They fired 10,000 rounds of hot ammunition in a very compressed amount of time. This generated a high amount of heat and friction that your 45 will probably never encounter. The highest round count I've ever put on a .45, before sending it down the road, is 70,000 rounds and that pistol still had the original barrel. The parameters of their test were unrealistic and aren't really a legitimate indicator of reliability, especially when you're trying to relate them to a low pressure round like the .45acp. This article is entertaining, but really only serves as gunrag fodder. Nothing to see here.
Actually, having read the original article when it first appeared in that 1990 issue of AH, I can tell you those '10K rounds fired' were Winchester 175 STHPs that were actually doing about
1300fps (official boxflap stat sez: '1295fps').
But you also have to remember the timing context: this 10K-round 'destruction test' was done
before the .40S&W cartridge was a thing and
before the watering-down trend of 10mm ammo generally had taken hold among ammo-makers - large or small.
In other words, those 10K rds of Winchester STs were in fact as close to full-power 10mm ammo (for that bullet-weight) as was available then.
For comparison, Norma's 170gn hard-edged HP load, originally loaded to 1400fps in the early lots, had been dialed back at Dornaus & Dixon's request to 1300fps, in order to mitigate 'wear & tear' problems they were seeing in Bren Ten pistol being returned for repair under warranty.
So a 175gn Winny ST that was
really doing at or near 1295fps-1300fps wasn't a .40-level junk load by any stretch.
To its credit, that S&W 1006 survived the test with only a couple of small parts breakages, but was still functional and would still fire. IIRC, Smith even asked to have the pistol returned to the factory for study and evaluation by S&W engineers.
Norma velocity and energy levels were then still the comparative standard (depending on bullet-weight), and most non-Norma 10mm ammo on the market back then (e.g., Hornady, Remington, Winchester) was still relatively hot.
The ascendance of the .40S&W's ballistics after about 1992 prompted the general watering-down of the 10mm to 40-levels ... Winchester included.
And while the 10mm STHPs were spec-ed to an alleged velocity of '1295fps,' that was done using a special
5.5" factory test barrel, not the barrel of a real-world pistol, like a 5" 1006 or 4.6" Glock 20.
Samples of 10mm STs chronographed in the late '90s and early 2000s, using 5" Delta Elites and G20s, got readings averaging in the low 1100s/fps. In other words, nowhere close to Winchester's claim of '1295 fps,' even factoring for a 5.5" test barrel.
The watered-down 10mm remained standard factory policy, at least among the Big Three, until the very early 2000s when something of a resurgence started, harking back to the 10mm's original 'high performance' roots as a true magnum-level cartridge chambered in semi-automatic pistols of reasonable size and weight.
There were, happily, a few recalcitrant exceptions even in the '90s: the old ProLoad outfit offered a couple of decently-hot 10mm loads, and Hornady retained a 180gn XTP 'full load' specimen that did about 1180fps. That's what we'd now call a 'mid-range' 10mm load - 1300+fps being the full-power range for that bullet-weight.
The rest as they say is history ... Texas Ammo Company appeared briefly and offered four full-throttle loads, one being a 200gn load (FMJ-FP or XTP-HP) at 1250fps.
McNett opened Double Tap publicly in 2002, and by using special hybid powders that were unavailable in the 1980s, he was able to achieve higher velocities across all 10mm bullet-weights with
less pressure.
Since then, other so-called 'boutique' ammo-makers have appeared and also offer full-throttle 10mm ammo using various bullet-styles and weights: Underwood and Buffalo Bore to name two popular ones.
Plus, all these makers develop and chronograph their retail 10mm ammo using real-world 10mm pistols, like 5" Delta Elites (or comparable 1911s) or one of the ubiquitous 10mm Glocks.
No special, secret-squirrel 'test' barrels of abnormal length for these guys!
