What makes a Magnum Handgun Cartridge a Magnum Cartridge?

robvious said:
my guess as to why the 10mm is not a magnum...
the 10mm existed THEN the 40 s&w evolved.. if it had been the other way round the 10mm could have been the 40s&w magnum... but magnum is not usually first... it comes from people taking something to the limit and the industry responding with a physically larger cartridge to help save the weapons from over stress... but just a guess
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Amusingly enough, technically .40 S&W DOES predate the 10mm Auto and actually WAS the basis for the cartridge.
A somewhat lesser-known fact about .40 S&W is that it was originally conceived back in the 1960s as a competition cartridge designed for Metalic Silhouette Shooting under the name ".40 Guns & Ammo" (.40 G&A for short) but ultimately didn't happen. A few years later when one of the designers was working for Smith & Wesson he had some prototypes made on the sly, renamed it ".40 S&W" and pitched it to the board of directors, but they passed on it because they just weren't interested enough in the competitive shooting market at the time to make the investment.
Eventually the design resurfaced but in a hotter configuration which was called ".40 Super" which later on became the 10mm Auto cartridge. One the FBI started having trouble with the S&W Model 1076 and started using downloaded 10mm loads, Smith & Wesson had the idea to make a cartridge that could fit in a smaller cartridge yet maintain the performance of the 10mm Auto load that the FBI was satisfied with, someone who worked with S&W remembered the old .40 S&W cartridge, and all of the load data and prototypes were still archived/stored, so they didn't actually make a would new cartridge, they merely revisited an old one which had never entered full production.

Strange, but true. You can easily verify it too by merely Google searching ".40 G&A".
 
Forte Smitten Wesson said:
Recently, I've taken an interest in Magnum Handguns, namely Semiautomatic Pistols which are far less common than Revolvers because Magnum Cartridges being what they are by definition a powerful cartridge, are often more difficult to build an autoloader around, especially in a size/weight which makes them convenient to carry.

Anyway, while reading a series of articles on the subject, I was somewhat surprised to discover that when it comes to the subject many firearms/cartridges which I consider to be Magnum Handgun Cartridges/Pistols are notably absence.
For example, I've always considered the 10mm Auto cartridge to fall under the umbrella of Magnum Cartridges due to the fact that full-power loads are roughly equivalent to .357 Magnum, but whenever the subject of Magnum Pistols comes up, 10mm Auto is mentioned as a footnote at best. Granted that the commercial market is awash with underpowered 10mm Auto FBI Loads which launch a 180 Grain bullet at 1000 Feet Per Second, thus making them roughly equivalent to .40 S&W, but to count out a cartridge just because ammo manufacturers choose not to load it to full specifications is hardly fair, and that doesn't seem to be the reason for its exclusion, ergo I can only conclude that for whatever reason, 10mm Auto is excluded because it just isn't powerful enough even in full-power loads to be considered a Magnum Cartridge by whatever arbitrary definition or specifications the authors of these articles are going by.

So that has left me wondering; "What makes a Magnum Cartridge a Magnum Cartridge?" or more specifically; "What is the threshold for a Magnum Cartridge in terms of Ballistics Performance?"

Personally, in terms of simple energy Foot-Pounds, I would consider the bare minimum for a cartridge to be considered a Magnum Handgun Cartridge to be a modest 600+ft-lbs of energy or higher, delivered by a .30cal+ bullet weighing 124 Grains or more, simply because that's roughly the lower end of the sort of energy that one would expect from the .357 Magnum cartridge, which is essentially the premier Magnum Handgun Cartridge.
Granted that's just one method of measurement and not a particularly meaningful one in the greater scheme of things, but all things considered, I think it's a better grouping of statistic with far less variables than say Energy, Operating Pressure, Velocity, Bullet Weight or Caliber alone. Besides, this discussion isn't for the sake of reaching any definitive conclusion or establishing an official standard for Magnum Handguns to be measured by, I'm just curious what others opinions are on the matter.

