I keep reading that the .40 S&W is going the way of button shoes because of advancements in bullet designed has improved the 9mms performance to nearly .40 levels.
Why haven’t .40 caliber bullets been designed along the same lines?

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I told you not to use Lifebuoy

The technology and design is there…but with sales on a downhill slope the R&D funding plus manufacturing expenses argue against it. Bottom line…why spend the investment with too little return on that investment expected.

The 9mm is being rediscovered by police (it mostly was beaten out by the 40 from the early '90s) because it's cheaper to train with (both ammo cost and mild report/recoil). The 9mm miracle bullet nonsense is intended for marketing.

I have a few boxes of 2022 'LE Only' Hornady Critical Duty #90225. It is pretty much indistinguishable in terminal performance on jackrabbits and coyotes from the Super WhizBang JHPs of the past 30 years, with the cool-looking red ball in the hollow point notwithstanding.

For lots of folks. Recoil wise it is for me.

Funny, a gun shop owner friend of mine showed me a mint 1006 the other day, adopted by the FBI way back, who then switched to the .40 because the 10mm was too much of a beast.

Now they are back to the 9mm, like the rest of the world.

You give me a .40 I'm selling it as fast as I can.

Commonly held misconception.

The FBI never issued full-power 10mm. The gun guys started with the 10mm cartridge and a 180 bullet and shot it into gel at increasing velocities until it did what they wanted. That was 950 fps.

As much as the internet loves the idea of 1076s (not 1006s) crashing to the ground while agents shook their dainty wrists at the awesome recoil, it just never happened.

Someone later realized the same result (180/950) could be had in a round that fit into 9mm sized guns and the .40 was born. By then the 1076 had been recalled for mechanical reasons and we went to the .40 S&W.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

I guess I misread the number on the box. If I remember correctly, the Virginia State Police also adopted the 10mm FBI pistol, only to also give it up.

Well, the NMSP gave up their 357 Sigs for 9mm - it was about ammo & training costs.

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.

100% my experience as well.

I was in the FBI when the .40 was adopted and I was there for the return of the 9mm. I was a firearms instructor as an additional duty and saw the internal manuevering as well.

9mm is cheaper. Each agent fires about a 1000 rounds per year. Quarterly quals, which include drills and practice runs. 12,000 agents times 1000 is easy even for me - 12 million rounds a year. Now add in Quantico where new agents shoot about 10k rounds in the academy and SWAT and HRT go through ammo like its air and pretty soon you’re up to a fair amount of munitions. Even a small savings per box adds up, and even then the powers that be want to spend that ammo budget on other stuff.

Its the same at other departments. 9mm is cheaper, usually works fine, is easier on guns, and kicks less.

I worked a lot of .40 shootings - mostly by tribal police officers. It always worked great. It still does.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

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.

Send it my way!

Don't be screwing with internet 'everyone knows' lore.

As an aside, I had an issued 10mm right up until I retired. A really fun one.

Attached Images

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

When I first attended FLETC in the late '80s we were told by a firearms instructor there (believe it or don't)...that the reason the FBI had picked the 10mm following the Miami Massacre was due to that they had already denigrated the .45 ACP in favor of the 9mm previously and couldn't be seen as eating their words. I'm not saying that's true or false...just what we were told.

I will say that people and other law enforcement agencies put a lot of faith and credence to the FBI's choice of ammunition. Not to say that it's misplaced but the FBI has a specific set of needs and criteria they've decided on when looking for ammunition...which may or may not be relevant to the needs and requirements of others.

It's quite believable given that US government agencies at all levels have a rabid hatred of admitting mistakes and going back on previous decisions. It threatens their illusion of control.

Now, for doing U-turns on large expensive projects and doing it in the public eye, you have to go to the UK. Look up the debacle of the Queen Elizabeth class "aircraft carriers". You'll soon see why I put it in quotes.

