40S&W…Have you seen the deals?

[Forte S+W]

It's immature behavior and even a child guilty of doing so is also misbehaving to get attention, so there's no difference. Unfortunately, when the parents set a bad example and refuse to discourage such behavior, such is to be expected.

Personally, I find it especially alarming that behavior like this should occur on a firearms forum, as frankly I don't feel that anyone who lacks the ability to behave like a responsible adult can be trusted to safely handle firearms like a responsible adult, but for most people, the only difference between a child and an adult is how many years they've existed.

[Red Devil]

Originally Posted by Forte S+W

It's immature behavior and even a child guilty of doing so is also misbehaving to get attention, so there's no difference. Unfortunately, when the parents set a bad example and refuse to discourage such behavior, such is to be expected.

Personally, I find it especially alarming that behavior like this should occur on a firearms forum, as frankly I don't feel that anyone who lacks the ability to behave like a responsible adult can be trusted to safely handle firearms like a responsible adult, but for most people, the only difference between a child and an adult is how many years they've existed.

That the .40 S&W is a superior cartridge - shouldn't be alarming to one, even if they can't shoot it well.

It is simply a better choice for those who can, and Twenty-Five(25) years as the premier LEA/SD cartridge bears that out.

Better than it ever was - and better than the 9mm, then and now, that it was purpose-built to replace.

Facts are like that.

Red

[Red Devil]

When one leaves the echo-chamber of the currently popular 9mm wonder-round?

Concealed Carry with .40 S&W

Reality, and truth, bring an interesting view.


Red.

[Red Devil]

Here is a gel test of a Federal Government overrun .40/180 gr. load.

The load generally carried, from the same pistol carried in - the Glock G23.4.

40 S&W bonded 180 Winchester Overrun (Q4369)

Now, explain to us what is wrong with this performance, as either an LE or SD round.


Red

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by Red Devil

When one leaves the echo-chamber of the currently popular 9mm wonder-round?

Concealed Carry with .40 S&W

Reality, and truth, bring an interesting view.


Red.

A man on YouTube, whose business is the sale of ammunition, agrees with you. He says in the video that 40SW is an “I mean it caliber” that was designed to “perhaps disable a car”. As someone that has personally shot and seen multiple vehicles shot, I’m not sure of the “truth and reality” in that. He goes on to say that 40SW is not for a “once a year shooter”. I think shooting proficiency is important regardless of cartridge and there are many examples of experienced units and individuals that choose 9mm. “Don’t throw your 40s away.” I don’t actually see anyone here advocating for that. Again, this isn’t as emotional as you’re making it.

To your gel block test, I don’t see anyone here that has said there is anything “wrong” with the ballistic performance of the 40SW. What people are doing is pointing out relative differences between 40SW and 9mm and questioning if those differences are worth the associated trades. You seem to be missing what people are saying entirely. Maybe you’re too busy coming up with purse comments, or maybe you’re conveniently sidestepping those arguments.

Above I voiced concerns that the way you were going about your argument was likely to lead to an endless back and forth. Here we are. If we want to go the way of clever phrases, sometimes the only way to win is not to play. I’m going to take that advice. Have a nice day.

[JohnKSa]

purse-onal problem

Do you think it makes your argument stronger when you resort to this kind of childish name calling?

With the same chamber pressure and penetration - the .40, with it's 400 ft-lb of energy and larger, heaver bullet, will do more damage to the intended target than the 9mm.

Yes, but that does not appear to translate into measurably better outcomes in real-world shootings. No one has managed to prove it, and that's in spite of a lot of trying.

Now, explain to us what is wrong with this performance, as either an LE or SD round.

Nothing. But no one seems to be able to prove that it actually provides a measurable benefit in terms of the outcomes of real world shooting compared to the other "service pistol cartridges".

Again, it all comes down to one question.

Given that no one can prove that carrying .40S&W over 9mm provides a measurable benefit in terms of the outcomes of real world shootings, which makes more sense--assume there is a difference and it's significant or assume that if there is a difference it can't be significant since no one seems to be able to measure it or even prove it exists.

