Home› Main Category› General Firearms
bisley
Posts: 10,815 Senior Member
.40 S&W sales must be lagging
bisley
Posts: 10,815 Senior Member
I've been seeing some really good deals on all brands of pistol in .40 S&W - not so much in 9mm and .45 ACP. Lots of police surplus in .40, too. Makes me think that a lot of police departments are going back to 9mm.
Replies
:jester:
Jerry
- George Orwell
Now that is a bargain.
D
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.... now who's bringing the hot wings? :jester:
Aims had some a couple weeks ago for either $299 or $399. I can't remember.
Maybe they figured the 9mm does just fine with the new ammo available, and that the .45ACP is still a good choice. Both offer light recoil for the recoil sensitive, and get the job done; what's not to like!
― Douglas Adams
It's a bean counter's world.
:agree:
Military goes 9mm ... other departments from Feds down to Locals tend to follow somewhat. I wonder what variety of ammo the Feds put back a couple years back when they approved that big allocation? I know they didn't take possession of all those millions of rounds but mfg'ers set up future production planning runs for that. If they setup a bunch for .40SW wonder how that will shift to 9mm? But I will admit since I don't handloading my SD/HD ammo I will be putting back HSTs and Gold Dots a little heavier when I catch a good price in case the switch away from the .40SW does make the supply a little shorter. I found HST for $17.99 for 50 box and snapped up a case.
- George Orwell
$295....
http://summitgunbroker.com/g22-gen-2.html
D
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.... now who's bringing the hot wings? :jester:
I won't miss the .40 Swindle & Whitewash one bit.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and politician
They built too many of them figuring the pantsuit was going to be POTUS. Bulging inventory I would guess.
Talked myself into a 1000 rnds
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.... now who's bringing the hot wings? :jester:
I understand it is the "in thing" to look down on the .40 S&W. it's on the internet. It must be true. All the cool guys are doing it.
I'm a simple minded end user. I'm not an internet wonder or tactical guru with a school because I don't work anymore or YouTube Channel.
I shoot a fair amount of .40 S&W ammo through a fair amount of guns. I've yet to break one and I've killed a few things with the round.
I don't dislike the 9mm though I've not had the "success" with it as I've had with a .40cal. Would someone show me some actual data as to why I'm supposed to dislike the .40 S&W as opposed to theoretical data? I'm sure it's out there some where.
You say the felons don't know the difference. Show me data. You say it doesn't break guns as much. Show me the data.
I believe that one day I will have a lot more 9mm than I currently do. But, I do not believe that it will be as a result of a better projectile than what I'm currently using. I am fully convinced that it will be a logistical decision and NOT because for discovery of a better wheel.
You say the 9mm is better? Prove it.
Costs less = Logistical
Pogues = Logistical
Less Breakage = Logistical (prove it)
Terminal Performance = Practically Application (prove it)
I want less talk from support and actual hard facts for the end user. I like you. But, you and I both know that I don't cotton to hearsay and speculation.
I don't doubt you completely. But, I'm gonna make you earn your interweb space. I've got dead things and running guns that say you better show me why an end user should switch. I know why the pencils pushers want to.
I have 2 and they are great.................... although you wouldn't like them (XD's)
WOW! Not only am I now "cool", I officially am now a trendsetter, having looked down on the round for the last almost quarter-century.:jester:
OK. I'll earn my internet space.
.40 and .357 Sig-related breakage is the entire reason we have a Gen 4 Glock. There were numerous revisions within the Gen 3 production run - largely .40-inspired. Within the Gen 3's, , due to probable .40-related issues, I have replaced broken:
Maybe half dozen early versions of the locking blocks with the forward-facing "arms" that were originally added to deal with the dust-cover flex issues that popped up when the .40 was crammed into a 9mm frame. That part got reinforced (in a way that wouldn't fit into the older frames) and it ceased to be a problem. (Note: my Gen 3 G22 is/was an EAAAAARLY one that had the "armless" 9mm-designed locking block. The frame flex was such that the slide rails peened against the locking block on either side. Not a functional issue, but surely an ugly one.
