Already lived through that cycle in the '90s, except it was three 9mm shootings in a row with poor results. Winchester Silvertip 115 grain +P and Federal 147 grain Hydrashock.

Carry whatever gun/ammo combo that you feel confident with and makes you happy. There’s not enough of a imeaningful difference between 90% of handgun ammo to worry about. Just put what you’re carrying where it counts.

__________________
213th FBINA

We have more than a few examples of .40 and 9mm as well as other pistol calibers and like all of them. They each have their strengths. In the event of worry about the effectiveness of any handgun I stick to this one.



The issue weapon of Sandmen and works excellently on runners trying to avoid carousel.

__________________
KM
S&WCA 3110 S&WHF 625

sounds like when the military went from 7.62 to 5.56:
more ammo carried
more ammo in mag
less expensive
less recoil
just as deadly with proper training, etc

Yes they did, after S&W gave them all new magazines since VSP had decided they were the cause of problems (couldn't possibly be the training). S&W offered us the reject mags at $5 each. We took substantial numbers of them and only found two to be problems.

The S&W sales rep for the area told us while we were shopping for a semi service pistol to avoid the frame mounted decocker versions. FWIW, he stated that the FBI told S&W that if they wanted the contract, they'd find a way to have a Sig-Sauer like decocking lever. We went with the base 1006 and they gave outstanding service 1992-2006. We abandoned them only because we couldn't get ammo in the quantities we needed.

I had multiple friends/acquaintances at the FBI site at Quantico. There was much politics involved in the 10 mm thing. Judging from some memo copies I got, I expect everything related to firearm/caliber issues was political, but budget did play a part in the return to the 9 mm.

OTOH, I belonged to a LE firearms instructor chat board. There were several agencies that jumped on the .40 bandwagon that later regretted it. Qual scores dropped, in some cases markedly, and, of course, ammo costs went up, further boosted by mandated extra training for some. For whatever reason, I found I shot the 9 mm version of the service pistol that replaced our 1006s much better than I did the .40 version. I didn't shoot the .40 version anywhere near as well as I did the 1006, even with full power ammo.

And now that they are going to the 6.8 X 51 mm:

Less ammo carried
Less ammo in mag
More expensive
More recoil
Heavier gun*
But better at longer ranges. Question is will we need that capability?

__________________
Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

exactly--I'll say it again, a mediocre weapon in trained, motivated hands is better than a great weapon in untrained and/or unmotivated hands = not so much the weapon as it is the user
...an Israeli pilot was asked, after they just had about an 80 - 0 kill ratio in Operation Mole Cricket, what would have happened if they had the Russian airplanes and vice versa-- he said, more or less, it's the pilot/training that really counts, not the aircraft

IMHO the long range thing is a red herring. It's all about body armor penetration at any range, not hitting skinny insurgents wearing a sheet across open desert. There are some interesting videos out of the Ukraine conflict that show just how effective modern body armor has become in stopping intermediate rounds like 5.54x39, 7.62x39, and, I would guess, 5.56x45.

__________________
Release the Kraken

what weapon is that you are referring to?

I don't laugh out loud at these stories very often but I did at this one. The more I thought about it, the funnier it got. I knew an FBI bomb guy in New York City that had a sense of humor like this. One of the funniest guys I ever met!

__________________
Everybody could shoot

ok, I'm seeing the Sig Sauer rifle? XM5?
..we were taught the standard battle distance was 300m or less...we used the old M16A1 amd A2...no optics at all .....iron sights..so in battle conditions, it would be very hard to get kill shots at 300m...yes, at 500y, I hit 10 out of 10 on a man sized target with iron sights with the A1 max effective range of 460y--but that was in the prone, tight sling, taking our time, etc
....but I see in Afghanistan, battle distances were longer ....so, maybe they do need more range

When I draw my 44 the perps run away. Maybe they’re woodphobic.