[TruthTellers]

Seems every .40 thread just devolves into the same 9 vs 40 argument that has been going on for 35 years.

Let's give it a rest, folks. If you buy a 9 or a .40 you've got a caliber that's capable of defending yourself. If you don't have money and like to shoot a lot, buy 9mm. If you don't have a lot of money and can't afford to shoot that much, buy one of the cheap .40 trade ins as the price of 9mm isn't going to be that significantly less that you'll be able to afford shooting more with it.

[Red Devil]

Originally Posted by TruthTellers

Seems every .40 thread just devolves into the same 9 vs 40 argument that has been going on for 35 years.

Let's give it a rest, folks. If you buy a 9 or a .40 you've got a caliber that's capable of defending yourself. If you don't have money and like to shoot a lot, buy 9mm. If you don't have a lot of money and can't afford to shoot that much, buy one of the cheap .40 trade ins as the price of 9mm isn't going to be that significantly less that you'll be able to afford shooting more with it.

Do you expect or require a "Miami-Dade" event as proof?

Because you already have that one.

Are you also jumping on the .30 Carry bandwagon, because it has the same ballistic gel performance as the 9mm, is even easier to shoot, and allows for even higher capacity magazines, and there is no proof to the contrary?

Is a pointy stick better than a 9mm because it has an unlimited magazine and no proof that it is less effective?

Or is the 9mm better than the .50 M2 because of the same lack of proof?


As for the .40 S&W - is was purpose-built to replace the inadequate 9mm, and did, for Twenty-Five(25) years, with the same bullet technology.

Better bullet technology has benefited All tactical rounds, not just the 9mm.

They are all better.

So, what IS better, that might not show up on an autopsy or forensic investigation?

Time to incapacitation, or how quickly the fight stops.

Barring a CNS hit - bigger, heavier bullets, with more energy and expansion, make bigger holes and do more damage, and end fights sooner.

Where else does the extra energy go?

Given the choice - will always choose better performance over a few extra rounds in the magazine, that takes less practice to shoot well.

Am training to proficiency regardless.

And this is a .40 S&W thread.

Most already know it's better.


Red

[JohnKSa]

Do you expect or require a "Miami-Dade" event as proof?

Because you already have that one.

The organization who went through the Miami-Dade event and moved to the 10mm and then the .40S&W has finally admitted that they can get the results they need without the extra recoil and capacity penalty.

Are you also jumping on the .30 Carry bandwagon, because it has the same ballistic gel performance as the 9mm, is even easier to shoot, and allows for even higher capacity magazines, and there is no proof to the contrary?

The .30 Carry hasn't been around for decades. The fact that there's no proof is solely because it's brand new. It's not the same as having decades of data from real world shootings and still not being able to call a winner.

Is a pointy stick better than a 9mm because it has an unlimited magazine and no proof that it is less effective?

Have large, well-funded organizations been studying pointy sticks to compare them to shooting data from service pistol calibers? If not, then that is a useless analogy.

Or is the 9mm better than the .50 M2 because of the same lack of proof?

You think that because it's not possible to call a winner in the service pistol category that means that ALL calibers are equal? That makes no sense at all.

So, what IS better, that might not show up on an autopsy or forensic investigation?

Time to incapacitation, or how quickly the fight stops.

Barring a CNS hit - bigger, heavier bullets, with more energy and expansion, make bigger holes and do more damage, and end fights sooner.

That would be better. The problem is that there simply is no data from real world shootings that proves one of the service pistol calibers is superior to the others in terms of faster incapacitation.

I'm not making any revolutionary claims here. We all would love to see that information--it just doesn't exist.

[dogtown tom]

Why do you keep posting:

Quote:
It was the standard for Twenty-Five(25) years.

Which is false

.40 WAS NOT "the standard" for twenty five years. The FBI did not begin issuing the .40S&W until 1997. Switching back to the 9mm in 2016.
Thats nineteen years with the FBI.

Even the wimpy girly man 9mm has been a standard longer. The US military adopting it in 1985.......thirty eight years ago.

T W I C E.......A S......L O N G !

Even nineteen years "as the standard"?.......is more like a flirtation.