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Release the Kraken

In the immediate aftermath of the 4/11/86 shootout the Bureau approved .45 pistols (645s) and 185 grain Silvertips, which were later replaced with 230 grain Hydra Shoks. 9mm ammo changed from 115 grain Silvertips to 147 grain JHPs. I came in in 1991 and was issued a 226 and 147 grain Hydra Shoks. By then the 4506 and 4516 were approved, as well as the Sig P220. I bought a 220 on my Dad’s FFL, qualified, gave back the 226, and carried the 220, pictured above, for 25 years.

The 10mm was seen as a compromise between two factions at the FTU - 9mm vs .45 ACP.

There was once an extensive Privately Owned Weapon (POW) list of guns you could buy and carry. At one time I carried the oldest gun on active duty in the Bureau - non-Registered Magnum 61115, born in 1940.

The list was pared down over the years, and its a Glock World in the Bu now.

Anyway, the .45 has a long history in the Bu, from the one Charles Winstead borrowed from the Chicago office to put down Dillinger to the 1911s used by HRT and SWAT until recently. I retired in 6/2016, and word was already out that no more .45s would be approved or grandfathered in after the end if the year.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. .40s are great.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

The real lesson from those big encounters wasn't that they needed 9mm, .40, 10mm or .45. In some fights carbines and rifles were needed. You can waffle back and forth on handgun calibers forever.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

This conversation can evolve in many ways. Many of us have had most every facet of this conversation dozens of times over a couple decades or more.

Not sure I have ever heard of button shoes but if you are asking if the .40 is going to be extinct... then don't lose sleep because this won't happen in your lifetime.

There are perfectly great reasons to buy, own and shoot .40cal handguns, we could argue that some of those reasons are less so now than they were in the mid-1990's but with many dozens of cartridges in existence, the .40cal is still in the top-10 in use.

I have a couple of phenomenal handguns chambered for this round, I shoot and enjoy them regularly and I'll be happy to add others if I find what I like for a price that works.

Hold on, lets slow down here. You are telling me button shoes are not in style anymore?....

Larry

Whoa...who are you? Buster Brown?

I like .40 s&w. I've been thinking of adding a couple more pistols in that caliber as well as more ammo when the price comes down a bit.

My favorite semi in .40 is a 1st generation M&P. It's a Pro Series with night sights that I changed the trigger to an Apex FSS. It used to be my carry gun and I wouldn't have any problem carrying it again.

My favorite .40 shooting was at an unnamed Indian reservation in the wild west. A drunk guy with a knife was banging on his sweetie’s door demanding some private time. Instead he got “Donna”, a 20 year veteran of the tribal PD. Fellas, there is no tougher creature on earth than a middle-aged female tribal cop.

She says drop it, he throws the knife (which actually sticks in the toe of her boot), then immediately realizes the error of his ways and turns just as Donna lets fly 180 grains of goodness. The bullet hits him in his right manboob, exits and draws a red line to the left manboob, perforates that one, and sails merrily on its way. He drops like a rock, dead. He thinks. Donna cuffs him and calls the ambo. He basically got four sets of a couple stitches each and a ride to jail.

She was a hoot. She was having a smoke behind the wheel of her tribal rig when I got there. It was raining a little but her window was down as a nod to the no smoking policy. I asked how she was doing and she tossed out the butt and rolled up the window while she was looking at me. Tough old gal.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

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!

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Everybody could shoot

Yeh, can’t get button hooks any more.

I have a couple of .40's, a Glock 23 and a S&W 4013. I've had a lot of fun shooting both of them.

The .40 is what it is, there are certainly better calibers and there are certainly worse ones...

It's one of the calibers I keep a large amount of on hand. Matter of fact the pricing on this round is really down right now...may be time to add to the storage! 🙂

As it usually is, given time, someone will discover it as the new magic bullet once again...

I like .40 S&W, never had any problems shooting it, and it hits harder than any 9mm except .357 Sig, and that one only because it's being fired out of a .40 case.

