Soon To Disappear Handgun Cartridges

[wild cat mccane]

"Precipitous decline" only makes sense.

The only measures you have are number of in production guns and the number of makers making the cartridge.

Everything else is just click bait $$$ scored by boomers

[44 AMP]

Seems like no cartridge truly dies (as in dead, gone, never to return again) if interest can be revived, and there is some $ to be made.

Popularity, defined by the sales charts, comes and goes. LEO usage, generally decided by the desk guys, not the street guys, varies and shifts.

below the top three spots on he sales chart is not dead. Niche is not dead. Even apparently dead is not dead....as Miracle Max says its just "mostly dead".

No idea if it is true, but I heard a rumor that some European outfit was making pinfire ammo again, in small amounts. (that may have died with Covid, no idea)

Some authors see any sort of sales slump as a terminal diagnosis, the round has flatlined, so it must be dead, code it, call it, tag 'em and bag 'em, and write opinion pieces driving a stake through their heart so they stay dead and everyone knows it.

Also, "soon to be" is a very flexible thing. I can remember when we were told that we were "soon to be" driving flying cars and having colonies on Mars.

The .41 Magnum is an example of a cartridge hat missed the mark. Because Remington was aiming at the wrong target, first.

Back in the later 50s and early 60s several of the influential gun writers (most with former police experience) pushed for a new round with better performance than the .38 Special. They felt a 40/41 caliber, firing a 200ish gr bullet in the 900fps range would be a significant improvement.

Remington responded in 1964 with the .41 Magnum. Two basic load levels were planned, a high performance jacketed load for hunting, and a lower velocity lead load for police use. Unfortunately for the .41 Mag, Remington had a bad case of "magnumitis" and the majority of ammo made at first was the magnum load, with very little of the police load available, during the time when police agencies were testing the new round.

With essentially only the magnum round for testing, police generally gave it a thumbs down for service use, and by the time the police load was commonly available, the decision had already been made. The magnum was too much for police duty. A segment of the sport shooting community recognized the .41 Mag's advantages, and have since provided a small but constant fan base. At one time, .41 Mag sales were fairly close to .44 Mag sales, for a few brief years, until Dirty Harry sent .44 Mag sales up like a rocket, and only the few "cultists" wanted a .41, which had mostly been the case since the 70s.

The .41 is a good round, a solid performer, but it never got the chance to hit the big time the way the .44 Mag did.

Not sure if it would be at the top, but if you made a list of firearms companies that introduced good solid performing rounds and later essentially killed them through lack of support, Remington would be ether at, or right next to the top.

[Pumpkin]

6mm Rem
260 Rem
7mm08
30 AR
8mm Rem Mag
Are a few that offered great performance but failed to catch fire.
Now the 7mm Rem Mag was a different story.
41’s biggest competitor was its big brother the 44 Mag.

I have a 357Max so I consider it live and well ;-)

[SIGSHR]

AFAIK with H&R and Iver Johnson gone, no new revolvers chambered in 38 S&W made in the USA for years, IIRC Ruger made some Service Sixes in 38 S&W for an Indian order.
But the large number of older revolvers, the Enfield No.2 Mk1,the Webleys keep that old round "current"
Anyone reload Herter's 401 PowerMag ?
Only truly "obsolescent" rounds the old large bore rimfires, no demand for them and AFAIK no home reloading equipment available for them.

[Sharkbite]

Back in the later 50s and early 60s several of the influential gun writers (most with former police experience) pushed for a new round with better performance than the .38 Special. They felt a 40/41 caliber, firing a 200ish gr bullet in the 900fps range would be a significant improvement.

Hmmm and decades later the10mm lite and 40S&W come into being. Prophetic.

[44 AMP]

Hmmm and decades later the10mm lite and 40S&W come into being. Prophetic.

Remington could have brought out a ".41 Special" but they didn't. They could even have done so ALONG WITH the .41 magnum, but they didn't.

I'm sure S&W would have happily made a service revolver in .41 "special" chambered for the special, not the magnum. But it didn't happen.