[Webleymkv]

I suspect that the abandonment of the .40 S&W by Law Enforcement had as much to do with cost as anything else. Even when .40 S&W ammunition was only slightly more expensive than 9mm, it was still more expensive. While an extra dollar or two a box might not seem like a lot of money to the average person, when a large police department is buying tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of rounds of ammunition per year, the slightly elevated cost of .40 S&W ammunition over 9mm adds up. Also, it's a matter of simple physics that given two similar pistols, a Glock 17 and a Glock 22 for example, the one in 9mm will recoil less and be easier to shoot than the one in .40 S&W. This means better qualifications scores, but more importantly it also means fewer rounds required for the rookie cop to become proficient enough to meet the qualification standards. I suspect that many of the LE agencies that replaced their .40's with 9mm's did so at the time they did because many of the .40 S&W pistols were nearing the end of their service life and would need to be replaced soon anyway. If you're going to buy new guns anyway, that's a convenient time to switch calibers.

The notion that, with recent developments in bullet technology, that the 9mm is "just as good" as .40 S&W is somewhat misleading. With modern premium bullets like Speer Gold Dot or Federal HST, 9mm probably does give comparable performance to the .40 S&W ammunition that was available in the early to mid-90's. However, those premium bullets are also available in calibers other than 9mm and if you compare the 9mm to .40 S&W with the same premium bullets, you'll find that the .40 S&W is "better" in some, if not every, measurable way such as expanded diameter (it is bigger to begin with) or deeper penetration. However, to my knowledge, few if any LE agencies were dissatisfied with the performance of the .40's of yesteryear so if 9mm can equal that performance with less recoil, higher magazine capacity, and less costly ammunition then it's plenty good enough.

That all being said, I think the demise of the .40 S&W is greatly exaggerated. Just because a cartridge has fallen out of favor for military or police use doesn't mean that it won't survive in the market. We have lots of cartridges that are still with us such as .44 Special and .41 Magnum that were never as popular as .40 S&W and yet they continue to be available. Ironically, it wasn't all that long ago that the .40's older brother 10mm was considered to be "dead" or "obsolete" by many and it's now one of the more popular handgun cartridges available. Even if new guns in .40 are collecting dust on the shelves, there are millions of .40 S&W chambered pistols in circulation and the people who own and shoot them are still going to want ammunition for them. While it's true that I see very few new guns in .40 sitting in the dealers' cases these days, I see no lack of ammunition on the shelves. If .40 S&W ammo wasn't selling, dealers wouldn't stock it so someone must be buying the ammo.

Will I be running out to buy a new pistol in .40 S&W? No, but I wasn't excited enough about the cartridge to pay for a new gun chambered for it even when it was "the current thing" and I'm also not in any hurry to buy a new 9mm either. I do, however, own a couple of .40 S&W pistols that I got lightly used for good prices and I have no plans to get rid of them nor do I see any reason to. The .40's I own are accurate, reliable, and no more difficult to shoot than any other service-pistol cartridge (though to be fair, I shoot .357 Magnum, 10mm, and .44 Magnum recreationally so my perception of recoil may be skewed).

[JustJake]

If you want a super effective self/home defense pistol, here’s a tip. Buy a 40 S&W. They are literally giving away used 40 S&W pistols right now.

Well, since the .40’s officially a dead round, it’s no big surprise that the pistols chambered for it are bringing dumpster-fire pricing. I mean, even the once new-hotness .357 Sig has been relegated to suicide watch since about 2016.

Noop …… The rounds with staying power these days are: the 9mm (FBI approved, again ), the .45 acp (mainly due to nostalgia and historical reasons), and the most-awesome 10mm AUTO (totally resurgent since the early 2000s and versatile enough to keep you safe in the woods and ‘hoods).

The .40S&W? ….. Why?

[Nathan]

The .40S&W? ….. Why?

You triggered me. ……because it has the best terminal performance of any round that a skilled male can handle full power ammo at his max rpm firing rate.

