thing, it would still shift a little on the left. I have small hands but probably halfway decent /above average grip strength but still likely could be better. There's always room for improvement. I usually don't have that shifting problem with much of anything. I usually use a thumbs forward type deal.

Check for a PM, my (not mine, but yeah) grip technique takes a LOT of explanation, easy to do, but a lot of nuance to it. Take it or leave it, I'm a believer. I don't 'squeeze' my gun at all anymore, almost no side pressure at all.

 

[Glockster30]

Ok, I'll keep playing along with this even though I'm silly.

I had to break this up into 2 parts, cuz it won't let me post the whole thing.

Because your position is silly and you keep winding yourself into an extension cord mess over semantics that only you care about.

I can apply the same comment(s) to you.

It's a distinction without a difference. This isn't like a legal case where fully understanding the origins of a case, and viewing it through that lens, is utterly necessary for understanding the application of lor something. It's a lot simpler than that. It was a technical goal, that got sort of perverted by the industry in the name of profit.

In the end a decision was made to make something a certain way. That's pretty "intentional".

I perfectly understand why they reached the conclusions they did. That still doesn't magically legitimize the industry's creation of .40 S&W.

(Mike)
It doesn't matter how it developed. I don't care if it took them 5 years and a billion dollars to say ".40 is da best for us". That still doesn't make it some kind of earth shattering idea. (As a side note, look at something like the Airbus 380. That's a triumph of engineering, and also, at the same time, kinda f***ing stupid. Although .40 S&W isn't nearly that dumb.) And again, I understand the FBIs motives, but also, the industry is more responsible for the abomination than anything else. Nobody was forward thinking enough to suggest that "well, maybe we can just make more/better 10mm Handguns and the FBI should just keep running 10mm Lite". That would make too much sense (eg, advocacy for a handgun platform that could be used for many purposes with many different types of ammunition to meet different needs, both present and future) and the temptation of profit was too great.(Me)
Nothing was perverted. Capitalism is still based on selling a product for profit. If it's not wanted, they don't buy it. Apparently, though, a lot of people and agencies liked it and bought it.

(Me)
As noted, the FBI reported that it settled on the "10mm Lite" based on performance consistent with the 9mm and .45. S&W/Winchester then decided that they could get that same performance for the 10mm Lite in a shorter case in a 9mm sized handgun. At the time, it made sense for them to do that. So, to imply that it was intentionally done, rather than to fill a supposed need, is just plain nonsense. Whether right or wrong, it happens all the time. Take another look at the useless folding Glock 19 posted this week.

(Mike)
It doesn't matter how it developed. I don't care if it took them 5 years and a billion dollars to say ".40 is da best for us". That still doesn't make it some kind of earth shattering idea. (As a side note, look at something like the Airbus 380. That's a triumph of engineering, and also, at the same time, kinda f***ing stupid. Although .40 S&W isn't nearly that dumb. ) And again, I understand the FBIs motives, but also, the industry is more responsible for the abomination than anything else. Nobody was forward thinking enough to suggest that "well, maybe we can just make more/better 10mm Handguns and the FBI should just keep running 10mm Lite". That would make too much sense (eg, advocacy for a handgun platform that could be used for many purposes with many different types of ammunition to meet different needs, both present and future) and the temptation of profit was too great.

(Me)
No one said that the .40 was an "earth-shattering" idea. There are also plenty more examples of engineering triumphs that turned out to be useless.

(Mike)
I never said that, I said that .40 was being dumped as a generality, with many going to 9mm and .45, not necessarily in that "order". Perhaps I wasn't clear enough about that.

(Me)
Now you're rewriting your own history to make your point...kind of like the libs do in their revisionist history lessons. Your exact words in post #83 were, "My sidebar about the crapper/CDNN is referring to the "mass exodus" of .40 S&W handguns from LE starting just after 9/11" In any context, a "mass exodus" doesn't come close to the meaning of the words that you are using now, which is, "...that .40 being dumped as a generality..."

(Mike)
See above. The fact still remains tons have dumped .40. Just because some big players kept it, doesn't mean that others aren't dumping it. If anything it makes more sense that large agencies would keep .40 because of institutional sloth, and the side-costs of them changing calibers is far greater than a small local PD with a few dozen guys.

That's a pretty poor citation. I went down the list and only about half are .40 only. Shocking, a bunch of big PDs still have .40s. I never said that they didn't.