The 10mm Lite and the .40 S&W essentially exist because of the FBI, particularly the bureaucratic mindset that is incapable of admitting mistakes.

The FBI "scapegoated" the 9mm because a round that met all the requirements at the time didn't instantly stop the 1986 Miami shoot out.

Since the 9mm was in official disfavor, they went to the 10mm. Which brought its own problems. The gun chosen was the S&W 1076 which is large gun, and the heavy recoil of the full house 10mm sent qual scores plummeting. Going to a reduced load, the 10mm LITE, solved part of the problems, but many agents still had trouble managing the large pistol.

After a short time, S&W came out with their solution, the .40 S&W which delivered 10mm LITE performance, and fit into 9mm frame size guns.

win/win, sort of. Qual scores with the .40 weren't great, it is more gun to handle than the 9mm, but they were significantly improved from using the full house 10mm and a gun it fits in.

Now that the Fed has reapproved the 9mm many police agencies have dumped their .40s in favor of the 9mm, so there's a lot of 40s on the market, and so the ammo to feed them isn't going away in the foreseeable future.

It may, in time, become a niche round, but it isn't going to disappear any time "soon".

[Shoots Left]

Putting the 40 S&W on that list was nuts as far as I’m concerned.

As others have pointed out everyone’s favorite red-headed step-child round, the 30 Super Carry, was conspicuously absent. I believe that this has to be the first list to predict doomed cartridges to omit the 30SC – ever! What kind of gun writer is this guy?

On the other hand maybe he’s a fan of the 30SC. If so then that makes two of us (no, seriously…don’t laugh) so now I can start the 30SC fan club.

[44 AMP]

I believe that this has to be the first list to predict doomed cartridges to omit the 30SC – ever!

Nope. Lists of /articles about "doomed" cartridges have been appearing in print even before the internet existed. Its not a new thing.

[JohnKSa]

There have been a few that really died and almost certainly aren't coming back.

9mm Federal. A rimmed version of 9mm that was discontinued because it was found that it would chamber in some firearms where it would be unsafe to fire.

.41AE If people want a chambering starting with a .4 that they can use in the same gun that fires 9mm, they can use .40S&W and not have to deal with rebated rims.

I think .38ACP could be added to the list, but that might be a bit more controversial.

[Mike Irwin]

I'll disagree with the 8mm Remington Magnum. It was a faint shadow of what it could have been and what it should have been because Remington so thoroughly botched its design and marketing.

The same with the 6mm Remington. The company completely misread what the shooting public wanted in a quarter bore-class cartridge and tried to make a go of it with the .244. By the time they finally realized how badly they had misread demand, Winchester's .243 had built a following that couldn't be overcome.

[Shoots Left]

Originally Posted by 44 AMP

Nope. Lists of /articles about "doomed" cartridges have been appearing in print even before the internet existed. Its not a new thing.

...ever since the introduction of this round.

Fixed it

[wild cat mccane]

Yes!

30SC. 100% will die.

Federal released it with great fan fair. Then using Federal's own information...Federal DEEP 380 bests 30SC Gold Dot and HST.

Now look at the prices and gun options? beyond niche at this point. That one will probably go away.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by Pumpkin

7mm08

If anything, this magnificent cartridge seems to be experiencing its rightful renaissance.

Truly great round. Perhaps the perfect blend for North American game, in particular.
Perfectly useful for everything from coyote to elk, probably moose.

Definitely not dying.

[74A95]

Originally Posted by Shadow9mm

Terrible article.
1. 45 gap was designed for the European and South American markets where the general public cant own a military cartridge like 45 auto.

Wow. You made that up out of thin air. Kinda hard to trust anything you write knowing you do that.

[4V50 Gary]

I don't see the 25 ACP or 32 ACP going anywhere. Neither caliber are the biggest gorilla on the block but there are plenty of 25 ACP/32ACP guns out there.

[Shoots Left]

Originally Posted by wild cat mccane

Yes!

30SC. 100% will die.

Federal DEEP 380 bests 30SC Gold Dot and HST.

