What is it about 40S&W that appeals to so many?

[julyccc]

...30 round mag, what happens if there's 4 guys? or you miss with the first 3?

4 guys and If I miss the first 3???

I hope I don't miss the first one.

I probably get shot before I could squeeze the trigger again if I miss my first a couple of shots.

 

[smokey]

4 guys and If I miss the first 3???

I hope I don't miss the first one.

I probably get shot before I could squeeze the trigger again if I miss my first a couple of shots.

OR july....OR

 

[MDCXD]

My XDm40 holds 16+1 any thing more than 3 rounds and your in a fire fight. I personally like the 40 because,everybody in the hoods got a 9.

 

[trickg]

knock down power? i'm gunna leave it at 9, 40, 357 sig, 45 all do about the same thing...because they're handgun bullets. placement is key so shoot what you're comfortable with.

Fair enough - if placement is what it's all about, with 4 perps, I only need 4 shots anyway.

 

[julyccc]

My XDm40 holds 16+1 any thing more than 3 rounds and your in a fire fight. I personally like the 40 because,everybody in the hoods got a 9.

 

[smokey]

Fair enough - if placement is what it's all about, with 4 perps, I only need 4 shots anyway.

rock on! me too. so you use the .40, i'll use my 9mm p99 and we'll take emm on back to back

 

[julyccc]

i like .40 cal cause i feel confident what i hit will go down.

+1
that is the most important thing in a selfdefense round that it will do a job that is suppose to do and you are confident about it

 

[alucard0822]

+1
that is the most important thing in a selfdefense round that it will do a job that is suppose to do and you are confident about it

You NEVER want to have "confidence" you are going to knock someone down with A round or two, reguardless of caliber. There are plenty of people in the morgue with a single 22 or 9mm hole in them, and others walking around with only a limp after being shot a half dozen times. Never bank on your caliber du jour to flatten someone, keep firing until the threat is no more, weither you have a 22, or a 44.

That being said, the biggest difference between 9mm, 40, and 45 is consistency aggainst living tissue, and deflection, both fairly minor compared to shot placement.

All rounds loaded properly come out of a gel block at about the same diameter and penetration depth, making them fairly equal on paper, the 65 or less FPE difference between the three calibers is actually less than the difference in energy between 2 pistols in the same caliber, firing the same round, but having barrel lengths about 1.25" different, say a 5" 1911 vs a 3.75" G30. Of course the diameter doesn't change in this example, but realistically, there is not much that would be hit by a 45 and missed by a 9mm in the .05" difference in the radius of expanded rounds, this is the thickness of about 10 sheets of notebook paper.

So on paper they would appear equal, with the subtle differences being less important than a 1/2" better or worse shot placement, or the angle that the target was hit at. The biggest difference however is deflection. A heavier bullet is less likely to deflect off of bone, glass, or hard cover, instead of hitting a rib, and while penetrating it, being deflected off of the path of the vitals, a heavier bullet is more likely to deflect at a lower angle, and continue into the chest cavity, causing trauma to the CNS or pulmonary system. This same principal also holds true for fast and light weight rounds like the 357mag, or 357sig, where deflection that may occur at 1100FPS in a standard 9mm loading is reduced at the 1400FPS these rounds are capable of. In the case of a lower powered round like the 380, this deflects significantly more than service caliber rounds, and while a shot that only encounters soft tissue can certainly penetrate and stop an attaker, if it were to encounter bone, it may be deflected enough to miss the chest cavity entirely if otherwise the shot placement would be considered good.

This is why you should carry what you can shoot well, and carry a caliber that you are comfortable with, 9mm can and does allow for faster follow up shots and more affordable practice than the other calibers leading to better shot placement, 45 deflects less, and is more likely to deliver a stopping shot, but at the expense of recoil, cost, and capaity. 40 is a happy medium between the two, almost as much capacity as the 9mm, almost as low deflection as 45, and it can fit in most 9mm frames. Once you go bigger than these three, you get diminishing returns at the expense of recoil, cost and capacity, but even the more powerful 10mm and 357sig rounds only offer marginally better performance, and all are diminutive compared to most any long gun.


Oh, and Novus, Chevy sucks

 

[trickg]

Of course the diameter doesn't change in this example, but realistically, there is not much that would be hit by a 45 and missed by a 9mm in the .05" difference in the radius of expanded rounds, this is the thickness of about 10 sheets of notebook paper.