*Me)
No one ever questioned that the .40 decreased in popularity over the years. In addition, it's comical for you to state that my citations are pretty poor when you haven't cited anything. Go down the list again; 6 of the 10 still use it in one capacity or the other. It's also a fairly big jump to extrapolate that "big PDs" still use the .40 over the smaller agencies. Do you have a cite for that statement? You never said that the biggies stopped using the .40? That's correct, you just said that there was a mass exodus shortly after 9/11, so it must have been only the smaller agencies that did it according to your crapper analysis.

In addition, if it "makes more sense that large agencies kept the .40 due to institutional sloth/costs to change over to other calibers" then these agencies are failing their employees because if the .40 sucks as much as you stated, then these employees should be suing the asses off their employers for not getting them the best equipment available; whether it's a 9mm or a .45. Along with this same thinking, using a 9mm allows LE to carry more ammo. The FBI 1989 report states that LE hit rates were 20% to 30% and that ratio still holds true to the present day. So, does that mean that agencies still carrying .40 or .45 with less capacity are putting their officers' lives at risk?

 

[Glockster30]

This isn't about whether or not it's a pussy cartridge, or not, or any of that. I get the FBIs reasoning for their spec. I'm not disputing that, particularly given what they had to work with at the time. I just find amusement in you guys getting butthurt whenever someone brings up fact that the origins of the cartridge are s circus-like, to put it mildly, and that it ultimately ended up being a shitty version of an existing cartridge. It's not our fault you can't handle the truth. And in the lens of hindsight it looks even worse, given that .40 was largely a "gun based solution to what was actually an ammunition problem" particularly in the mid 90s, after companies like Speer released the GDHP, and other manufacturers like Federal started to produce radically better ammunition.
In the lens of hindsight one could argue that, if more energy was put into researching bullets and wound ballistics, that the .40 would not have ever needed to be created to begin with. In the FBI's defense
though, at the time, the science of a lot of that sucked until we were well out of the 80s and there was a lot of industry sloth. A lot of products were sold on marketing bullshit and not science, and some still
exist to this day... EG, things like glaser safety slugs, about half of CorBon's product line, etc. .40 S&W was created in an industry fog of tornado like swirling bullshit.

My comment about "pussy cartridges" was directed at the LE agencies that allow some of their officers to carry .380, not 9mm. If the LEO can't handle a 9mm at the minimum, then s/he is in the wrong line of work. WRT the development of the .40, you're welcome to your opinion. Whether or not I can handle the truth is also your opinion, and frankly immaterial since it's based on what I read.

Also let me qualify one thing here- if someone wants to use it, so be it. If I owned a gun shop would I sell .40 S&W handguns? Yeah, of course I would. Why the f*** not? Some people want it, and it does the job. I would stock tons of ammo for it, too. The "installed base" is huge. I would gladly sell one to anyone that wanted one. On the other hand- Would I ever tell a noob, asking for advice, given no serious resource limitations, that it was a good idea? Outside of special circumstances, f*** no! Would I carry .40 if I needed to? Of course I would. I did for many years, as a matter of fact, a USP Compact .40 and a P2000 LEM usually got picked vs other stuff. It works. It stops bad guys if you shoot them enough times with it. I mostly dumped .40 because I found that the way other cartridges worked was better for me, this became apparent when I first had some access to a shot timer. Then it dawned on me that there is no great upsell proposition with a .40, outside of perhaps the MA based capacity crybaby prosecutorial fear argument where people kvetch, whine, snort and blare about getting an extra 1-2 rounds in a mag (or not). (I personally don't get invested in that argument anymore, I'm at the point where capacity is not an overarching reason to pick a caliber unless a choice is going to limit me to some stupid small number of shots, but as a practical matter, most guns are starting at least with 8...)

Well, at least we agree on something. I, too, couldn't care less about what other people carry. I always push my students to start out with a smaller caliber like the 9mm, and once they become proficient with it, it's up to them if they want to work up to a different caliber.

At one time I had 26 handguns. About 4 or 5 of them at the time were .40s. They started to collect dust in the safe. I didn't shoot them recreationally because the caliber is overkill for plates and insufficient for full table bowling pin matches. For defense the recoil management and speed were often iffy compared to even +P+ 9mm and some.45 ACP platforms I have. Why would I want to keep putting practice effort into something I shoot slower? When I needed money, they were the first to go, and I didn't feel a tinge of regret, maybe a little for the USP .40 full, but that's about it. (as IMHO it was a properly designed handgun for .40 S&W, albeit huge). Years later, I got a G22 Gen4 on a lark about a year or so after it came out. I took it out a few times, it ran well enough, but while constantly fighting to keep my support grip on the thing (and not having to do this even with other more powerful guns, like my G30SF at the time ) I realized the futility of the whole idea and sold it about 2 months later. The only way I'd ever go back to .40 in a "serious" way is if I wanted to get into USPSA Limited or similar kind of competition, where the allure of cheap reloads, and cheap, disposable brass, and great accuracy (in some guns) is undeniable.