Now look at the prices and gun options? beyond niche at this point.

100% die? That's pretty bold but OK.

Hydra Shok Deep bests 30SC...by what metric?

The data I found on the Federal website indicates that the 30SC shoots flatter, faster and has greater projectile energy than Deep 380. Plus in in the Shield EZ (the only available frame that I can find that chambers both rounds) the 30SC gives you two more rounds in the same package. While the expansion of the Deep 380 is greater due to its larger diameter it doesn't seem to be significant enough to say it's better.

Also I don't sense a discernable difference in recoil between the Shield Plus in 30SC and my Sig P230 SL.

Price and gun options/niche...Touche! Makes me sad.

I've always asserted (maybe correctly, maybe not) that if someone made a polymer wonder 30 in a full size or compact frame the round would find greater acceptance rather than being the whipping boy that it is.

Just for grins I stuffed as many 30SC rounds into a 17 round Glock magazine from a G17 that I could. I was able to fill it with 21 rounds. I'm guessing that if the follower was modified a tad it might hold 22 rounds.

Maybe I'm being too optimistic here but I just don't see the downside to having more rounds available in a handgun of the same size in 9MM or 380. Among these three offerings it all comes down to shot placement anyways and the 30SC allows me a few more opportunities to make that shot.

[Pumpkin]

I think the 30SC does exactly the same things that made the 9mm so popular.

Acceptable power, lower recoil, greater round capacity in the same size pistol.

Just needs a chance and some cheaper ammunition.

If I were in the market (and I’m not) for a new CC pistol I would definitely consider a Shield in 30SC.

[PzGren]

Threads like that make it clear, why so many people shipwreck in the stock market.

A few years ago the 10mm would have been added to the list by many experts.

[glider]

22 Remington Special, also known as WRF is damn hard to find!!!

[Mike Irwin]

A guy I used to shoot with had a beautiful Colt Police Positive Target in .22 WRF.

Any time we came across boxes of WRF ammo (I worked at the gun shop at the time) we'd give him a call and he'd snatch them up.

[The Happy kaboomer]

Ya can still buy .22 flobert ammo...........

[Blackhand1917]

The very fact that there are companies still producing really, really old stuff like .32 S&W (the short one) means that cartridges die hard. Forty may decline in popularity, but there are too many recently produced guns out there firing that cartridge. Pistols that fire cartridges like the .40 S&W are still being produced. I bought a brand new Taurus G2C in that caliber 6 months ago and Taurus is making a version of the G3C in forty.

Right now there is a big bump in revolver sales. Ten years ago, a lot of people confidently predicted that revolvers and revolver cartridges were dead. When I started shooting in the late 70's there were a lot of guys I knew that had one handgun. I'm sure there are a few people out there like that, but I assume now most people that prowl the gun forums own more than one. I like experimenting with different handguns in various calibers.

[skoro]

Yeah, well...

Gun writers have to write. There's only so much ground to keep covering, over and over.

[Drm50]

I had a pretty good collection of hunting rifles from 22 Hornet to 458 Win. Many of my favorite deer guns are in classic cartridges. These are cartridges that once had a big market and there are still a lot of guns in circulation. The problem is the public’s buying patterns. 22LR and the para military cartridges are bought and hoarded for doomsday. The Ammo companies only have so much equipment and don’t want to shut down bread & butter to produce a run of what is considered odd balls. I hear people all the time wondering why they ain’t cranking out 25/20, 32 Winchester or 35 REM. They do once in a while but they don’t warehouse anything. Inventory is a bad word.
These are the cartridges that are dead for practical purposes. Revolver ammo will be made as long as they can make a profit, not a day longer. A lot of fringe cartridges are being picked up by bouquet ammo manf. Many running close to $100 a box. Everyday deer cartridges are $1.50- $2.00 box of 20. The ammo production is controlled by bean counters there is no more loyalty to customer.

[wild cat mccane]

22 TCM. In the last decade, more gun models of guns were made for it than the Federal 30 Super Carry today.

That is the most modern zombie round that did not stink.