9mm shooters will protest…..I’m saying it is higher performance than 9mm terminally by a reasonably significant amount. 40 puts big holes and big penetration along with good barrier penetration in one package. 9mm has a few rounds that do ok. It offsets that with the easy of which poor shooters can be made decent due to extremely light recoil. That said, in a barrel under 4”, 9mm is surely the top choice.

45 auto protest….45 performs even better, but not much. In full power loads, most people cannot hit anything at the same rpm as a 9mm or 40. Many will protest 45 auto crushed competition for years, but was that 45 auto in an SD load or 45 auto light, usually with a comp?

[JustJake]

45 auto protest….45 performs even better, but not much. In full power loads, most people cannot hit anything at the same rpm as a 9mm or 40. Many will protest 45 auto crushed competition for years, but was that 45 auto in an SD load or 45 auto light, usually with a comp?

A “full power” .45 acp load would be 230grn +P ammo load doing 950fps tops. Not hard to control if you’re a seasoned .45 shooter already, and even easier if you also own and shoot 10mm pistols with real 10mm ammo or handloads. Those are easily 200grns at or beyond 1200fps.

[Nathan]

What are your split times in full power 45 vs 40 vs 9mm?

[JustJake]

What are your split times in full power 45 vs 40 vs 9mm?

“Split times”?

Dude, focus. I’m not a gun-gamer. Yeah, I’ve done IDPA but I train for the street using street-relevant drills, like the Mozambique from ‘surrender position’ against the beeper. Goal is shots on target inside 2.0 sec. …. .45 and 10mm.

My 9mm is for cheap and easy plinking at the range on lazy Sunday afternoons.

[wild cat mccane]

1. It's not dead. It never will be.
2. It's totally capable.
3. 9mm DOES best it according to Vista on multiple media tests. Since Vista makes most all bullets in America, I trust them just fine.

I bet, educated guess, that 40 low gr bullets are the reason Vista recently started saying everything we've all focused on (lbs, velocity, and all the "old" talk) are wrong. Vista recently said it's all about performance on target and lbs totally misses that.

If you look at a low grain 40 bullet, which is high velocity, the outcomes are awesome. They aren't uniquely awesome though. In fact...they are within HST and Gold Dot 9mm loads. That's odd. You'd expect a 155gr fast 40 to best 9mm...in fact, it has to best 9mm to be relevant. But it doesn't.

It's bullet shape. 9mm 124gr and 147gr put the weight behind the bullet for expansion AND penetration.

On a super fast lower grain 40, you would EXPECT massive performance, but you don't get better than 9mm. I imagine it's totally on that the bullet shape is shallower, making expansion good but penetration poor.

So 155gr, 135gr 40 does fine. Agreed. But why pick it if the 9mm falls within it, according to Vista who makes the commercial LE loads. You wouldn't.

[Pumpkin]

Because guns and ammo are cheaper
Actually, I never thought about where the bullet carries the majority of its weight.
This all assumes it continues on a very stable path.

[JohnKSa]

What are your split times in full power 45 vs 40 vs 9mm?

Focusing on split times tells only part of the story. For one thing, splits are the absolutely smallest possible division one can break things up into which means that they absolutely minimize any difference that exists. For another, splits are not the only thing affected by recoil.

I did some analysis on the Glock matches some years ago. They have different categories, and one of the categories is for the 10mm/.45ACP pistols. Scores are a combination of accuracy and time. They list the shooters by name online and also provide their scores in the different categories. That made it possible to compare the scores for the same shooter in the two different categories. I found that the scores were about 20% lower for the 10mm/.45ACP for amateur shooters and about 10% lower for the 10mm/.45ACP for master class shooters.

They don't split things up by .40, so I don't have that information, but it's clear that more recoil means poorer shooting, especially if you are an amateur, but even if you are a master class shooter. That's why the lighter calibers are often penalized in some fashion in the practical pistol sports--to try to compensate for the inherent advantage that lighter recoil provides, both in terms of accuracy and speed.

Now, on the other hand, what is the advantage to shooting a heavier caliber in the service pistol class? And there's where things either get really clear or really problematic depending on what your goal is. No one has any conclusive evidence that there's any advantage in terms of improved outcome in real-world shootings when you pick one of the service pistol calibers over another one.** So, how much does it make sense to give up in return for an advantage no one can prove actually exists?