Attached Images

EA8CD80E-1B40-4759-9F56-5E7076B85AD0.jpg (108.5 KB, 30 views)

I recall a quote attributed to a deputy in my county who retired as a legend here: "When I shoot 'em with my .45 they stay shot"......Ben

__________________
Cogito, ergo BOOM!...

Except now 5.56 is getting phased out in favor of the latest whiz-bang rifle cartridge 6.8x41 SPC, which splits the difference between 5.56x45 and 7.62x51 NATO, sound familiar?

I wonder what will replace 9mm next? .30 Super Carry?

__________________
Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

...technology keeps advancing ..

A 9mm will get the job done and is cheaper and more available than .40. I sure would not want to get shot with a 9mm!

I wouldn't really call it an advancement in technology, really... It's still just another brass cartridge filled with gunpowder that launches a lead projectile at lethal velocity.

A variation of technology which has been in use since the mid 1800s.

Heck, whether it is an advancement of any kind whatsoever remains to be seen.

To be fair, the same could be said of .22LR.

__________________
Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

100% agree! I've been handloading all calibers for 50 years and worked up many a 9mm "performance load" along with others, and the magical, miracle load is basically the one being served up to the public who for the most part have no way of knowing one way or the other.
Go on over the Lucky Gunner and you'll quickly see that for every load the flattens to a dime, there are many others that barely deform the hollow nose - clearly not every load is superior. More importantly is that gelatin shots are representative of relative performance, not absolute performance. A closer rendering would be shooting into human torso profiles composed of gelatin with skeleton inserts and simulated organs to to better watch as many 9mm loads go streaking right on through a relatively "flat" human from front to back - expanded or not.
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist....well, an almost as great of a trick is the cartridge industry profiteering off politically motivated government decisions and an eager public shelling out $40/20 for magical ammo versus $15/50 for "completely ineffective, range ammo, totally worthless for self defense!" Yeah? Tell that to all the dead people created by 9mm ball over the last 115 years! I guarantee you it's a lot more than have been "humanely" put down by magic bullets in the post-40S&W era.

The failure of the 9mm was due to poor marksmanship - many more misses than hits, and a transverse impact that had to pass through the upper arm, into the chest, and skidded to a halt against the Pericardium. Had that one, expanded 9mm slug managed to punch through the heart, the miscreant almost certainly would have gone down long before he was finally taken out by a hail of .38 slugs to the face. The problem with the 9mm is it really ISN'T powerful enough to deliver reliable penetration during off-axis hits when using expanding bullets. Non-expanding it's great at penetrating and as I keep trying to remind people, a bullet that goes all the way through went all the way through everything in between! A bullet that doesn't exit you have no idea at what point it decided to call it quits but Murphy's Law reminds us all the time that point is usually the worst one for the shooter!
The bottom line of low-power handgun rounds is that a hit to a non-vital spot with an expanding bullet is no more effective than a hit with a "ball" round. A hit to a vital spot with a ball round is no less effective than a hit with an expanding bullet. I know the general public has been deceived into believing that expanding bullets create magical lacerations that aid bleed out, but that ignores the salient facts of how the human body is structured and WHY it is so structured! It's also based on a false representation that low power expanding bullets perform on par with high velocity, solid, magnum handgun bullets - they do not.

So the .40S&W was one of the few "evidence based" cartridge design decisions in history. It was designed to do exactly what the 9mm HP failed to do - go deep enough to reliably penetrate far enough to ensure damage. Paul Harrel has an excellent video recreating a closely as possible the original 9mm failure strike on a "meat target" followed by the same test using a .40S&W. The results are nothing less than obvious to anyone not blinded by bias. The modern expanding 9mm round stopped just outside the plastic bag (pericardium) surrounding a chicken breast (heart) inside the simulated rib cage. The expanding .40 round punched through the simulated heart - off-axis impact after passing through the "arm", and two stopped just shy of exiting, with one exiting.

I'm sure proponents of the FBI's politically motivated regression to the 9mm will tell you to believe the propaganda, NOT your "lyin' eyes." Clearly many do. If I hadn't shot a great many living creatures over the years to see first-hand what does what, I might believe it too...after all, a 9mm round certainly stops a paper target just as well as a .40.

