40 S&W full-size 1911

[Bucky]

I don’t reload, so obviously no. I also rarely compete (lack of time) so I’m not aware of most of what’s going on in uspsa.

So it’s that simple? Nothing to do with any sort of ballistics voodoo associated with the shorter case?

I’m a little disappointed ;-)

Yep, brass prices. Also, availability of fired brass. Before the plague, fired .40 brass could be had for $40 per thousand. Pre fired 10mm brass is very limited, so most have to buy new and at the time it was north of $150 per thousand.

It’s this same reasoning why many of us abandoned .38 super in our open guns in favor of 9mm. Hell, if brass costs weren’t an issue, I’d shoot super in single stack (minor).

[Patrick Taylor]

.40 also only comes in one size of primer , .45 and now 10mm brass is out there with both large and small.

[Wondering Beard]

Are you really all that surprised though? An expensive gun ain’t all that big a deal compared with keeping the damn thing fed. Especially if you’re getting any sort of live fire practice and hitting 2 or more matches per month.

You're correct, I'm not.

Still, I was hoping there was some magic involved :-)

[fatdog]

Circa 1996 I thought .40 was the shiz, buying into the gun rag hype of that era that it was vastly superior to 9mm and offered hi capacity, etc. etc. I had an accomplished gunsmith well known in USPSA circles tune up a Para P16.40 for my limited gun, I had pre-ban mags and they were readily available for the platform, There were good extended basepads that got you to 20 rounds, and I started loading .40 rounds with 200gr bullets to an OAL that was precisely 10mm OAL, not the spec .40 OAL. Truth was that NOBODY loaded the .40 to make USPSA Major (min PF 175 at the time) but if you ran those 200gr truncated flat points intended for the 10mm and loaded your .40 S&W ammo to that longer OAL with VIT N350 or N320, two things became true. You could make major PF without risking really high pressures. And you had a round that fed reliably in 1911 .45ACP type frames which is what the Para P16 really was (a version of their .45 P13).

Todd Jarrett had just won the USPSA Limited Nationals and the world shoot in the Phillipines with that wildly popular Para P16 and who could argue it was not acceptable...

So being so in love with .40 and being a committed 1911 guy, I bought a Colt Delta elite 10mm and had the thing rebarreled in .40 with a Nowlin barrel to have a single stack carry gun in my favorite caliber

It was a cluster F%&$, never ran reliably with factory ammo.

All the problems associated with 9mm in the 1911 and the fact the cartridge loaded to factory specs is simply too short for the 1911 cartridge length magazines. You either push it forward in the mags with a rear spacer, or push it back in the mag with a front crease and then adjust the angle of a ramped barrel to hopefully make it work.

I have heard that Sig actually got .40 S&W to run in their 1911 variants, but no first hand experience.

I have written the concept off as simply a bad idea that no 1911 maker has committed themselves to fix and work out the details.

Wanna really have one? Either find one of those sigs, get a Delta Elite or one of the other 10mm single stack 1911's and spend some BIG money gunsmithing, or choose a 2011 frame and get one of the custom gun makers to build you one that will run and get a dozen magazines tuned specifically for that gun.

[Ichiban]

I have heard that Sig actually got .40 S&W to run in their 1911 variants, but no first hand experience.

I have a Sig that has been flawless. Granted, I don't shoot matches with it but it has had quite a few rounds through it.

I had a Para 16-40 for a while and really loved the concept of the gun but have never seen anything that was so ammo sensitive.

[Whirlwind06]

https://grabagun.com/firearms/handgu...ra-40s-fs.html


Saw this today in my browsing.
$624

[rdtompki]

I understand the OP is not interested in 9mm, but the 9mm 1911 is taking a bit of an undeserved beating in this thread (IMO). We have several Springs in 9mm, a couple of 4" Kimbers and, recently, a Staccato C. All feed virtually everything reliably and that's over a combined round count in excess of 200K. I will say that 147gr FP may stutter when feeding the first round, but not so with defensive ammo. Different strokes for different folks. Only disadvantage would be the inability to run the gun in either production or CO; SS is fading into oblivion.

[spinmove_]

I understand the OP is not interested in 9mm, but the 9mm 1911 is taking a bit of an undeserved beating in this thread (IMO). We have several Springs in 9mm, a couple of 4" Kimbers and, recently, a Staccato C. All feed virtually everything reliably and that's over a combined round count in excess of 200K. I will say that 147gr FP may stutter when feeding the first round, but not so with defensive ammo. Different strokes for different folks. Only disadvantage would be the inability to run the gun in either production or CO; SS is fading into oblivion.

Around here Production is also fading into oblivion. Our last local match I actually had a division win….because literally the only other Production shooter had 13 Mikes and a NS to his name. Conversely, over half of our participants shot Carry Optics. Most of those shooters came from Carry Optics.

It’s a shame, really. I quite enjoy Production and iron sights. I might have to look at putting dots on these Berettas.

[pangloss]

A good friend of mine had some STI pistols in .40 that he used for USPSA. They ran well for him, but I don't remember if he spent much effort getting every tuned.

If I wanted a .40 caliber project gun, I would hunt up an old CZ-40B and have it converted to SAO. A lot of CZ-75 parts will work in that gun and it was designed to be a .40 caliber pistol.

Sent from my moto g power (2021) using Tapatalk

[19852+]

Like 9mm, .40 cal ammunition is too short for optimal function in 1911s.

Guns tend to work best in the calibers they were originally designed / engineered for.

The 1911 was designed to function with .45 acp ammunition. Other rounds with overall length similar to .45 acp like .38 super and 10mm will run better than shorter rounds like 9 & 40.

The Beretta 96 is derived from the Beretta 92 which was designed to function with 9mm - which is similar on OAL to.... 40. Same with the SIG 226, S4W 4006 etc.

Of course some .40s derived from 9mm guns like Beretta 96 and Gen 2/3 Glocks have their own set of issues relating to durability.

A PX4 in 40 > Beretta 96.

The original 5" steel frame 1911 in .45 acp is going to be the most reliable. The more you deviate from that, be it caliber, size, materials etc the more you are pushing your luck.

My Colt government in.38 super is wonderfully reliable due to the fact that the OAL of the super is right for the action. The 9mm conversion runs well clean, a little iffy when dirty. I even use high quality 9mm specific mags for it. As a 9mm I would trust it for an IDPA match but only when clean. As a .38 super it is bet-your-life reliable. Some pistols were designed for the .40, like the HK USP and Smith M&P.