4040PD

[bearmn56]

Fastbolt, Just one last thing. I weighed the pistol on a super accurate digital scale and it is exactly 25.5 ounces with an empty magazine inserted. Test fired it yesterday and recoil is surprisingly mild. Of course, I shoot a lot of .357 and .44 mag...so, the 40 S&W is no big deal. Happy Shooting. William Smith, Montana Territory

 

[bearmn56]

Finally got the time to disassemble the 4040. No appreciable wear...some marks where the barrel contacts the frame....but nothing significant. Virtually no wear on the frame rails. I removed some metal on the underside of the slide in a hidden spot...enough metal to be sure that I was down to the base metal of the slide. I tried cold blue again with not staining or blueing. Showed the slide again to my gunsmith and he is convinced that the slide is stainless steel. Also, the slide, slide stop and barrel are uniquely numbered with the same 3 digit number (that does not match the serial of the pistol). Again, the slide has no markings of any kind. I now suspect that this is a custom pistol...maker unknown. Shot it on my 25yd range here at home and the pistol shoots flawlessly with 150gr-200gr handloads and factory Corbon Pow r' ball 135 grain ammo. Kinda interesting and unique. Also, have a 4013 on the way to my gunsmith. I also own a 4006, and a square trigger guard 5906. Have developed a real liking for these all metal 3rd gen pistols. Just can't get excited about the newer Tupperware weapons. Guess as I get older (73), I am staying with "Old School". William Smith, Montana Territory

 

[vegasgunhand]

I have a chance to pick a nice 404PD up for a really low price, unfortunately it comes with only one magazine. Brownells says you can back order them, but I'm not sure that they will ever be back in stock. Ebay has a couple of them listed, but they are asking $95.00 each. Even though the price is low, I just can't justify buying a pistol that if the magazine goes down, it becomes a very expensive paper weight.

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[malph]

A 4040PD is a great gun, I have one, but rarely shoot it. The frame and slide are the same dimensions as the 3913/3914 lady smith and NL semi autos. Magazines are non existent and the finish shows handling marks and edgewear very easily. I bought 4 curved baseplate mags at an old gun store in original packaging years ago and haven't seen a reasonbly priced mag since. They have two ball bearings and different feed lips so 4013 single stack mags do not work IIRC.

For these reasons along with limited parts availability, mine rarely comes out to play and never gets carried. I'd rather shoot and carry my well used CS40. If you are adding to a collection of semi's its a must buy, and one day probably will be extremely valuable. You may want to think twice if you are going to carry and shoot it a lot. (By a lot I mean thousands of rounds)

SVT28

I bought two of them when they first came out. I still have one but sold the other.

After only limited firing, one of the magazines sort of self destructed and was replaced by Smith and Wesson. It's been a while but I think the captive ball bearing "went a missing".

Not long after that I had another failure, not of the magazine but a parts breakage issue with the gun itself. Smith repaired that as well.

Those two parts breakages in a short amount of time sort of got me thinking the gun might be marginal for the caliber.

Maybe I just got unlucky but with limited parts available today I rarely shoot the thing.

I really like the 39** series and the 4040PD has some of the goodness of that with a bit more "oomph". Seemed like a great idea.

I wouldn't worry about the 40 cal round going away. It will be with us for a long time. As it now is a little out of fashion and not the flavor of the week there are deals to be had on good, used 40 cal handguns.

It's still an effective round. It's not its lack of effectiveness pushing it out of the limelight.

 

[bearmn56]

you might try Joe's pawn shop...just Google the name...I purchased two original 4040 mags from him......William

 

[oldHK]

CDNN has 4040pd mags for $30 in flat and curved bases.

 

[RedCardinal]

I remember reading a post sometime back about a PC pistol with a black slide being sent to S&W to have the slide flats polished. Although the description for the model stated it had a blue carbon steel slide, it was in fact, a stainless steel slide finished in black. I believe it was referred to as "Black Magic". The finish on the 4040 AirLite PD does not look like the classic blued slide but looks a lot like the blackened stainless steel. Of course, there is no one currently at S&W who knows.

 

[Fastbolt]

I remember reading a post sometime back about a PC pistol with a black slide being sent to S&W to have the slide flats polished. Although the description for the model stated it had a blue carbon steel slide, it was in fact, a stainless steel slide finished in black. I believe it was referred to as "Black Magic". The finish on the 4040 AirLite PD does not look like the classic blued slide but looks a lot like the blackened stainless steel. Of course, there is no one currently at S&W who knows.

After I bought my 4040PD from S&W (LE T&E gun), I asked if they were ever going to offer a 4040S (so to speak). The regular LE customer service gentleman told me that he'd heard of no plans to offer it with a stainless slide, and that they'd used a carbon steel slide like they did with the 457, 908, 410, 411, 3914, etc, in order to keep cost as low as possible. (However, at the same time they'd machined the 4040's slide with the extra cuts needed to accept the decock-only option, but they didn't do that with their budget models, so go figure. )

Of course, the cost of making the gun using a Scandium aluminum frame soon priced the cost of making the gun out of the little competition it had in the market (SIG P239/.40), and the model was discontinued.