As I mentioned, I would never question your choice of using/not using a .40. It's not a round for everyone. I have a Kahr PM9 that weighs around 15 ounces. When using 9mm defense rounds in it, I really can't tell the difference between the recoil of that lighter gun compared to my G27 Gen4, and I actually shoot the Gen4 with the largest backstrap more accurately than the Kahr. It just fits my hand better. If I compare the Kahr to my G23, the G23 wins hands down wrt to recoil and accuracy. So, when I carry it, the Kahr just gets carried as deep backup; my gun, my preference.

None of this changes the fact that I still think the origins/genesis of the cartridge are kinda f***ing stupid. Nothing will ever change that in my mind. It reminds me of a Smart Car or something like that, although that's probably a little harsh. The whole thing just reeks of intentional mediocrity, one that the juice is often not worth the squeeze on. .40 doesn't have a "big win" on the back end in common use.

Again, you're entitled to your opinion on the .40 and no one is trying to change your mind. I already mentioned several posts ago that if you are still intent on referring to the .40 as "intentional mediocrity," then you're welcome to your opinion. However, I still reserve the right to my own opinion that may or may not align with your opinion without being referred to as being "wrong" or being "silly."

Food for thought- go take or just look at online, serious handgun training courses. I would bet that most of the trainers are running 9mm's- There's a good reason for this, that you don't find out until you're pushed a little in training. Some of it is ammo cost, sure, but the timer speaks volumes at the end. Carrying .40 to me is like using a leather holster. Well not quite that bad, but still.

Based on my discussion on the G23 and G27 vs. the Kahr, I highly doubt that there is little difference in timing although I never timed myself. However, if I were sacrificing some timing with the G27/G23, then accuracy with the first shot is of most importance to me. It's just common sense that a lighter gun with "similar ballistics" is going to have just as much if not more recoil.

I also am older than like, 5, so I don't particularly care if someone insults a caliber or a gun I carry. This is last post in the thread for me, as I don't wish to trigger anyone any further. I've offended enough sensibilities, apparently.

Again, neither did I question what caliber you carried nor did I insult you for what you carry. If you took it that way, it was not intentional (just like the development of the .40) [/QUOTE]

 

[Glockster30]

It's not trolling when it's a fact - .40 was born out of the realization that reduced velocity 10mm can be made using a shorter case. This is just a fact, idk what you're trying to argue here.

No shit, junior? Read the posts again! Never stated anything close to what you're stating!

 

[Wickedcoolname]

I don't get all the .40 hate. Caliber is far less important than shot placement, so who really cares? .40 is plenty powerful enough for self defense but it's not so powerful that it's difficult to shoot. Just get a reliable gun that you can hit with and shoot your bag of ammo. Personally, I'd get a Glock 23, but if that's not your style then get one of the dozen or so other brands. I'd stay away from Taurus if it were me, but just about every other major gun maker has a good .40 in their catalog.

 

[Dennis in MA]

So everyone (mostly) hates on the .40 because it's 10MM short. So, what if the 10MM had never been invented and forty just evolved on it's own? What would be the rationale for hating it then?

Underpowered .41Mag wannabe.

 

[Matt_SERE]

So everyone (mostly) hates on the .40 because it's 10MM short. So, what if the 10MM had never been invented and forty just evolved on it's own? What would be the rationale for hating it then?

It is the same thing with the 9mm kurz and 9mm rounds. And the 9mm is older.

 

[Glockster30]

Underpowered .41Mag wannabe.

Exactly! This round was developed intentionally by Elmer Keith/Bill Jordan to be an intermediate round between the .357 mag and .44 mag in the 1960s to address the "perceived shortcomings" of both of these rounds.

.41 Remington Magnum - Wikipedia

 

[wahsben]

The energizer bunny thread! It just keeps going and going!

 

[Glockster30]

The energizer bunny thread! It just keeps going and going!

There's been worse.

 

[Horrible]

I am a man. I'm 40. Come after me.

 

[kalash]

So everyone (mostly) hates on the .40 because it's 10MM short.

No, people hate on the .40 because it's kind of a useless caliber. It offers no advantage over 9mm but it costs more so what's the point of it? It exists only because the FBI decided it should, that's it. It's not a bad round in and of itself but there's no logic behind buying a .40 handgun over 9mm.