What are your thoughts on the matter? What makes a Magnum Handgun Cartridge, what stats do you measure them by, (Pressure? Velocity? Energy? Caliber?) and what's your threshold for a Magnum Handgun Cartridge?
Click to expand...

One word: MARKETING.
 
My thoughts are that the old revolvers had long cases that held Black powder in the 1890's and early 1900's......
and when smokeless powder came out, some cases could use this powder to make loads that really were, Magnum.

Most Pistol cases were short and never chaned in size and the only way to improve fps and pressures of the "Standard" load that was first designed, was to make it a .............
+P or +P+ load.

The only real pistol "Magnum" that I know of , is the 45 ACP pistol that has two barrels welded together and fires TWO bullets with each trigger pull !!
 
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Semantics. I have had different semi auto Magnums. Now I have none. As a reloader I found they all have an upper threshold and a lower threshold. The Desert eagle would either jam open or fail to chamber a new round. The LAR Grizzly would just break, stay open or fail to feed. The Auto Mag just broke no matter what, and the Wildey jammed open or not at all.
A magnum cartridge should belch fire and recoil. A 327 won't do that if it's chambered in a N frame, in a J frame it does. My 475 Linebaugh has lot's of recoil as the base gun weighs 48OZ. 430 gr LBT @ 1300 fps doesn't belch much fire, but it does recoil and it's not labeled a Magnum. So I guess what makes a Magnum cartridge is simply a Manufacturer's designation.
 
S&W 357 magnum, S&W 41 magnum, S&W 44 magnum right? S&W called the marketing ploy by naming the calibers magnums sounds bad to me. These were developed to go through car doors, engine blocks, car bodies ect. Plus they make powerful hunting rounds. The got the word magnum from a bottle of wine. Bring me a magnum bottle of that wine. It’s bigger than the normal bottle. Don’t forget the 22 winchester magnum rifle, wmr.
 
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When applied to cartridges in the past and now, the term “Magnum” is a copywriter’s ploy to attract customers. The worst example of this trickery was when H&R and Federal lengthened the 32 S&W L (itself a lengthened 32 S&W) and grandly named it the “32 H&R Magnum”) while limiting loading pressures to be usable in weak H&R revolvers! It was actually a “Magnum wannabe” and it was not until Federal finally came out with the 327 Federal Magnum that there was a .313” bore handgun cartridge that really achieved serious power. Since H&R had already used magnum in this caliber, Federal used “327” as the caliber number... actually as misleading as calling .429” bores “Forty Fours.” Of course by using a number with a totally meaningless 7 as the final digit, visions of the “original Magnum,” the 357 were meant to be invoked.

I wonder whether back in the Thirties some descendant of PT Barnum sat at a table with a magnum of champagne and the newly lengthened 38 Special round and saw a lightbulb go off. Thus was born the 357 Magnum and the race was on! ;)

Froggie
 
Forte Smitten Wesson said:
Amusingly enough, technically .40 S&W DOES predate the 10mm Auto and actually WAS the basis for the cartridge.
A somewhat lesser-known fact about .40 S&W is that it was originally conceived back in the 1960s as a competition cartridge designed for Metalic Silhouette Shooting under the name ".40 Guns & Ammo" (.40 G&A for short) but ultimately didn't happen. A few years later when one of the designers was working for Smith & Wesson he had some prototypes made on the sly, renamed it ".40 S&W" and pitched it to the board of directors, but they passed on it because they just weren't interested enough in the competitive shooting market at the time to make the investment.
Eventually the design resurfaced but in a hotter configuration which was called ".40 Super" which later on became the 10mm Auto cartridge. One the FBI started having trouble with the S&W Model 1076 and started using downloaded 10mm loads, Smith & Wesson had the idea to make a cartridge that could fit in a smaller cartridge yet maintain the performance of the 10mm Auto load that the FBI was satisfied with, someone who worked with S&W remembered the old .40 S&W cartridge, and all of the load data and prototypes were still archived/stored, so they didn't actually make a would new cartridge, they merely revisited an old one which had never entered full production.

