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Why the decline of .40 S&W?


c10bonanza
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On 9/14/2018 at 5:58 PM, PNWguy said:

Very astute point.  The problem is keyboard commandos who rarely shoot anything other than WWB they buy at WalMart and then loudly proclaim that the recoil of the .40 S&W makes it harder to get back on target and bullet technology makes the 9mm equal.

Isn't the same bullet technology also being applied to the .40 S&W?  Hmmm... 

Not necessarily.  It depends where ammunition companies spend their money in research and development, and how long it takes for them to apply the newer technology to less-popular calibers.  Bullet technology is not applied equally to all calibers, and all calibers don't benefit equally to advances.  That said, there is nothing wrong with .40 S&W as a self-defense cartridge.  It's a compromise caliber, and serves that function admirably.

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12 hours ago, fortyofforty said:

      On ‎9‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 2:58 PM, PNWguy said:

Very astute point.  The problem is keyboard commandos who rarely shoot anything other than WWB they buy at WalMart and then loudly proclaim that the recoil of the .40 S&W makes it harder to get back on target and bullet technology makes the 9mm equal.

Isn't the same bullet technology also being applied to the .40 S&W?  Hmmm... 

Not necessarily.  It depends where ammunition companies spend their money in research and development, and how long it takes for them to apply the newer technology to less-popular calibers.  Bullet technology is not applied equally to all calibers, and all calibers don't benefit equally to advances.  That said, there is nothing wrong with .40 S&W as a self-defense cartridge.  It's a compromise caliber, and serves that function admirably.

"Bullet technology is not applied equally to all calibers, and all calibers don't benefit equally to advances" That may be true with some calibers like the .380 and the 32 ACP, but with the 40 S&W, the Federal HST and the Speer LE Gold Dot technology works just as well with the 40 caliber as it does with the 9mm and the 45 ACP.

The 40 is only a compromise caliber as far as it isn't as powerful as the 10mm, but it can be chambered in the same size platform as a 9mm and ballistically it's a lot closer to the 10 and the 45 than it is to the 9 .

 

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9 hours ago, Borg warner said:

"Bullet technology is not applied equally to all calibers, and all calibers don't benefit equally to advances" That may be true with some calibers like the .380 and the 32 ACP, but with the 40 S&W, the Federal HST and the Speer LE Gold Dot technology works just as well with the 40 caliber as it does with the 9mm and the 45 ACP.

The 40 is only a compromise caliber as far as it isn't as powerful as the 10mm, but it can be chambered in the same size platform as a 9mm and ballistically it's a lot closer to the 10 and the 45 than it is to the 9 .

 

Yet it is a compromise in terms of magazine capacity, which was the point.  It is a compromise.  I trusted my life to that caliber more times than I can remember (and more times than most people on this board).  That said, I understand its role and realize that it is, after all, a handgun caliber.

For one recent example, the Speer G2 was initially developed in 9mm, which was released a couple of years before Speer released similar bullets in .40 and .45.  If you turn back to decades old bullets like the standard Gold Dot, then, sure, similar bullets get released.  If you need another example, look at the offerings for .357 SIG.  Often, smaller ammunition companies don't even offer the same bullets loaded into .357 SIG, so there is zero effort to apply their bullet technology.  It is simply wrong to assert that every caliber benefits equally from every advance in bullet design.  As more people switch to 9mm, even less attention will be applied to .40 S&W.  No matter to me, I'm very happy with the old Gold Dots.

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I dunno....   Personally, I don't care if someone calls it a decline, dead, dying, whatever.  If popularity mattered, I wouldn't own a 38S&W (not special), GAP, 44 Russian, etc.  I can still buy rounds for it and even if I couldn't would reload it.  Enjoy it.  Collect all 4!  :D

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