Let’s find out.
Thursday, April 21, 2022
Does 40S&W Really Suck?
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- For a brief time, .40S&W was quite possibly the most popular service caliber in the United States. Legions of law enforcement agencies chose it for their duty guns, and the civilian market followed suit. Even today, certain demographics still fawn over the forty. However, times are changing. In the early 2010’s the FBI began returning to the 9mm they’d abandoned less than two decades prior, with many others in law enforcement and the citizen world following suit. With this in mind, are there reasons why someone would choose a handgun chambered for .40S&W as their primary pistol in 2022?
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Let's ask someone shot with it...
ReplyDeleteS.v.
Wasn’t the 40cal based off the 10mm......??????
ReplyDeleteThe feds went with the 40 because......
their female agents found it easier (less recoil) to shoot......??????
Ed357
Mostly strawman arguments from every corner...I still subscribe to the 3Ps. Placement, placement, and placement.
ReplyDeleteStopping power comes to mind.....
ReplyDeleteThe Truth About Guns dot com
ReplyDeleteThe .40 S&W, released to the world on January 17, 1990, has been credited as the Second Coming by some and hated as if it were the Anti-Christ by many. The haters claim that the cartridge is too snappy and has too much recoil. At the same time many of those same critics make bold statements that it’s short and weak. Which is it? Too powerful or too weak?
The truth is .40 S&W is neither…it’s perfection. The cartridge replicates the most popular Old West cartridge, the .38-40 Winchester, considered in its day an ideal “all-around” cartridge. It was actually a heeled .40 caliber projectile and was later modernized by the great John M. Browning himself with the 9.8mm Colt cartridge in the 1911 for the Romanian Army at the turn of the 20th Century.
Even further, the original design for the Hi-Power was as a striker-fired pistol chambered for a .40 caliber projectile replicating the 9.8mm Colt and the .38-40 Winchester. But Mr. Browning’s passing lead to the Hi-Power falling into the hands of Dieudonné Saive (designer of the modern Hi-Power, SAFN/FN-49, FN FAL) who made it a 9mm.
Time marched on and folks toyed with the idea off and on until Mr. Paul Liebenberg of South Africa came to the United States. Many know him for his work in Smith & Wesson’s Performance Center and the excellent craftsmanship he he performed there. But when he first arrived in the US he started working for Pachmayr Gun Works where he worked on a side project known as the Centimeter Cartridge. It was to replace the .38 Super for IPSC purposes and was part of Whit Collins’s .40 G&A, the first .40 caliber auto cartridge.
Mr. Liebenberg left Pachmayr and founded his own company, Pistol Dynamics. From there he made a friend, Tom Campbell. he pair worked on the Centimeter Cartridge and tried to get Smith interested in it. They were eventually successful. The president of the company at the time, Steve Melvin, approached Liebenberg about converting a couple of their new 3rd Gen 5906s. Liebenberg obliged and the .40 S&W we know today was born.
The energy of the .40 S&W exceeds standard-pressure .45 ACP loads, generating between 350 and 500 foot-pounds of energy, depending on bullet weight. Both the .40 S&W and the 9mm operate at a 35,000 pounds per square inch SAAMI maximum, compared to a 21,000 pounds per square inch maximum for .45 ACP. The .40 S&W was originally loaded at subsonic velocity (around 980 ft/s (300 m/s)) with a 180gr bullet. Since its introduction, the cartridge has been marketed with a variety of loads, the majority being either 155, 165 or 180 grains.
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
I have a couple of them, just because. I even have an M&P40 with 3 barrels: 9mm, 40, and 357Sig. Just because.
ReplyDeleteI do the same. A Glock22, 23, and 27. Then I got the conversion barrels for all of them. Now I carry 9mm but have the option to switch to 40sw if needed for any of a million reasons
DeleteSo anonymous, who's conversion barrels are you using and are the reliable
DeleteWhile I'm asking, are using the original magazines or have you gotten 9mm magazines for it.