Bottom line, any way you slice it, the .40S&W is the BETTER cartridge for antipersonnel use, and easily shades the 9mm by as much as 100fpe in certain loads in non-+P loads.

And not every LEA dumped the .40 like a trail of baby elephants following momma. I happen to work for one extremely large State agency that still issues the Glock 22 which gives up just 11% capacity, easily solved by adding a +2 base for those so inclined.

The real "advance" in ballistic performance has been how cops are trained to shoot...as in start shooting and KEEP SHOOTING until the threat is down! With that approach, indeed the 9mm is a solid performer as long as most of those slugs count - same for the .40S&W.

and yet they are moving to 6.8 because the 5.56 runs out of steam too soon.

__________________
NRA RSO

I always hear the comment that bullet design improvement has made 9mm more viable for SD. I agree, I think it has.

Have the very same improvements bolstered 40S&W and 45Auto terminal effectiveness as well? I believe the answer is also, yes.

If you prefer to carry 9mm, vaya con Dios.

However, don't try to sell me the nonsense that with similar velocity a smaller projectile is going to be equal to or better than a larger projectile.

It is a perpetual debate between fast-and-light vs slow-and-heavy. Both make holes, but the ability to penetrate tough obstacles favors the latter. I think the present trend to 9 mm is based more on 50% greater magazine capacity than effectiveness.

That said, I appreciate the cost savings of 9 mm over .40SW and .45ACP for range time.

5.56 "runs out of steam" because the militaries of the world keep wanting to use it in weapons where the barrel is too short for the round.

We've all read the tales of 5.56 failing in the various sandboxes against skinny insurgents high on meth and so full of oxys them haven't hit the latrine in a week. BUT, they are not the reason 6.8x51 has come along. The 6.8 is all about the getting through the body armor of "possible peer opponents". There are some intriguing videos out of the Ukraine conflict showing just how effective modern body armor has become against 5.45x39 and 7.62x39 rounds.

I have no doubt that over the last 40-50 years some oddball testing branch of the government has been quietly acquiring body armor from around the world and seeing how well it works. I suspect that as long ago as the 2003 Iraq invasion they raised flags indicating trouble, if only because of the number of our troops walking away from multiple hits with common intermediate rounds.

__________________
Release the Kraken

The 10mm and later the 40 S&W were based on the 38-40 introduced by Winchester in 1874. It was known as a real man-stopper back then.

__________________
U.S. Navy - U.S. Army, ret

I have plenty of 9mm pistols, but far prefer my 40s and 45s. I could care less about what statistics and so called gun writers say. I just like what I like for my own reasons.

When the Israeli's got the first F-16's, the first thing they did was bolt $10 rear view mirrors from the auto store in the cockpits so they didn't have to lurch from side to side to see behind them in a dog fight.
The USAF instructors who were training the Israeli pilots thought it was a brilliant idea so sent it up the ladder to have the F-16's retrofitted with look behind mirrors.
General Dynamics, builder of the F-16 was glad to accomodate the request - at $3000 per.

When my SWCC buddy, and his battle buddy were attached to USMC patrols going outside the wire, they were sent as heavy weaponry specialists. One manned the MK19 on a hmmv turret, and the the other had a restocked and worked over M14 set up as a sniping rifle by the National Match competition teams' armorers. 5.56 was just about useless beyone 400 meters. The M2 wasn't accurate enough. But a suppressed 7.62 was just right.

__________________
NRA RSO

So was a .36 caliber round ball from black powder cap and ball revolvers

There is more BS and bad information in the handgun world than just about anywhere else. Well, politics aside...
Bullet technology is advancing across the board. What you may be hearing is Bubba's version of modern projectiles have made 9mms more lethal. It's true modern 9mm bullets are more effective but so are the other calibers.

Modern premium bullets are tuned to velocity. Short barrel ammo will have a bullet designed to expand at a lower velocity. A short barrel projectile fired at standard barrel velocities likely will expand too rapidly and not get enough penetration.