More locking block pins than I can recall, two of which were mine. Gen 1 through 3 9mm, .40, and .357 all used the 9mm recoil spring. Supposedly good for 2,500 rounds, of which I'm a bit dubious. Since that pin puts downward pressure on the slide stop lever spring, you end up at slide lock before you run out of ammo.
The spring on the slide stop lever - not a huge number, but more than a couple. Not sure if that one's .40-related or not, but the end effect is much the same as having the above pin break.
A modest number of trigger pins - one, maybe two of which were mine.
Perhaps 20 frames on which the left rear rail broke off.
That's the bad. The good is that none of that brought the gun to a complete halt. Yeah, the functioning was impaired to varying degrees, but you could pretty much count on being able to tap and rack at least ONE round at a time downrange at need. The guns can run - after a fashion - with multiple broken, fairly critical parts in them. Cool, but unfortunate that I know this. Also cool was that I was well cared for by Glock in keeping them all up and running while the quirks were figured out.
Other manufacturers? A lot less hand's on experience, but. . .
Remember the Beretta 96 Brigadier? With the thickened slide? Guess why they did that?
HK had the good sense to hold back a year or two and engineer the USP around the .40 instead of 9mm, and look at it: The slide is a heavyweight brick, the recoil spring a dual-coil affair, and the slide stop lever shaft somewhat reminiscent of a telephone pole.
The P229 was Sig's first .40. Prior to the arrive of the .40, Sig had quite the fanboy following with slides that were a heavy steel stamping with the breechblock pinned in, and they worked just fine. After the arrival of the .40, the slides got thicker, heavier, and milled from one piece of bar stock.
Ruger - to my knowledge - didn't really have any .40-related issues with the P94, but remember that Bill designed the P85 that it was based off of for a constant diet of NATO 9mm +P SMG ammo and as a result you can read a small book in the time it takes the extra-heavy slide to cycle with normal test stuff; Dean Grennel was using the unmodified P90 as a .45 Super test bed when he was developing the round and writing for Gun World - by that token, the .40 was operating within the gun's design limits. ( I still miss you Bill. :tissue:)
If you take the big 3 autoloading duty rounds - 9mm, .40, and .45 - in their modern loadings, you'll see that all three typically generate something to the tune of 350-400 foot-pounds; they all penetrate about the same; and after expansion, they all end up as .65-to-.85 mushrooms. Plenty of real-world anecdotes from happy customers with all three - put a modern hollowpoint in the right place, and bad guys reliably die - usually pretty fast. There's no arguing the terminal side of any of 'em - not since the FBI broke out their slide rules in 1987 and reasoned out that, super-light, super-fast, rapid-expanding, shallow-penetrating was a bad idea.
The major issue I have is how the .40 gets to the same point.
9mm: 34,000 PSI with a little bullet - yeah, it's a high-compression engine, but it's not pushing a very big car.
.45 ACP: 20,000 PSI with a big bullet - it's the low compression V8 that'll send a big truck down the road, and it'll continue to do it practically forever.
.40S&W: 35,000 PSI with a big bullet - this is the Honda Civic on nitrous; it's fun while it lasts, but get ready to have valves come flying through your hood.
The other issue I have is that the round came to be largely as a result of a bureaucratic Charlie Foxtrot mixed with a really bold load of sales saavy. All that was necessary in the early 1990's was to turn the 9mm into the performance equivalent of the old +P .38 158 grainer (easy) and all would have been right with the world. Instead, we got a watered-down version of the 10mm that in turn was a watered down .41 Magnum, that was hastily shoved into pistols designed for a lighter cartridge without proper reinforcing in an effort to convince the LE community they needed something shiny and new (because returning to the old .45 that we KNOW worked would have been seen as a step backwards :roll:) before the word got out their 9mm's would be just fine with only a minor change in ammo. It was a compromise between a lot of things, and a marketing boondoggle. Yeah, this whole paragraph is more about my EMOTIONAL response, but the short version is that it really gains nothing on the two older rounds when pushing equivalent slugs, and it did bring several obvious drawbacks to the party. If you have three options that all perform about the same on the target; but two of them are easier on the guns; and one of those two is easier on the rank & file shooter, it's pretty easy to winnow down the choice.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
I want real world data. Not lab rat ballistic gel.