I've been considering doing a conversion so I can go do some shooting
JD
I agree with the author. Sold my 40s&w couple years ago and switched to 9mm platform. The snap is much more difficult to overcome than an increase in recoil IMO. With as far as cartridge technology has come the difference in penetration and hole diameter is minimal.
ReplyDeleteI really like my 40 cal. But then again I have the metric version it is a 10 mm.
ReplyDeleteCarried a 1911 for years, switching to the XDM in .45. All the construction years have my hands arthritic as hell, I got a Ruger 57. Love the little bastard. Yeah, only a 40 gr bullet, but it's doing 2500fps. AND, 21 rounds till reload, cause if you're an asshole, I'm happy to shoot you a lot. Keep a 454 Casull and a 10mm for bear duty, never really considered the .40.
ReplyDeleteI have both a G22 and a G27, the G22 being a larger size is easier to shoot but that doesn't mean the G27 is hard to shoot just a little more bark.
ReplyDeleteThe way I see it the different between the 9mm and the .40 is about the same as the 38 is to the 357. Yea 9 is softer shooting and I'm not taking anything from it but if you're going to carry a full size handgun is it really worth carrying a 38 ?????
The article went around the world twice and said nothing worth reading in my opinion
JD
Great article. I know there's a lot of folks that will never agree, but there is so much information out there about how the stopping power of of common carry rounds are pretty much the same. 9mm were once thought inferior - and they were! But, in the last couple of decades, bullet design has brought them up to the level of the bigger guys.
ReplyDeleteSo, if they all work pretty much the same (put your preconceived notions aside), why would you carry anything else but a 9mm? Lower recoil means better shot placement which is THE most important thing. That, with higher capacity equals more - and better - shots on a bad guy.
Because a 40 does have more power. Ft-lbs are physics.
DeleteI had good luck with the 357 Sig. I used to compete IDPA with a Sig229 loaded with 357Sig. I loved how there was no muzzle flip.
DeleteI've got a P226 in .40. I like it fine, but I usually carry my 1911A1. Been thinking about a .357 Sig barrel for the 226, though. It's a hot round.
ReplyDelete--Tennessee Budd
I have one because I was in the right place at the right time and got a pretty good deal.
ReplyDeleteSince that's what I've got, I roll with it. The best gun is the one you have when you need it.
Fred in Texas
The black dude shooting everybody on the New York subway, no one died, the gun jammed.
ReplyDeleteThat was a .40 Glock.
And what's your point, it's a good thing nobody died and it jammed because he likely limp wristed it and from the evidence he was a piss poor shot
DeleteJD
LEO orgs quit using it because it wears out issued firearms faster than the budget allows for replacements. Plus, terminal ballistics (expansion, weight retention mostly) improved so much in the last three decades that the differences in performance between major calibers became negligible. Plus more rounds = better outcomes in most situations.
ReplyDeleteCops and FBI went to the 9 because they are piss poor shooters overall, oh and girls are now common in the ranks.
DeleteCops unload a 15 round magazine of 9mm at a perp and maybe hit him once or twice, smh, that's pathetic shooting.
JD
My dalliance with .40S&W began when IPSC announced plans to make that cartridge the minimum for shooting Major power factor in competition. When I am trying to shoot fast, accuracy suffers enough that scoring 5-4-2 points makes a significant difference over 5-3-1 as is scored for Minor.
ReplyDeleteSince reloading is what makes shooting affordable for me, I chased many rabbit holes regarding bullet weight, powder type & charge weight, even primer selection.
I found that the anecdotal ".40S&W is too snappy" really only applies to commercial ammunition. By choosing a somewhat slower powder from the available alternatives, and playing with bullet weights, the result was a much nicer round to shoot. In my Para-Ordnance P16 it was almost perfect - soft-shooting, low recoil, much higher capacity than the 1911 in .45ACP that it replaced, and still made the Major power factor floor quite easily.
I have one gen 5 Glock 23. Good trigger and a bulked up slide. Recoil seems milder than previous Glock 40s. It's pleasant to shoot. I once had a S&W 99 in 40. It was fairly light but the recoil seemed no more than a 9 which was strange. I wished I would have kept it.
ReplyDelete