Modern terminal ballistics have shown that bullet placement, assuming enough penetration, is everything at handgun velocities. This can go against intuitive thinking; the old '.45 ACP is x times deadlier than 9mm' does not stand up to scrutiny.

I guess the "querston" you need to "axe" is whether the 9mm is equal or better than the .40S&W.
The .40S&W was created to insure the bullet made it to, and through the vitals. The great fail of the 9mm was that an expanding bullet didn't have suds enough to punch a hole through a heart after going through a few extra layers - like arms and such.

A 180 grain .40S&W load is virtually the same as a 185gr. .45 auto load save for bullet diameter and has excellent penetration. The 9mm is plenty fine until it's tasked to do more than accomplish a front, through hit.
You be the judge.

I want a bullet that's not only heavy for caliber but also going supersonic - that's a .357 magnum, or a lightweight .40. Nine mm 115 and even 124 grain loads can, and SHOULD exceed 1,200 fps but sadly, often do not in civilian loads.
A 9mm 124 grain clocking 1,200+fps is quite impressive.

I keep hoping people will recognize and realize the issue is and has always been about velocity...even RN slug going fast enough destroys tissue the same as any expanding slug at subsonic or piddling transonic speed.

I have a lot of confidence in the .40 S&W and had a hand in selecting the caliber and ammunition in the HK USP platform for my agency. In the day, it out preformed available 9MM ammunition. I liked the combination of a large round and higher magazine capacity than available .45 weapons. I felt it was a good compromise. Most officers had little problem with the recoil, but a few marginal shooters did.
Having said that, I don’t currently own a .40 since I have .45’s.

124 gr FMJ at 1200 fps and 115 FMJ at 1300 fps out of standard size 9mms with 4" or longer barrels is available. You just have to look a bit and don't take published velocities for granted. Once again, the price of a chronograph is money well spent.

Are you saying that BEFORE or AFTER you shoot a

https://www.smith-wesson.com/product/model-340-pd

using

HEAVY 357 MAG OUTDOORSMAN

is "enjoyable and more accurate to shoot because its a smaller caliber" when compared to say, perhaps, an N frame?

I think it's all about having something not readily used or adapted by civilians.

Many of us need to put intuition aside and study up to date terminal ballistics. A lot of smart people and agencies are trading their heavy, badass woods revolvers for 10mm pistols with faster, more accurate follow-up shots.
Bullets don't cause significant hydrostatic shock till ~ 2,200 fps.
Except for a few hot, light .460 S&W loads at close range, it doesn't happen with handgun cartridges.
From a handgun it's all about shot placement and adequate penetration.
Languishing in third place is bullet expansion.

I am saying if you compare apples to apples and are shooting the same gun in both calibers the 9mm will most likely be shot better than the same gun in 40 cal. by most people.

now if we compare apples to oranges and shoot a small mouse gun 9mm that weighs nothing then shoot a full sized 40 that weighs 5 times as much has a longer site radius one might shoot the 40 better.

The FBI tests/reviews drive department buying. 10mm ammo is more expensive and—according to the FBI—harder to shoot accurately.

The whole bullet design justification for the FBIs decision to reverse itself seems like face saving to me. Nobody likes to admit they screwed up and I think that's even more true for LEOs

the law enforcement community wanted the 357 magnum, but found that the smaller sized female and male officers they were forced to hire in the name of "politics" were not able to PHYSICALLY HANDLE a 4" K frame in 357 magnum.

SO they went to the super light 125 grain magnum ammo.. guns no like it much, most shooters wont practice with it.

SO went 9mm, realized 9mm wasnt as good as a magnum.. and so forth

None the above reflects my experience in 3 agencies.

Bingo!!

Because the German Army did not think 7.65 Parabellum was big enough.

Indeed, shop around. There is a recent video on youtube of a guy chrono and gel testing a newish Winchester 124gr JHP load. That round was trucking at over 1275fps from a 5" M&P, big surprise to him and most who commented on his video.

