Best .40 Handgun?

[Gadfly]

HCM touched on this, but our agency has been drinking the .40 kool aid since 1996.

The ideal was, they (INS/Border Patrol) loved their .357 mag, 158grn at 1150fps. It was proven for decades. So the closest ballistic duplication they could find was .40, 155grn at 1150-1200fps. Pretty much identical on paper. But, the round beat the shit out of our first gun, the 96D. They ran, but they are locking blocks and frame cracks were not unheard of.

Time and testing of tens of thousands of pistols in inventory have shown the USPc, P2000, and 229 as running pretty damn well long term with relatively hot .40 ammo. Far better long term than the 96.

I would say that CBP and BP combined account for close to 40,000 of the HK compacts. And well over a decade has shown them to run, and run well.

I am not a huge fan of the pistol. Not an LEM fan, and not a paddle mag release fan. But they run, the mags are great, and my super corrosive sweat never left a spec of rust on my HK or the mags.

As for the 229, I have yet to see a cracked frame. We had one pistol nation wide crack the nose end of the slide off where the recoil spring seats. We installed fresh recoil springs and drove on with no issues. I have to do office wide pistol inspections annually and have only seen two 229s with rust issues. Overall, they have help up well to the .40, but are gettin a bit long in the tooth at 12 years old...

We will be a 9mm only agency in the next year or so. .38 will soon be gone, and .40 will be phased out as we issue new 9s and burn up the last of the .40 ammo inventory...

[LockedBreech]

I think you and I might be related... I LOVES ME some fo-tay-favh, but, not when I'm paying for ammo, and my agency is still trying to prime the pump on getting some in the supply system...

I only own a pair of .45s, a 220R and a 1911, but I was having so much freaking fun with my 1911's first trip two weeks ago. Big all-steel traditional Colt Government and it just felt like I was using a solid gun to shoot a powerful round.

I stick to newer designs and 9mm Gold Dot due to what the current research shows, but it zero mystery why that design has stayed popular for so long.

[HCM]

HCM touched on this, but our agency has been drinking the .40 kool aid since 1996.

The ideal was, they (INS/Border Patrol) loved their .357 mag, 158grn at 1150fps. It was proven for decades. So the closest ballistic duplication they could find was .40, 155grn at 1150-1200fps. Pretty much identical on paper. But, the round beat the shit out of our first gun, the 96D. They ran, but they are locking blocks and frame cracks were not unheard of.

Time and testing of tens of thousands of pistols in inventory have shown the USPc, P2000, and 229 as running pretty damn well long term with relatively hot .40 ammo. Far better long term than the 96.

I would say that CBP and BP combined account for close to 40,000 of the HK compacts. And well over a decade has shown them to run, and run well.

I am not a huge fan of the pistol. Not an LEM fan, and not a paddle mag release fan. But they run, the mags are great, and my super corrosive sweat never left a spec of rust on my HK or the mags.

As for the 229, I have yet to see a cracked frame. We had one pistol nation wide crack the nose end of the slide off where the recoil spring seats. We installed fresh recoil springs and drove on with no issues. I have to do office wide pistol inspections annually and have only seen two 229s with rust issues. Overall, they have help up well to the .40, but are gettin a bit long in the tooth at 12 years old...

We will be a 9mm only agency in the next year or so. .38 will soon be gone, and .40 will be phased out as we issue new 9s and burn up the last of the .40 ammo inventory...

I think we are up to two slide / spring box nose failures - one of our SRT guys ( who should know better) had one go. He's been running the gun for 10 years including His basic academy and about five years and SRT with no recoil spring change. Best guess is somewhere between 20 and 30,000 rounds on the gun, on the original recoil spring.

Overall the Sig P229 has held up well but you do need to perform your recall spring changes.

The HK USP compact seems to be the most tolerant of neglect and lack of preventive maintenance.

[john c]

Thank you for your kind words Tamara. My apologies to all if my enthusiasm for my Shorty Forty knew no bounds. I just got home from picking it up and cosmetically it exceeds my expectations. It is in perfect condition LNIB as far as I can tell. As soon as I got home I went into the backyard to see how it shoots. Grabing a mag out of my 411 I proceeded to run 10 rounds through it from 10 yards.

Not competition grade accuracy, but combat effective for an old man with shaky hands and poor eyesight.

Attachment 10266

A most welcome addition to my S&W 3rd gen collection.

Digiroc

Digiroc;

I have an extra 10 round 4006 magazine laying around from a long gone pistol. PM me your address and I'll send it to you, gratis. Use it as a spare or practice mag. It's an oem stainless steel mag.

I owe the forum some karma points for a holster I received in the same fashion a while back.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Digiroc]

Digiroc;

I have an extra 10 round 4006 magazine laying around from a long gone pistol. PM me your address and I'll send it to you, gratis. Use it as a spare or practice mag. It's an oem stainless steel mag. I owe the forum some karma points for a holster I received in the same fashion a while back.

John,

Thank you so much. PM sent. You are paying it forward and the wheel of Karma will come around.

