Decline of the 40 S&W

[KevH]

I posted this in in response to a post in the Pistol section. Then I figured it may deserve its own thread...

It's so weird.

Late 1990's and early 2000's you couldn't give away a 9mm police surplus pistol. Everyone wanted 40 S&W. How times have changed.

I think most of us were introduced to the 40 S&W in a 9mm pistol that had been re-chambered for the much hotter round (and in the case of the Glock it was a woefully inadequate re-chambering).

Most PD's had carried 9mm in either 115 gr or in 147 gr. My own department carried 115gr Winchester +P+ and practiced with Winchester 115gr White Box. If you've shot a lot of WWB 115 gr you'll know it's an absolute pussy-cat of a round with very little recoil.

In 2006, I remember shooting 115gr FMJ in a Glock 17 next to a 155gr FMJ in a Glock 22. The contrast in recoil/snap was drastic.

As @JonInWA noted, over time, the guns designed to shoot 40 S&W have been beefed up. At the same time, most of us are shooting 124gr 9mm and I've noticed that most modern 9mm loads are a little bit spicier than the more anemic 115 gr loads were back in the 1990's. The Gen3 and Gen4 Glock in 40 S&W sucked and I think can be credited partially with the slow death of what is fundamentally a good cartridge. The FBI adopted the Glock in the caliber with a whole lot of other departments following suit. It's a hard gun to shoot well, especially for people that don't like to shoot at all or practice very little (most people). Throw in the debacle that was the G22+WML and you had a recipe for its decline.

Last year, in 2022, we shot S&W M&P's that were setup identical side by side. A 40 S&W with WWB 180gr FMJ and a 9mm with WWB 124gr FMJ. The difference between the perceived recoil of the two was so minimal you could barely tell the difference. The difference was ultimately one held two less rounds than the other.

The loadings of the two cartridges have gotten closer and over time the guns have been beefed up and improved.

I never thought I would be an apologist for the 40 S&W, but I sort of am. ToddG would be trying to smack me in the back of the head right now. Over the years I have been to quite a few workshops where we shot through auto glass and other barriers with different calibers. The 40 S&W has always performed very well, regardless of the load. The same cannot be said for 9mm. The simple fact is the 40 S&W is much higher pressure and has more mass on the bullet. The 9mm has to rely more upon the technology of the bullet design to make up for its shortcomings.

Ultimately though, for most, the 9mm is just a little easier to shoot, puts less wear on guns, is cheaper for departments to buy, and the guns that shoot it hold just a couple more bullets. Combine that with better bullet tech for 9mm and I think the 40 S&W will be relegated to second-rate caliber in the eyes of most people.

Still, if I had to go into a hypothetical shooting and I had to pick between a S&W M&P with 10 rounds of 9mm or 10 rounds of 40 S&W with an identical bullet design...logic would lead me to pick the 40 S&W every single time because when all things are equal it is actually a slightly more effective cartridge, especially when shooting through glass or heavy clothing.

Ultimately, the 40 S&W gave us better 9mm service pistols, better 9mm loadings, and all around improved service weapons.

[Joe in PNG]

A lot of us got burned on the 1st Gen of Fotays back in the day. I tried both a Taurus PT-100 and Glock 27, and found both to be extremely unpleasant experiences on the range.

[KevH]

A lot of us got burned on the 1st Gen of Fotays back in the day. I tried both a Taurus PT-100 and Glock 27, and found both to be extremely unpleasant experiences on the range.

Same here. I despised the caliber for many years and chose to carry almost exclusively 45 ACP (until ToddG convinced me go back to 9mm in 2013).

The S&W M&P 40 I was issued in 2008 is the gun that really changed my mind about the caliber.

I know the USP was designed around 40 S&W, but back in the day I didn't appreciate those guns and found them boxy and clunky (I actually really like the 40 USPc LEM these days).

I feel like Glock especially, but also Beretta, really did the caliber dirty.

