I purchased a BNIB 4040 when they first came out and was disappointed when after only firing 100 rounds or so, the frame started to peen where the barrel mated with the frame. I saw the handwriting on the wall and dumped it quickly. IMHO: I suspect that S&W shoe horned the 40 cal cartridge into the 9mm platform not fully testing the pistol for longevity. I also suspect that the 4040 did not stay around long because of this??
It was a great concept and idea, but not well designed. Maybe if the original design had been beefed up a bit, it would of been around longer?
Just my opinions, I could be wrong?
Some peening is normal in any of the aluminum alloy frames, even when the aluminum has been alloyed with Scandium. It's still not steel. The SC aluminum is stronger in some ways than regular aluminum, though, which is why it's used to make lightweight Magnum revolver frames.
From what I was told, the reason for the 4040 being dropped from the catalog was because the cost of the Scandium aluminum frame added to the already high cost of making metal-framed pistols, in comparison of trying to sell metal-framed guns against plastic framed guns. The price point at which the 4040 had to be sold just wasn't something the average commercial buyer of compact .40's was willing to consider, and it didn't help that the 4040 was a single stack pistol, and the double stack's were more appealing to the average buyer. The 4040's SC aluminum frame pretty much priced it out of enough of a consumer desire to make it a viable model.
I picked up a 4040 just as they were going out of production. Mine was a LNIB demo model. It was a NIB T&E gun that saw very little use by a single agency (I know, because I did most of the limited shooting done with it
).
Shoe-horning the .40 S&W into the 3913 single stack frame meant it was a tight fit, but a thin grip frame. The increased recoil required a modification of the 3913's follower (the ball bearing), and the single recoil spring of the 3913 was replaced with the nested recoil springs of the 4013TSW (same as used in the compact .45, too). The mag springs were those used in the 3913 variants.
The 4040 was a dandy compact single stack .40, but it had some additional felt recoil compared to the 3913 (which in my case was eventually mitigated after a
lot of shooting, much like previous instances where I had to become acclimated to the recoil of the .40 versus a similarly sized 9mm).
I have noticed that my own 4040 seems to really "like" the hard to find W-W 155gr STHP, but it exhibits very good practical accuracy with the 165gr & 180gr loads I've used in it. One caveat is that I've occasionally experienced the protruding brass jacket notching cuts/folds of 180gr Golden Sabre catching and hanging up on the magazine's mag catch window cut, stopping the rest of the rounds from rising. Never happened to me with any other bullet designs or bullet weights (and I've owned the gun since '05).
Another interesting quirk with the 4040 is that for whatever reason, even though they decided to make the slide from carbon steel (being a PD model?), like the newer production TSW slides they machined the 4040 slide to accept the optional spring-loaded, decock-only assembly.
Just some thoughts out of idle curiosity.