"Show me the money!!!"
:-)
Lately, 9mm is more attractive, because the practice ammo is cheaper. But if I had a pile of .40 ammo, it would be all of the excuse I needed to buy a .40 S&W barrel for my G20 or take advantage of one of those good deals on used .40's.
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
Even the "exact science" FBI stats guys will tell you it's not an exact science what with differences in body type, mental state, drugs in the system, etc... but we've collectively drilled enough game animals on this forum to have seen that with handguns or rifles that perform sort of like one (gradual expansion and deep penetration) to know that unless you're hitting brains or spines, it's a matter of draining the blood supply to achieve incapacitation, and that seems to take about ten seconds on a man-ish sized critter regardless of it being relaxed or amped up, and doesn't seem to matter much if it's a .357 (9mm enough in my book), 7mm, .30-06, a .45-70, or the .40 you plugged your penned pig with.
I've got other-agency buddys whose troops are using 9mm SXT's in the various weights and responses (as to the effectiveness) when I've asked about the logic of swtiching have been enthusiastic. The stuff works and works well.
As I say, my issue with the .40 is not with its terminal effectiveness, but rather the way it goes about getting it. I've been around for the various pre-science fads and have arrived at the conclusion that handguns poke holes without a lot of extra fanfare, and as long as that hole is deep enough and reasonably wide compared to the blood vessels targeted, the system that puts the least strain on the non-Delta operator and the logistics train is the one that makes the most sense.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
I Have fired a .40 in Glocks and yep it was "Snappy" in recoil to use an overused description.
Is the top spike of the pressure curve reached sooner on a linear scale than the 9mm??? Making it feel sharper to shooters? Or the added bullet weight being pushed out?
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and politician
So, you're saying...........you have no practical, applicable, factual data on the 9mm to support your claim? You have second hand vague hearsay and perpetuated internet murmurs.
Right. Let me know when you do. I'm sure it's out there. Apparently.........nobody here making the claims towards the 9mm seems to have it.
Lovely.
Not trying to be a jerk, but... what sort of data are you looking for? I don't have too much of a dog in this fight, but I'm actually a bit curious as to what you're looking for. Autopsy results? I mean we can pull up gel blocks and see how stuff works, but I doubt that's what you want. Strict numbers won't do, either.
Autopsy reports would be outstanding!!! AARs from actual shootings to include number of rounds fired, impacted, location of impact, and result would be nice as well. Hell, give me a comparable body count from his department to include pertinent info (rounds impacted and status).
Gel don't mean squat.
If he wants to say, "The felons getting shot with the 9mm these days don't seem to notice the difference....."
I say.........prove it. If he can't. Well.........why say it. I am NOT against the 9mm. I've done my own research and plan to do more. I see the writing on the wall.
But!!!!! I absolute HATE unsubstantiated statements droned off on the internet with no factual evidence. Especially when it's droned as gospel, fact, or truth when the croaner can't prove or support a damned thing regarding his statement.
Put up or shut up. But, don't be a broken record.
Why do you think i try to personally test as many things as I can even in my limited way. So I will actually have a HINT of personal experience with some of the stuff I talk about.
Nothing pisses me off more than unsubstantiated speculation presented as fact. I deal with that crap enough at work and I want to choke out the no-nut analysts who try to sell me a load of crap when it ain't their ass on the line in the end.
Rant off.
Yes. I want data from actual shootings.
Dude! I'm working on it!!!
Apparently I gotta provide the data myself!!!