I had just read that when police started looking at shooting data, terminal ballistic data showed an average of 2 shots in the thoracic area for the 9mm, the .40 and the.45.

Since there was no apparent difference in lethality, it was hard to justify the added expense and reduced capacity that you get with the .40 and .45.

I would agree that bullet design added to evening out the 9mm’s performance.

It makes me wonder if the .40 S&W will see a slight resurgence due to the popularity of the 10mm (?).

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otis

One of the nicest thing about a M&P 40 is the ability to shoot 357 SIG with just a barrel change, and to shoot 9mm with just a barrel & magazine change...

And that goes for the M&P 40C as well!

Cheers!

P.S. The 40 S&W is alive and doing well! It can be loaded (& reloaded) with effective JHPs from 135 through 200gr depending upon the intended use. One is seldom undergunned with 40 S&Ws on board.

Was under impression that .40 s&w and 45 acp bullets have been designed along the same lines? To me this means these two calibers will always have the size advantage over 9mm (excepting the size advantage for cc)

The initial reason i purchased a .40 was the all the free brass lying around, which just couldn't be passed up. Took a long time till a glock was purchased, and it was a G19. Have taken to pocket carry in winter and wanted something with more umph than the G19, but with similar capacity. So searched for and got 4th gen G23. Glad i did.

The ballistic and penetration tests are useful comparison devices, but imo they do not tell you what energy the bullet is carrying at certain distances through the gel. Nationwide standards seem to be based on being suitable nationwide, but am more concerned with suitability for NW Wi. So when warm weather is over and with it carrying a 1911 45 acp on a belt, a G23 goes into the front pocket.

"Energy" has no bearing on terminal performance of the bullet.

Momentum is what gets the bullet to the target- bullet construction and design determine terminal performance.

Caliber has little to do with terminal performance or how lethal the bullet is.

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be safe
Ruggy

I wonder why machine bolts come in 3/8 and 7/16 (English) and 8mm and 10mm (metric)? Could it be the larger diameter makes some kind of actual difference? Where's an engineer (not the train-driver) when you need one?

well its all about the type of bolt...


Bolt Depot - Bolt Grade Markings and Strength Chart

US Bolts - Tensile Strength and Proof Loads

Read that another driver in the switch to 9mm was it being more easily controlled by the increasing number of women who were entering law enforcement.

It's not really the caliber but the pistol grip design that doesn't work for many women or men with small or medium sized hands.

The politicos that make the decisions on what the department will carry fail to recognize that one size does not fit all.

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.

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213th FBINA

lets face the fact that anyone who shoots a 40 can shoot a 9mm better.
any gun with less recoil is easier to shoot.
If cadets can't qualify with the 40 they MIGHT be able to pass with the 9.

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 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.

Since someone brought up the S&W 1000 series........I was working for an entity located about half way between Quantico and Richmond. So, when the FBI & VSP went 10 mm the fearless leaders (retired VSP) did the me too thing. Oddly, when the S&W rep visited he strongly suggested we not jump on the 1076. Per him, the FBI was entranced by the Sig decocking system and pretty much told S&W that if they wanted the contract, they'd find a way to do it. We went with the 1006 with full power ammo and it served us well (~1992-2006) until we couldn't get ammo for it. Any ammo, we'd had to go to the FBI spec stuff several years previous.

Despite the N frame like reach to trigger, everyone's scores improved even with the full power ammo. [previous side arm the 681 & Federal .357 125 gr Magnum-the 10 had less recoil] Even our petite types did quite well including one nicknamed "the garden gnome".

When I belonged to IALEFI, the head trainer for a large LLEA near DC got talked into going from 9 to .40 when they bought new pistols. He went along and then later repeated vented about falling qual scores and recoil injury claims. The latter sounds like malarkey to me, but line of duty stuff was apparently common.

