Any merit to running a .40S&W now days?

[Flintsky]

For many years I used a P229 .40 on duty and shot it pretty decently. Then I started to train harder with some guys who were competition shooters and I soon realized that I needed to use a platform that had better recoil management so that I had a faster, more accurate follow up shot speed. Eventually I settled on a P226 9mm for duty, and a P239 9mm for off duty. I am faster and more accurate than I have ever been. However, occasionally the .40 bug nips at me as I did have some good past experiences with it. It has been a few years, but my agency did a number of car shoots where I got to participate. Using apples to apples load comparisons in the P226 9mm/.40 and P220 .45 it was very interesting to see how each caliber performed first hand. We shot up pickups, cars, and SUVs. What I learned from the car shoots was that the .40S&W was very impressive. The 9mm loads could "almost" match the performance of the .40, but penetration was not as consistent through the various materials, and the 9mm bullets didn't stay together as well as the .40s did. The .45s had the most trouble getting through materials. The .40 loads had the most consistent, deep penetration through all of the vehicle materials, and the bullet was almost always fully intact even after passing through a windshield.

This is nothing really new as Dr. Roberts has often said that he would be very tempted to carry a M&P .40 if he working highway patrol duty. Well, that is what I do now days, and it makes me wonder if I would be better served carrying a P226 .40 over a P226 9mm. Training ammo and training time is not an issue, as I am well supplied with what ever I need. However, I don't have much experience with the P226 .40, and I wonder if I should bother going down that road. Thoughts?

[spinmove_]

Following out of sheer morbid curiosity. Are you seeing .40S&W really holding up THAT much better through vehicles?


Sent from mah smertfone using tapathingy

[Flintsky]

Following out of sheer morbid curiosity. Are you seeing .40S&W really holding up THAT much better through vehicles?


Sent from mah smertfone using tapathingy

What I observed was that the petals on 9mm JHPs of pretty much all manufacturers either stripped off after passing through glass or metal bodies, or they pushed into the cavity hollow point. The resulting bullet had either shed much of its mass, or the bullet had sort of a imploded mushroom which stripped petals. Think of taking a JHP bullet, and hammering the top of it on a table. The tip of the bullet pushes itself down, and the bullet mushrooms at the base of the cavity. I noticed with the .40 loads that petals pretty much never stripped off, and when the bullet "imploded" after punching through a car door the bullet was mushroomed and penetrated more deeply into the opposite side of the car. Also, the .40 "imploded" mushrooms were solid......with pretty much no loss of bullet mass.

I know it is a small sample, but it was enough to keep a .40 bug nipping at me from time to time.

[psalms144.1]

Flintsky - my personal opinion is that, using the current state of the art 9mm ammunition, your performance is likely to be "close enough for government work." Of course, I ride a desk all day, and my chances of having to shoot through a car to get to a BG is extremely limited, so what's good enough for me might not be good enough for you.

This also comes down to a question of ammunition selection - namely, are you given whatever your agency issues and have to stick with it (like me), or do you buy your own. Either option could influence the decision - because, like everything else, not all ammunition is equally well made or up to the task that you're discussing.

On the issue of platform, if I had to carry a .40 S&W, the P226 would be high on the list for me. But, you're still not going to be able to manage recoil as well as you do with a 9mm P226 (duh), and you're going to take a pretty big hit (20% reduction per magazine) to capacity. Where that balance point lies is really up to you...

[jetfire]

If you need to make USPSA major, you should definitely run a .40.

[ST911]

18 page comprehensive thread on the topic: "The 40cal on its way out?", https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....on-its-way-out

[JonInWA]

Flintsky, I think you'd be fine with either cartridge. What might be beneficial would be to study the encounters that members of your agency have experienced, particularly fairly recently. That'll help steer you towards the cartridge/platform that'll best suit your needs; i.e., if penetration is critical, .40 might be your first choice, or if rapid/multiple shots are a more likely need., then 9mm might be best.

Best, Jon

[Duces Tecum]

You know what they say about opinions . . . and here's mine.

I see a difference between competition (sometimes hundredths of a second determine the first loser]) and fighting (hundredths of a second are meaningless). When fighting, split times make little difference if your round doesn't penetrate (or expand) appropriately. As someone once said in a slightly different context, "You can't shoot fast enough to penetrate".

So (opinions, continued) I would carry the best penetrating round, with ties broken by expanded diameter. It is far more likely that those two characteristics might determine how a fight concludes than meaningless advantages in split times.

[LockedBreech]

Even DocGKR acknowledges that .40 has merit in environments with a high level of vehicle activity.

I know our SO uses 9mm and .45 primarily because a ton of their work is out-of-vehicle (the majority of domestics in the county) but our PD stays steadfastly behind .40 since traffic duty is so prevalent.

I have switched over to 9mm entirely because I don't work LE and my self-defense scenarios rarely involve vehicles, but if my job involved walking up to a car a dozen times a day I think the .40 would merit major consideration in a well-designed platform like the M&P40 or 229.

In my own anecdotal, unscientific, you-should-not-give-them-weight tests, I also found the .40 a convincing performer against barriers that stopped or deflected 9mm or .45 including glass, metal, and some types of wood. Not worth anything for actual evidence, but pretty persuasive in person.

In full disclosure, I started with the .40 and I retain a nostalgic tang for it despite it exiting my rotation almost entirely. So I'm not super objective.

[LockedBreech]

Even DocGKR acknowledges that .40 has merit in environments with a high level of vehicle activity.

I know our SO uses 9mm and .45 primarily because a ton of their work is out-of-vehicle (the majority of domestics in the county) but our PD stays steadfastly behind .40 since traffic duty is so prevalent.

I have switched over to 9mm entirely because I don't work LE and my self-defense scenarios rarely involve vehicles, but if my job involved walking up to a car a dozen times a day I think the .40 would merit major consideration in a well-designed platform like the M&P40 or 229.

In my own anecdotal, unscientific, you-should-not-give-them-weight tests, I also found the .40 a convincing performer against barriers that stopped or deflected 9mm or .45 including glass, metal, and some types of wood. Not worth anything for actual evidence, but pretty persuasive in person.

In full disclosure, I started with the .40 and I retain a nostalgic tang for it despite it exiting my rotation almost entirely. So I'm not super objective.

I want to clarify that "even DocGKR" is acknowledging him as one of the leading voices in the shift back to 9mm. It wasn't some catty passive aggressive thing because I'm a .40 fan and a sore loser.