Man, I hate to be nitpicky, but....

9mm = .354
45 ACP = .451 (lead=.452)

That's .1, not .05, and likely quite a bit thicker than 10 sheets of notebook paper - I think you need to get out your calipers or micrometer and recheck.

 

[JeepDriver]

Some say 2 - 115gr 9mm's = 1 - 230gr .45

Some say anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice.

Some say screw double taps, I'm going for slide lock

Some say a pistol is only to fight your way to a rifle.

I say 1911's suck ! ( has nothing to do with the thread title, but it's another argument that just won't die! )

OH yea, Ford and Chevy are bankrupt, what are you going to argue now? Honda vs. Toyota ? ? ?

 

[bean93x]

Some say 2 - 115gr 9mm's = 1 - 230gr .45

Some say anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice.

Some say screw double taps, I'm going for slide lock

Some say a pistol is only to fight your way to a rifle.

I say 1911's suck ! ( has nothing to do with the thread title, but it's another argument that just won't die! )

OH yea, Ford and Chevy are bankrupt, what are you going to argue now? Honda vs. Toyota ? ? ?

toyota trucks all the way!

they never die.
want proof?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrk6vsb77xk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uc4Ksz3nHM




but aside form that, i like my '88 F250 with that big 'ol V8 460

 

[alucard0822]

Man, I hate to be nitpicky, but....

9mm = .354
45 ACP = .451 (lead=.452)

That's .1, not .05, and likely quite a bit thicker than 10 sheets of notebook paper - I think you need to get out your calipers or micrometer and recheck.

read it again

Of course the diameter doesn't change in this example, but realistically, there is not much that would be hit by a 45 and missed by a 9mm in the .05" difference in the radius of expanded rounds, this is the thickness of about 10 sheets of notebook paper.

.355 vs .451 is non expanded, and irrelevent unless you are referring to FMJ, in which case there is a .096" difference in diameter, and .048" difference in radius, meaning that for a 45 to hit something a 9mm missed, it would have to be no more than .048" away from the 9mm wound channel.

We can argue over thousandths of an inch, gel tests, and FBI stats all day, but it is all irrelevant if your number comes up, and you find yourself reaching for a gun to protect your life, and that is the point. There is no suck thing as a cookie cutter average gun fight. It is a messy desperate and deadly race to see who ends up with a hole first, and how many holes it takes for the loser to lose the ability to function, there is no formula, no math that can tell you that, 4 COM hits with a 45 might be insufficient, and a single 9mm may do the job. What it all comes down to is what does it take for you to stop another human, and that has little to do with what you are packing. If cheaper 9mm ammo allows more practice in likely scenarios, and faster follow up shots, and if the time comes that you have to fall back on your training, you stand a better chance to put enough holes in a bad guy to survive. If you simply qualify with a box of 45s every year, the miniscule performance advantage it offers you will likely not be enough to translate into a tactical advantage aggainst an armed thug, or the ability to draw, fire, and hit COM repeatedly. There is also the mental training aspect, some thug on the street with something to prove will not think twice when it comes to pulling the trigger, however a peaceful family man may second guess themselves, run through the 1000s of pages of law trying to determine if they are OK to shoot, worry about their wife and kids, worry about going to jail if they are wrong, and so on, and in that split second will likely lose the race.

Simply, whatever it takes for you to put a bullet through the boiler room of an adversary, before they can do the same to you is all that matters, everything else is there for gun junkies to argue about in message boards.

 

[Super Wabbit]

Does anyone have any literature on actual uses against aggressors between the various pistol rounds? Who cares what it says on paper. Does a 9mm or .40 consistently work in the real world?

 

[alucard0822]

Does anyone have any literature on actual uses against aggressors between the various pistol rounds? Who cares what it says on paper. Does a 9mm or .40 consistently work in the real world?

