9mm vs .40S&W Sigma Decision

Now that S&W has their rebate/free mag offer on again, and with Academy having a sale on Sigmas, I think that I'm gonna get one.

I know that this has probably been brought up before, and that many of you might have had some difficulty choosing one caliber over another.

I'm considering the ready availability of 9mm factory ammo right now, and the approximate $.11/round difference in price between 9mm and .40 (in Wally World practice ammo). But I'm also trying to determine just how much of a ballistic advantage the .40 will have over the 9mm for a house-gun and concealed carry piece.

At these prices, I'm tempted to get one in each caliber, but since today is our anniversary, I fear if I get 2 more pistols, this might be our last anniversary

Without starting a "caliber war", I guess I'm just looking for some reasons that you all have chosen one caliber or the other in a Sigma.

Thanks.

Price per round sent me the way of the 9ve.

As far as caliber goes, if I can't defend my house against an intruder with 32 rds of 9mm, I need to adjust my practice schedule or change my night stand gun to the 12 ga!!
(Or maybe consider moving?)

Good luck, I think you would be happy with either!

I think the .40 S&W is a better self defense round than the 9mm, but I got the 9VE instead because I already had some 9mm luger rounds and they were cheaper to punch holes in paper with.

Since I reload any caliber I shoot I chose .40 over 9mm. If I was buying factory ammo I would probably have gone with the 9.

Owned both the 9VE and the 40VE. Kept the 40VE for the extra thump. Can't go wrong with either gun. I don't know about where most folks live, but 40 S&W ammo is about the same price as 9mm around here.

The 9 is cheaper to shoot, so I went with the 9.

There are lots of very good defense rounds available too.

If you really feel the need for the extra horsepower, than go for the 40.

Either way, the sigma rocks!

Lee

For me it was easy. I already had a 9MM and like to get multiple launchers for the same caliber.

Don't own any .40 S&W and wasn't in the mood to expand to yet another caliber in my collection at the time.

I got my 40VE 4 or 5 years ago and chose the .40S&W over the 9mm just because I felt it was a better round, If I had it to do over I would get the .40 again. Right now you can find both .40S&W and 9mm fairly easily but, to me it seems that there are more options available for the .40S&W. A year or so back when the shortage was in full swing .40 was about the only popular pistol round that I could find quality hollowpoints for easily. To me the slightly cheaper price of 9mm doesn't off set what I consider to be its drawbacks as a self defense weapon.

*EDIT*
Looking around online I found that atleast for HST, Ranger T, Gold dots, and hydra-shok the .40S&W was cheaper or equal to the same rounds in 9mm. Practice ammo may be different but at 25$ for 50 rounds of .40S&W HST or Ranger T, I would be stocking up on that compared to 35$ for 9mm Ranger T.

For me the score is two SW9VE's and only one SW40VE. The 9mm is cheaper for practice and plinking but the .40 has more thump for home protection -- but you already know that.

BTY remember that Academy will give you an additional $50 off if you open an Academy credit card that day. It gets the OTD price down in the $225 range.

http://skinnypup.com/images/ballisticchart7rk.jpg
This graph helped me decided a lot on which caliber to use. Hopefully it will help you =]

I'm 9mm all the way. 40 is a good round but I never really took to it. Maybe because I reload 10mm and the 40 seems like a wuss round compared to it. The biggest 2 reasons why though was the price of ammo and when I got my 9VE, I heard storys about the 40 was unreliable. But I guess I've heard the same about the Sigma in general. Guess I better stop shooting mine before it stops working.

My wife has 9mm stuff by KelTec, Springfield and Beretta; I have the 40 in SW, Ruger and Springfield varieties. Our logic was that sometimes one caliber is harder to find than the other and hopefully, one or the other will always be easy to find. The WW here sells Federal 40 target ammo for about $14 for 50, so the price difference is negligible. Right now, we have lots of blammo for both types.

To buy the 9mm because a box of ammo is slightly cheaper is foolish.the 40 has more stopping power.You may well skimp on other things but self protection?Give that some serious thought.

I've used both in places other than the target range and modern top loads in 9mm give up little or nothing to the .40, so caliber debate is the only foolish thing going on here. Generic ammo in the 9mm IS a bit cheaper in most areas than the .40, .45, etc., and that CAN be important if you're on a tight budget. The more economical it is the more you shoot, so there's nothing foolish about that either. Obssessing over an extra millimeter IS foolish, so make your decision based on other factors.