Digiroc

[NCmtnman]

It's pretty interesting to read this and the limited exposure I had at 5 years in the Patrol at a station of 400 seems to jive with your sentiments. My only failures on my P2000 were at around 6,000 rounds (2,000 of the 155gr) I started having rounds FTF by nose diving into the feed ramp. That came and went as soon I swapped mags out and replaced the recoil spring. Other issues I saw were people with similar round counts encountering problems with feeding or extraction when running lights and even a few cracked frames. Most of those guns were at least 3 years older than mine and had a much greater amount of the 155gr round through them. From the amount of abuse these guns had on them not only from shooting the 155gr round and also the use in the field, I didn't find much of this alarming. ATV's, horses, running, sand, and mountains all take their toll.

Any thoughts on the next weapon? I've heard that Sig could be an option and it will be a striker as well. I wonder if the VP9 will get a shot?

HCM touched on this, but our agency has been drinking the .40 kool aid since 1996.

The ideal was, they (INS/Border Patrol) loved their .357 mag, 158grn at 1150fps. It was proven for decades. So the closest ballistic duplication they could find was .40, 155grn at 1150-1200fps. Pretty much identical on paper. But, the round beat the shit out of our first gun, the 96D. They ran, but they are locking blocks and frame cracks were not unheard of.

Time and testing of tens of thousands of pistols in inventory have shown the USPc, P2000, and 229 as running pretty damn well long term with relatively hot .40 ammo. Far better long term than the 96.

I would say that CBP and BP combined account for close to 40,000 of the HK compacts. And well over a decade has shown them to run, and run well.

I am not a huge fan of the pistol. Not an LEM fan, and not a paddle mag release fan. But they run, the mags are great, and my super corrosive sweat never left a spec of rust on my HK or the mags.

As for the 229, I have yet to see a cracked frame. We had one pistol nation wide crack the nose end of the slide off where the recoil spring seats. We installed fresh recoil springs and drove on with no issues. I have to do office wide pistol inspections annually and have only seen two 229s with rust issues. Overall, they have help up well to the .40, but are gettin a bit long in the tooth at 12 years old...

We will be a 9mm only agency in the next year or so. .38 will soon be gone, and .40 will be phased out as we issue new 9s and burn up the last of the .40 ammo inventory...

[GlockGen4]

ANY Glock 9mm!

[deputyG23]

I was recently issued a new G4 G23 and only got to do a quick qualification shoot with it the same day. Having no experience with any G4 Glock prior, I began experimenting with the back straps later on and found that with no back strap installed, this is the first one of about ten Glocks I have owned/been issued that did not shoot to the left in my hands and also no BTF issues of any sort yet. This is now my favorite .40 Glock of the four that reside in the house.

[HCM]

I think we are up to two slide / spring box nose failures - one of our SRT guys ( who should know better) had one go. He's been running the gun for 10 years including His basic academy and about five years and SRT with no recoil spring change. Best guess is somewhere between 20 and 30,000 rounds on the gun, on the original recoil spring.

Overall the Sig P229 has held up well but you do need to perform your recall spring changes.

The HK USP compact seems to be the most tolerant of neglect and lack of preventive maintenance.

Not common but the result of hot 155 grain ammo and no recoil spring changes. In ten years with the SIG 229R DAK's and about 16,000 to 17,000 in service this is only the second failure of this type I'm aware of and it could have been prevented with recoil spring changes.

I believe the US Coast Guard has had one or two of these with their SIGs and USBP has seen a handful with the P2000 but again you are talking hot ammo, no PM and still just a handful of cases out of tens of thousands of guns in service for a decade.

[Gadfly]

Any thoughts on the next weapon? I've heard that Sig could be an option and it will be a striker as well. I wonder if the VP9 will get a shot?

Rumor mill is all I have. But for sure no VP9, as the request specifically calls for mag release button, and specifically forbids the paddle. Unless HK does a special frame for us (not unheard of) we will not be doing the VP9.

RUMOR mill says head of OFTP said in a meeting "the new gun will not be an off the shelf model, but will be made to fit our agency requests". This is not surprising. The Beretta folks invented the Brigadier slide to better handle our ammo. It was not off the shelf. The HK folks invented the LEM (law enforcement modification) after INS complained about the DAO pull weight. Sig folks invented the DAK for the same reason as the LEM... So our last three guns were not "off the shelf"...

RUMOR mill from two independent buddies says the Sig MPX is coming on line as out new sub gun. IF true, could there be a package deal with the 320?? Possibly.

BUT, since HSI just approved the Glock 19 and Glock 43 for personal purchase duty carry in the last 6 months... That says something too. We have close to 3000 personally owned Glock 9mm in duty holsters right now... Would HQ approve a new personal purchase 19/43 only to come back in 6 months and say "sorry, no more Glocks on duty"? They could, but I doubt it

If I were a betting man, it will be a 19, 19m or 320 mid size.

All speculation on my part. But plausible speculation.