[feudist]

I've read many times that the .40 has similar recoil to the 9mm if you use high performance 9mm.
Personally I never found that to be the case.
I repeatedly tested Glocks shooting .40 180s@950-ish vs Winchester SXT 127+P+ and the .40 was always markedly harder to control by every metric: draw to first hit, splits, group size. Shooter fatigue was greatly increased as was hand sting.
I think the 94 AWB both helped the .40 and contributed to its ultimate steep decline. The dearth of hicap 9mm mags floated the .40 pistols for a few years among PDs due to Glock's predatory practice of swapping out new .40s for used fleet 9mms and scalping those 9mm mags. People in 10 round states tended towards the "If I'm limited to 10 I might as well carry a more powerful round" notion.
But a secondary result of the AWB was the resulting rapid spread of "Shall issue" CCWs across the nation. This fueled the race for the most compact carry pistols. Whereas before everyone was selling their sunk cost NATO pistol trials designed weapons in the Wondernine Revolution suddenly there was a viable market concealment sized autos with military reliability and durability. That's where the market really turned away from .40 and .45.
The industry wide improvements in bullet construction ended the anecdotal "33 rounds of 9mm to stop a guy" stories that were rife in the 70s and 80s.
I think the final nails were the sudden wide availability of gunfight footage and the FBI abandoning it. The surveillance footage that really emphasized the point that displacement is no replacement for placement under fire.

[FNFAN]

My last decade of work was with a .40 agency and my very best day of shooting was during the 'Glock transition course' where it seemed I could do no wrong with the Gen3 23 I was issued out of the facilities arms room for class that day. I will always be chasing that days performance. I've switched over to 9mm due to the platform -not the round.

[rd62]

I had a Beretta 96 and then was issued a G23 and chose to carry a G27 as a BUG.

All shot well and proved reliable.

When I moved to 9mm it was more economics then anything.

Support gear carried over and the cheaper 9mm allowed me to practice more.

The last few years I've been tempted to pickup a surplus .40 for times when 9mm availability may be stressed and pricing elevated.

[willie]

My lgs does not stock 40 S&W ammo. The pistols have very low resale value. The Smith 40 pistol is a gem and makes a fine woods companion. Some complain that 9mm bullets are more likely to bounce off a hog's skull than do 40 S&W pills. I doubt that. Once I played with a Ruger BH 10mm revolver and soon discovered that the 40 case and cast bullets made an outstanding plinking round. My 40 cal pistols were Glocks and Smiths. I avoided Beretta 92's and clones. I gave 30 lbs of 40S&W brass and a fine sling shot to my young cousin. What a sad commentary! I'm reminded of the conversation that I overheard between a young lady in one solitary confinement cell and her former lover three cells down. Her comment: that's the way it is, Luscious.

[358156hp]

I've got plenty of brass, and a four cavity bullet mould.

I'm good...

The 40s will ultimately end up as a Volkspistole. Less expensive to buy, but common enough to feed.

[SCCY Marshal]

...Most PD's had carried 9mm in either 115 gr or in 147 gr. My own department carried 115gr Winchester +P+ and practiced with Winchester 115gr White Box. If you've shot a lot of WWB 115 gr you'll know it's an absolute pussy-cat of a round with very little recoil...

Then you stepped over to 9mm JHP where the soft shooting 115gr. loads underpenetrated and the 147gr. pills often didn't expand at all. So +P and +P+ attempted to launch a 147gr. bullet hard enough or a lighter bullet of sturdier construction to get deep enough. So you had dudes doing timer work on 115gr. range fodder, complaining to the .40 shooters that their guns recoiled too much, and packed around carry loads that kicked about as much as a bog standard forty.

Related to above, you also had to make sure that your 9mm JHP worked with your gun in a real way compared to the assumptions we can make, now. A lot of them, to include most 2nd generation G19s I've met, didn't play nice with wide meplat bullets. So you had hot loads in relatively finicky guns in an era where many 9mm shooters just gave up and ran Federal's 9B or the +P+ version because the profile fed well in almost everything, it was inexpensive, match accurate, widely available, reliably expanded in at least fullsize pistols, and didn't under-penetrate as bad as some.

Versus the 40 S&W that worked as intended from the design board but people who stick with something that has always done what it says on the box are somehow seen as the crazy ones. As nice as it is to have the 180 grain HST or whatever modern wonderbullet, there is a quiet reassurance in a caliber that also performs well with Winchester White Box and the Remington equivalent from a G23 barrel on up to a carbine. Surprise, a cartridge designed to make old bullet technology meet a modern standard still does just that.

[Velo Dog]

Try to imagine a cartridge that combines most of the benefits of both the .40 S&W and .30 Super Carry.