Somewhere I think I've still get a copy of an internal FBI memo that told the folks still inclined to gripe about ammo/service pistol issues that whatever the question, the 10 mm was THE ANSWER! Some parts of it were unintentionally funny-if you didn't work there.

I've said it before and I'll repeat it as many necessary...

.40 S&W will not receive any enhancements because unlike 9mm Luger, it was designed to meet FBI Specifications. 9mm was improved because previously, it couldn't consistently meet FBI Specifications.

.40 S&W doesn't need any improvements, it's already performing exactly as it sas designed to and has earned its stripes as a capable duty cartridge.
However, 9mm Luger is cheaper, softer recoiling, and with modern propellants/bullet designs, meets FBI Specifications, thus making it a more attractive option for Law Enforcement Agencies.

That being said, .40 S&W is a more powerful cartridge, and when tested outside of the FBI's Ballistics Gel Tests, has some advantages such as superior straight-line hard barrier penetration and greater damage to bones, but said advantages are irrelevant to the majority of Law Enforcement Agencies compared to the cost savings and ease of training offered by 9mm.

Personally, I still carry .40 S&W and will continue to do so because I prefer it over 9mm, especially since two-legged threats aren't the only ones in my area, and I was able to save a lot of money years back by purchasing cheap .40s over 9s, so I'm not about to spend more money on 9mm Pistols when I already carry a more powerful firearm which I have no difficulty handling.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

How many people have asked the same question on this site and others about the 45. The big 3 will be around as long as they keep making them in those calibers. I have carried all of them as well as 357mag in a wheel gun. All work as well as the jerk behind the trigger. I won't go as far as to say that the caliber doesn't matter but, more important is Location, Location, Location.

If they are designing a new 9mm, it won't be that much of a stretch to carry that over to the 40 and 45 as well as the 38/357 and more.

Why these questions are asked is the real question. Just post fodder I guess.

Develop good shooting skills and practice regularly and an informal cartridge treatise like this one will become much less important.

My completely unscientific take on calibers is that...excepting situations like an assailant high on dope where he feels nothing or wearing body armor...double- or triple-tapping him center mass will more than likely stop the assault...regardess of whether it's a .38, .357, 9mm, .40, 10mm or .45. I believe it's peripheral hits rather than center mass will be where the larger bore calibers will make a difference...they will hurt more.

Now I'm going down the rabbit hole of momentum theory vs. velocity theory here. Getting hit by any of the above will hurt and stop someone...and any of the above can also not stop someone. Every situation is different...every person is different in how they absorb bullets and do or don't keep going.

The best you can do is put the rounds where they count the most...assess and reengage if necessary. One thing we've been taught that in the real world...not controlled lab situations...is that you can do everything right and it can still turn to feces on you and you can still die.

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

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.

We’ve seemed to have strayed.
My question was why 9mm projectiles have been improved but 40s seemingly have not.

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I told you not to use Lifebuoy

The 9mm Luger cartridge was born roughly EIGHTY FIVE YEARS before the .40 S&W was born.

It only makes good sense that modern bullet (and propellant) technology found it's way to the 9mm around the time the .40 S&W cartridge actually hit the scene.

Of course they have. Any engineering improvements to 9mm have been applied to 40 and 45 as well. 9mm only approaches 40s&w performance in +P+ loadings, and that isn't a SAAMI spec.

They have. The FBI’s current issue 9mm is the Critical Defense 135 grain +P. There is also a Critical Defense .40 with a 175 grain bullet of the same design.

The issue is cost, not bullet performance.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

well its like this...

when the 40 smith and wesson was developed, they used the latest in bullet making theory... and used that to make the bullets.

The bullets worked.. well. So no change was made.

But with the 9mm, they have spent many years trying to make a bullet that will meet the same standards..

To make it even more blunt... the 40 smith and wesson was realised to public jan 17, 1990.

they have effectively spent 33 years trying to make a 9mm bullet that can give the same performance.