 

[Supermoto]

40 stacks better in a large capacity mag since it is straight wall case. Comes off the mag better too

 

[oldguy68]

The 40 S&W is a decent round in full size heavy pistols.
I tend to think of it as the other 40 in 45..
Larger capacity, easier to find during the last panic attack and it's generally cheaper when it is in stock.
Statistically, it's a street proven bad guy stopper!

Better than 9mm, yep, better than the god almighty 45 ACP..Blasphemy!

 

[wahsben]

I am a man. I'm 40. Come after me.

You're just a neutered version of when you were 20. You're not as fast or as powerful. There take that you 40 you!

 

[Glockster30]

@drgrant Mike, this is my last attempt discussing the development of the .40 S&W (at least with you). Many years have passed since you and I read about its development, so I'm not surprised about the comment that the FBI and S&W intentionally downsized the 10mm to make the .40. However, this comment didn't sit well with me because it didn't comport with what I read and learned about the matter years ago. I also added more citations in which you can say they suck, but they do prove my side of the story. In addition, you can tell me that I'm still spinning the facts, but that would be factually incorrect on your behalf. Subsequently, I researched this issue again to relearn the factual historical development of the .40 S&W as I remembered it (but had forgotten the details).

After the 1986 FBI shootout in Miami where two agents were killed, the FBI determined that the 9mm and .38 Special the agents used were subpar in performance. When The FBI began their tests, they focused first on the 9mm and .45 to see if they could improve their performance using existing technology. While doing this, it was also decided to look into a .40 caliber intermediate round between the 9mm and the .45.

It just so happened that another FBI agent had already started working with the 10mm using his personally owned Colt Delta Elite 10mm, so it was decided to add his 10mm testing to that of the 9mm and .45 test protocols. In addition, the FBI also tested the 10mm in a Thompson Model 28 submachine gun. Eventually, the FBI adopted the Model 1076 in 1990, a short-barreled version of the Model 1026. Prior to this though, the FBI found that the commercial 10mm load during the testing didn't perform well in meeting their test protocols. The bullets simply failed to expand and penetrate consistently at the higher velocities. Therefore, they experimented with the 10mm until they reached a velocity between 900 to 1,000 fps, where the bullet performed consistently and was subsequently referred to as the FBI Lite load at 950 fps.

At the same time, there wasn't a suitable gun that they could use it in, which is why they used a 6" barrel. The other reason for using the 6" barrel was because it was required by SAAMI specs for the 10mm and .45 ACP at that time (this is where the 6" barrel comes into play in the 1989 FBI report). Just because the testing required a 6" SAAMI-spec barrel, they had no intention of using a gun with a 6" barrel.

The FBI then asked S&W to design a gun using the frame of the S&W Model 4506 for their 10mm Lite load. Simultaneously, S&W and Winchester had already been working secretly on a .40 caliber round based on the Centimeter round (.401) that had been designed years earlier by Paul Liebenberg from S. Africa. Liebenberg designed the round so that it could compete in IPSC Major Caliber competition. The resulting Centimeter round ended up being a success and outperformed the .38 Super Colt, which was the "go to" round in use at that time. The Centimeter cartridge had an overall length and a case length that was already shorter than the 10mm round.

Paul Liebenberg, who worked for Pachmeyer, left and started his own company to work further on the Centimeter cartridge development. He teamed up with Tom Campbell and they both went to S&W in an attempt to get them interested in it. Eventually, S&W took an interest in the Centimeter round and the president of S&W, Steve Melvin, asked Liebenberg if he could convert their new 3rd generation Model 5906s to use the Centimeter round. During the testing of the Centimeter round, S&W realized that they could get the same performance out of the shorter cased round to meet the FBI Lite load specs. And that was the genesis of the .40 S&W! It had nothing to do with the FBI or S&W intentionally downsizing the 10mm, but it's your decision to keep using that incorrect information and to tell me that I'm spinning the facts

10mm Auto - Wikipedia
.40 S&W - Wikipedia
In Praise of the [Clearly Superior] .40 S&W Cartridge - The Truth About Guns
Welcome to Pistol Dynamics
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/122334NCJRS.pdf
A History of FBI Handguns

 

[mrmike7189]

40 cal. is great !...........(in a carbine or an all metal pistol. )
In a sub-compact......(its like dynamite in your hands!)
Dont know why anyone would buy a Shield in 40?
My hand hurts just thinking about that

 

[Glockster30]

No, people hate on the .40 because it's kind of a useless caliber. It offers no advantage over 9mm but it costs more so what's the point of it? It exists only because the FBI decided it should, that's it. It's not a bad round in and of itself but there's no logic behind buying a .40 handgun over 9mm.