Strange, but true. You can easily verify it too by merely Google searching ".40 G&A".
Click to expand...

Very true ... I remember reading about the 40 G&A and thought it was an excellent balance of bullet diameter , weight and velocity . Man that was a few "moons" back .
Thanks for the reminder ...my lateset issue Guns & Ammo was delivered the other day ... wonder what they're up to now .
Gary
 
To my mind “Magnum” is mostly marketing hype denoting a bigger cartridge that purports to offer greater performance, or at least bigger and better than its predecessor(s) - we all know bigger is better. ;)
 
According to Tim Mullin's book 'Magnum' (Collector Grade Pubs. 2012) the term was cribbed from Holland & Holland–the H&H .375 Magnum having been around since 1912. But S&W then trade marked the use of Magnum in 1935. This rendered Colt and others unable to label their .357 revolvers as "Magnums".
 
The origin of the term

Back in time (way back) Holland & Holland had a 375 rifle cartridge with a straight case and a belt for head spacing.
In 1912 they introduced the 375 H&H Magnum. The term was borrowed from the wine world. It strictly meant a cartridge with a case larger than standard for its class.
Over time the term has been used, abused, and mangled to the point where it's just PR hyperbole.
Classic example: The Winchester 458 Magnum has the SMALLEST case in its class!
 
Another simlar term....

unspellable said:
Back in time (way back) Holland & Holland had a 375 rifle cartridge with a straight case and a belt for head spacing.
In 1912 they introduced the 375 H&H Magnum. The term was borrowed from the wine world. It strictly meant a cartridge with a case larger than standard for its class.
Over time the term has been used, abused, and mangled to the point where it's just PR hyperbole.
Classic example: The Winchester 458 Magnum has the SMALLEST case in its class!
Click to expand...

"Express" cartridges were essentially magnum cartridges introduced in the mid 1800s for big game using a heavy charge of black powder. They became even more powerful with the introduction of Cordite and other smokeless 'Nitro' powders, with the .450 Nitro Express which came out in 1898.
 
mikerjf said:
A Magnum Cartridge is the cartridge Magnum used. That would be 45ACP.
Click to expand...
And the reality is that because they did not have 45 ACP blanks available in Hawaii when they began shooting the original series, but did have 9x19mm blanks, Tom Sellek's Colt 1911-A1 was actually chambered in 9mm. The 9mm magazine can be clearly seen when he puts magazines into the pistol.


As to the term "magnum", it is Latin and means "great". With champagne bottles, the magnum is larger than the standard bottle. In firearms, it generally means a more powerful cartridge and often one that is longer than an existing cartridge in the same caliber, ie: 38 Special/357 Magnum, 44 Special/44 Magnum, 10mm Auto/10mm Magnum.
 
The term "Magnum" is the ammunition equivalent of "New and Improved" in the world of laundry detergent.

It is a marketing term with zero defined meaning beyond "Neat-o!"
 
I prefer to think of any cartridge as having a personal name.
It doesn't have to mean anything.
"Little John" was the biggest man among Robin Hood's merry men.
I would not agree with your assumption that the word "magnum" is a classification of cartridge power.
Furthermore, I think that it is uninteresting to focus on tiny incremental differences in cartridges.
 
fhsjrm said:
I read somewhere that the term was used to describe extra large wine or champagne bottles. A magnum of champagne was bigger than a standard bottle so, to me, a magnum is a cartridge whose case is larger (longer) than the standard on which it's based. Of course, by that standard a .32 S&W Long is a magnum. Maybe once you get beyond long you're a magnum?

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

This is the source of the term. The rest is the marketing department. The word "magnum" was in use before it was applied to metallic cartridges. It is a wine/champagne bottle twice the normal size.

I'm sure they would have named the .32 S&W Long a "magnum" if the marketing department had thought of it.
 
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