**I keep saying this for two reasons. 1.) Because it's true as far as I know. 2.)Because if it's not true, I'm hoping someone will provide the evidence to disprove it and end the caliber wars. If there really is proof that choosing one service pistol caliber over the others will provide a measurable benefit in terms of survivability/incapacitation times/etc. then I want to know about it and take advantage of that benefit myself. So far as I know, in spite of the fact that a lot of people and well-funded organizations have tried to find the proof, no one has been able to demonstrate any real-world benefit.

[Pumpkin]

So when do the 9mm’s get replaced with.380’s?

[BourbonCowboy]

I just picked up an HK VP40 slide that I can now swap with the VP9 slide on the same frame. For me, it's not an either/or proposition. I enjoy shooting both, and now I can.

[JohnKSa]

So when do the 9mm’s get replaced with.380’s?

There's a fundamental division between the service pistol calibers and the lower energy/momentum offerings. It's not possible to get any sort of decent expansion and still manage the commonly accepted minimum required penetration performance.

Maybe one day that boundary will be moved by improved bullet technology; I don't know. I doubt it, I just don't think there's enough to work with to achieve it.

[wild cat mccane]

Vista has put out 2 LE posters and has an LE test website. The website I posted earlier. It's continued to be ignored here generating a feeling of circular bad faith arguing.

Will 380 replace 9mm? Nope. Federal 380 Deep Hydro Shock does best some 9mm JHP offerings at 13"+ and full expansion. For example, that's as good and better than some of the old 9mm JHP designs (ie, no skiving/bonding). Interestingly, Federal 380 Deep does out perform Federal 30SC HST/Gold Dot (which we knew it would given both aren't great in 380). So 30SC currently has problems. It also never falls within the total range of 9mm.

However, 380 cannot best 9mm in any category within the 9mm range. 9mm exceed penetration and expansion range of 380, non load specific. Therefore, 9mm will always "better 380.

This is the point that is being ignored. Vista 9mm falls within and at times above range of 40.

Vista, who makes Gold Dot and HST, shows the 9mm bests several 40 loads in several categories. When 40 beats 9mm, it's either 1 media alone and it's never by a significantly important amount when they both are so close.

That's the definition of range. 9mm and 40 fall within each other's range. When not by 1 category, either outperform in all.

If you don't agree to the concept of variation and range, we'll continue to circle.

9mm shape concentrates more weight behind the JHP than light 40 grained bullets like 135/155gr (ie, it's not dense). Therefore, the higher velocity low grain 40 that one could assume outperform 9mm don't. Just like Vista has recently said: lbs of energy isn't a measure of performance in handgun loads. It just is not. It's difficult to get everyone to agree, because it means most talk has been all wrong since HST and Gold Dot G2 v2.

Thanks to the same great bullet design, they both perform within each other's range. 40 never lands above the range of 9mm in every load according to Vista LE testing.

No one is saying 40 is bad. No one can point to Vista's own data and say HST/Gold Dot current defense loads in 40 is always better. It just is not.

[JohnKSa]

Federal 380 Deep Hydro Shock does best some 9mm JHP offerings at 13"+ and full expansion.

The data I've seen on .380 rounds that get 12" or more of penetration show either no expansion at all, or, at best, expansion that would be considered poor in any service pistol caliber. I think there's one .380ACP round (the Federal round you mentioned) out there that manages to achieve the 12" penetration figure and still get about 1.5x expansion, the rest are much worse either on one or the other or both.

It seems like it should be pretty close to 9mm, but there's a significant step down in terms of what the ammo designers have been able to make it do in practice.

[wild cat mccane]

Exactly right. That's why will 380 replace 9mm? absolutely not.

30SC will also not replace 380 if people started looking at Federal Deep.

The LCP frame reins supreme for size.

Even niche role, an LCP size frame that can outperform a 3.5" Shield 30SC? Just want to have the 30SC at that point since it doesn't bring better to the table from the same manufacturer who created it.