Keep trolling with your woefully uninformed comments about the .40 S&W that you regurgitate from other people. It's entertaining to learn just how little you know about the round.

As noted in post #113, the development of the round was based on the Centimeter Cartridge (CC). The CC outperformed the .38 Super in IPSC Major Caliber competitions. Welcome to Pistol Dynamics

The .40 S&W was also touted by more knowledgeable people than you such as Marshall and Sanow who referred to it as follows:

"The .40 S&W cartridge has been popular with law enforcement agencies in the United States, Canada, Australia and Brazil. While possessing nearly identical accuracy,[10] drift and drop as the 9mm Parabellum, it also has an energy advantage[11] over the 9mm Parabellum[12] and .45 ACP,[13] and with a more manageable recoil than the 10mm Auto cartridge.[6] Marshall & Sanow (and other hydrostatic shock proponents) contend that with good jacketed hollow point bullets, the more energetic loads for the .40 S&W can also create hydrostatic shock in human-sized living targets.[14][15] Based on ideal terminal ballistic performance in ordnance gelatin during lab testing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the .40 S&W earned status as "the ideal cartridge for personal defense and law enforcement".[7][16] .40 S&W - Wikipedia

As recent as May 2017, it was still referred to as the better round, as follows:

Everyone is flocking to 9mm in recent years, especially after the FBI decided to ditch the .40 S&W. But what many don’t realize is that the .40 S&W is actually still a better cartridge since the new FBI load is a just a rehashed 147gr Speer Gold Dot load. The super-hot 9mm loads that the internet claims beats .40 S&W far exceeds the pressure curve due to these being +P+ loads.

There are three reasons for the .40 S&W’s superiority:

1. You can get mild loads that rival 9mm powder puff plinkers
2. It still has better barrier penetration than 9mm or .45 ACP
3. You can get loads that rival some 10mm loads In Praise of the [Clearly Superior] .40 S&W Cartridge - The Truth About Guns

In a Gun Digest article less than a year old, it was still touted, as follows:

Supervisory Special Agent Boone retired in 2012. His successor had already been chosen. Supervisory Special Agent Scott Patterson had been on board then for more than 18 months and had a healthy overlap to “learn the ropes.” By the time of his retirement, Buford was so well respected by the industry that Speer produced a special run of .40 S&W ammunition with his name on the headstamp.

With the assistance of his capable staff, the Ballistic Research Facility is still in good hands. Recently, we discussed the new 9mm service round. Patterson stated that extensive testing has proven that it is at least as effective as any .40 S&W load. The nine is easier on guns and is easier to fire accurately. But he went on to say that there is no so-called wonder bullet. 10mm Handguns and the FBI | Gun Digest

There are tons of other articles/research that still discuss the advantages/disadvantages of the .40 S&W. In the meantime, you can still pass off the .40 as "people hate on the .40 because it's kind of a useless caliber." Any citations to back up your nonsense claim? As I mentioned above, it just demonstrates how little you know about the round.

 

[Sig Sauer Shooter]

I have a H&K P30 chambered in .40 caliber, it's a nice shooting gun. No complaints here!

 

[rkwjunior]

Never had any complaints about .40 out of a G27 or a G23.
In my opinion .45 makes less sense, but 'Merica will keep it alive.

 

[ChevyGuy91]

40s&w is the M14 of pistol cartridges.

 

[T-Unit]

Saw someone recommended Hi Point, I agree, Hi Point makes the cheapest .40's, pistol or carbine. Used Ruger .40's are available online for under $250.

Don't forget tho that many 10mm's can shoot .40 just fine too. The Glock 10mm's I know can and Ruger has a few 10mm revolvers that will shoot .40 with the moon clips.

Contrary to popular opinion, .40 is not useless or dead. People just prefer 9mm because the cheap ammo is cheaper than .40. If .40 were cheaper than 9mm, people would be buying more .40

 

[T-Unit]

I'd say trade/sell/give the .40 away. The FBI has pretty much concluded that the current generation of 9mm is a better all around projectile.

No round is a manstopper all the time. Fast, repeatable, accurate rounds on target is what wins.

The FBI never said 9mm is "Better" they said it was as effective as .40 now. That wasn't all, the two reasons they went back to 9mm was the women couldn't shoot .40 and 9mm ammo bought in large quantities was cheaper.