There are thousands of statistics from hundreds of sources, most of them biased in one way or another, most show various loads with arbitrary numbers thrown in for good measure like "357mag 125gr gold dot 96% out of 12 shotings" and "9mm 115gr HST 84% out of 1,100 shootings", in the next report, the numbers may be reversed, and the rankings may be very different. They do give you an idea on what load performs well, but do not take into account training, firearm used, or many of the other subleties, like weight, height, position and clothing worn by the statistic. The only way to have a difinitive reference would be a true scietific study with controls, and using a replicable test, but that would not be ethical when it involves shooting a few thousand people. Like everything else they are just guidelines, that can only hint that a particular load may be 5% more effective in a frontal shot to a target with light clothing when fired from a 5" service pistol, or something like that.

here is one I am farmilliar with
http://www.stoppingpower.net/
and an article debunking it
http://www.rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/ballistics/1shotstops.html

this is a good book to get some background on terminal ballistics theoryWound Ballistics and the scientific Background

here is another, with some view ponts that contradict "Wound ballistics and the scientific Background"
http://www.firearmstactical.com/wound.htm


More or less, it is fun to argue, but doesn't do much good, and like finding out the meaning of life, or "is there a god", finding out the best defensive load and caliber is something I don't think will be answered in my lifetime

 

[fivepointstar]

Just taking a different spin in this thread regarding penetration....

LE across the nation not only looked at the penetration into the human body but also looked at penetration into glass and metal. Many LEO shootouts involved the suspect being in a vehicle (traffic stop, police pursuits etc). They were finding that 9mm had a tendency to ricochet off windshilds while .40 would penentrate and strike the target.

While I don't see many of us shooting at moving vehicles in our lifetime, it provided justification for the transition to the .40 cal. IMHO the transition from the 9mm to the .40 is a benefit and probably has saved lives.

I don't have any real statistics but I'm sure there it is out there.

 

[alucard0822]

Just taking a different spin in this thread regarding penetration....

LE across the nation not only looked at the penetration into the human body but also looked at penetration into glass and metal. Many LEO shootouts involved the suspect being in a vehicle (traffic stop, police pursuits etc). They were finding that 9mm had a tendency to ricochet off windshilds while .40 would penentrate and strike the target.

While I don't see many of us shooting at moving vehicles in our lifetime, it provided justification for the transition to the .40 cal. IMHO the transition from the 9mm to the .40 is a benefit and probably has saved lives.

I don't have any real statistics but I'm sure there it is out there.

That is entirely true, and referred to as "angle of deflection"

this illustrates it fairly well http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/buickot1.htm

basically a heavier bullet will deflect at a lower angle, when it contacts a solid medium.

There is also hard cover penetration, where 9mm normally beats 45, and once again, 40S&W is a happy medium.

Thing is that in just about every perfomance aspect there is, amongst 9,40,and 45, 40S&W places second in most all of them, never first, never last, it is a compromise cartridge, and versatile in it's purpose.

 

[Scud]

Just pick up a G22 and enjoy it already.

 

[h2u]

Just pick up a G22 and enjoy it already.

Then buy the Lone Wolf 9mm and .357SIG conversion barrels for it and perform your own tests

 

[trickg]

read it again

Of course the diameter doesn't change in this example, but realistically, there is not much that would be hit by a 45 and missed by a 9mm in the .05" difference in the radius of expanded rounds, this is the thickness of about 10 sheets of notebook paper.

.355 vs .451 is non expanded, and irrelevent unless you are referring to FMJ, in which case there is a .096" difference in diameter, and .048" difference in radius, meaning that for a 45 to hit something a 9mm missed, it would have to be no more than .048" away from the 9mm wound channel.

Oh - so sorry, but you notation of "expanded" rounds as opposed to non-expanded rounds is even further off as notated by the image below.

9mm = .62
.45 ACP = .74

That's .12. That's a larger difference than the difference between .223 and .308, (.223 + .12 = .343) so it's absolutely going to make a difference.

Again, not trying to be nitpicky, but let's at least get the numbers right. I understand you are talking radius and not diameter, but it's a bigger difference than I think you realize.

While I realize that we are talking handgun ballistics and not rifle ballistics, it's akin to saying that it would be ok to hunt deer or elk with .223 Remington as opposed to a .30-06 or .308 Winchester. The .223 probably isn't going get the job done unless with a very well placed shot, but the .30-06 will and shot placement is not quite so critical. The differences in bullet diameter and weight between the .223 and the .308 diameter bullets is very similar to the differences between the 9mm and .45 ACP.

 

[simplegreen]

my brain itches....