I have a couple 9's and one 40. The 40 seems to be easier for me to shoot with greater precision, but that may be due to the trigger work from the Texas S&W agent.

Flash

Thank you all for replying to this thread, and helping me with this decision.

As far as the cost of ammo in 9 vs 40 around here in S. Alabama, the generic practice ammo by Win or Fed as sold in WalMart has a price difference of about .11/round. Since I have the tools to reload either round, I can reduce that cost difference to about .03/round...really not much difference there.

I haven't found much of a price difference between 9mm or .40S&W premium self defense ammo down here...most brands/weights seem to sell for $20-$30/box of 20 rounds, although it seems that some of you can do better on pricing from your sources.

So, choosing one caliber over the other for purely economic reasons really doesn't seem to make much sense to me. In 9mm, though, I can practice with WWB or Federal Champion rounds from WallyW at almost exactly the same cost as my reloads, and I can spend less time cranking out rounds with my Lyman turret press. Shooting .40's will require that I reload to get in the same amount of practice.

And thanks hybridsquirrel for the link to the caliber comparison. I've seen similar comparisons of the "major" defensive handgun calibers from 9mm through .45ACP, which basically show that most quality SD ammo will perform well enough to get the job done. Most of these comparisons basically boil down to: shoot a weapon/caliber combination that we can shoot most accurately and reliably, since terminal performance means little if the bullet doesn't end up where it needs to be. (Thanks Trooper 224 for helping me to keep my thinking straight on this.)

I think I'm gonna go with the 9mm for now. I'll try to get my wife interested in shooting again. I think if she doesn't find the trigger pull to be too heavy for her, the 9mm Sigma might just help her with this. I'd really like her to get re-acquainted with shooting...I think it would be good if we both knew how to safely handle and accurately shoot the guns that we have in our house.

And Tweety Bird, I get your logic about having guns in more than one caliber, just in case certain calibers of ammo become somewhat scarce. I figure that if S&W keeps the current promo going through October, I'll be able to pick up another Sigma in .40 in a few months.

In the meantime, I'll get to shoot the 9mm a bunch, and hopefully get halfway good with it, and have lot of fun in the process.

And Tslepebull, I called Academy in Mobile this morning, asking about the $50 for opening an Academy charge, and the person I talked to said that they don't do that anymore. And so I asked her if there was any advantage to opening an Academy charge, and she said "no"...she sounds like a good candidate for some retail training.

Well, thanks again for your help.

9mm vs. .40

Long story short. The .40 cal is what cops use.

If you have a choice and can hit good with it, go with the .40S&W. I got one and like real well now. Took a little getting use to at first.

somecomeget said:

Long story short. The .40 cal is what cops use.

Click to expand...

We also use .45s, 9mms, .357 Sigs.......................hardly an endorsement.

I don't have anything against the .40, I currently carry one as an issue weapon and it will work as well as anything else. However, like I said: as well as anything else, not markedly better than any of the others.

For many years I was a dyed in the wool .45acp man. Why carry a .45? Because they don't make a .46. If it didn't sart with a four it better at least say "magnum". Back in the day there was some validation for this point of view. However, in the last decade there have been large advances in ammunition technology, enough to the point where all of the service calibers are extremely close to each other in their lethality, any difference is more a matter of academic discussion than real concern.

Because of this other factors become far more important than caliber: magazine capacity (sure go ahead, count on only firing two rounds and see how enlightening that is when the feces hit the rotating ocillator and you're somewhere other than the target range), ergonomics, ie. how well does the weapon fit your hand? How well do you shoot the weapon? Your Triple-X Bunker Buster Maxi-Zoom round won't amount to much if you can't put it where it matters.

Choose a weapon of service-grade caliber that you can shoot well and often, and leave the caliber and millimeter debates to the gun rags and Sunday Commandos.

I too had this same conversation with myself. All I ever carried on duty was a Model 19 so I never got caught up in the 9/40 debate. My 469 was and still is my carry gun.
I went with the the 9VE because:
a) I have yet to buy into the 40 mythology.
b) Around here 40 ammo is $4.50 more per box(all other factors being equal).
c) I had tons of 469 ammo.
I believe in placement not displacement! Just my 2 cents.
Like the other poster said if you can't do it 30 or so rounds then you might consider moving to a better neighborhood.