__________________
Release the Kraken

Yeah its always something to deflect away from human error.
I'm honestly wondering if they will ever update their testing standards too. Back in 1986 the obese rate was 1 in 200. Now its 1 in 2. People are much fatter. If they were actually serious about putting down humans you'd think they would monitor that 14-16 inch sweet spot.

I think they are more concerned about complete pass-through given the litigious nature of our society these days.

__________________
Release the Kraken

Yep.

And so it goes. It's the economy of scale. Most ammo manufacturers build what they can sell. 40 and 357 Sig isn't a military cartridge so no ammo for you. Does anyone get it yet?

I got it. 9mm is your de-facto SD cartridge. Loaded 100 today for the range. No, I don't load my SD ammo.

__________________
That's just somebody talkin.

get a 357 magnum or 44 magnum

My personal belief is that modern ammunition DESIGNED FOR DEFENSE is way more than "5% more effective" than that which was available even over a period as short as the last two decades, especially in the smaller handgun calibers...?

There is no doubt that there is way too much hype and the typical marketing b.s. going around, but bullet development alone has made giant strides in effectiveness: the 380acp was considered as "borderline" for self defense not too long ago...

This is not to say that good ol' 45acp ball or a 9mm 115gr fmj somehow just won't still get the job done, because they will: there are often just better alternatives.

Cheers!

P.S. If you really want to consider ammunition development over the last decade (or two?) look at the rifle calibers. Not that everyone really needs to be able to shoot game (or targets) at 800 yards, but it is surely more easily(?) attainable today...

__________________
Sit Reloader Sentiret

Acorn, I came to the same conclusion years ago, then I noticed all these good firearms chambered in 40 being sold at low prices because everyone seemed to think the same way, I have 9mm and 45ACP firearms, what need do I have of 40mm. Yawn. I collected LEO trade ins and saw a CHIPS 4006TSW for $250. OK why not. Shooting the 4006 was different enough and enjoyable enough to justify the different round. I tried it and I liked it. Several long term shooters with plenty of 9mm and 45ACP handguns who tried the 4006 went and bought their own 4006 right away. 40 caliber and the 4006 in particular is recommended. The round does not seem to be going anywhere soon. Join, you know it is your destiny.

"Join, you know it is your destiny."

And you can use the same bullets & dies when you move on to 10mm as well!

Cheers!

__________________
Sit Reloader Sentiret

One thing to consider, is that many 40 platforms can easily shoot 9 with just a different barrel, recoil spring and magazine. My Sig P226 is that way. Stock barrel, not even a conversion barrel. Glocks just need an offset conversion barrel and magazine. I can go on.

__________________
NRA RSO

I like S&W 3RD Gen Autos and several years ago I was noticing a lot of really nice 40 S&W 3 Gens being sold for cheap. These pistols were as new in box as they come. My theory was back in the mid 1990's several people bought 40's because it was the hot new thing and then they really didn't shoot them very much and they started trading them in in the 2000's.
It's very hard for me to pass on a nice 3RD Gen if it as new in the box with all paperwork so I have close to 20 3RD Gen Smiths that are 40 cal. In fact, one of my favorite carry pistols is a 4013 single stack that was a Saint Louis City Detectives pistol that was given to his son in law and he sold it to me.
I also bought a LE trade in M&P 40 that we carry in the family SUV on summer vacation.
I hope the ammo manufactures keep making the 40 and one day I wouldn't be surprised if there is a second act for this round.
PS I wasn't one of those people that had to have the next cool round and never had a 40 until I bought a police trade in 4006.
I had bought a 3913 Lady Smith and CS45 Chiefs Special new in the mid 1990's and after I bought the 4006 I started my collection of these great 3RD Gen Smiths in many different calibers.

I'm actually surprised at ammo prices right now. A box of 50 HST is selling for 25 bucks. I can't remember a time when .40 SD ammo was cheaper than 9mm.

This might be the year I pick up a 40 and just stock up on ammo. I wouldn't mind it becoming less popular as long as it doesn't go the way of the 45 gap.