The.40 S&W has been inundated with unflattering ink lately. Some experts believe that the.40 S&W is dead and buried. Most people believe that the.40 is obsolete due to improvements in 9mm ammunition. It’s true that many federal and local police agencies have switched over to the 9mm. Are some people just jumping on the 9mm bandwagon and assuming that what’s best for the police is also good for them? Is it possible that the.40 is getting worse just because the 9mm is getting more powerful? This is what we discuss in our 9mm VS 40 Cal evaluation.
9mm VS 40 Cal
The.40 is not getting any worse. Many people thought the.45 ACP was dead after American military units sold their.45-caliber 1911s to Beretta 9mms. The.45 ACP didn’t disappear and.45-caliber pistols continue to sell well.
For personal protection, people even buy “obsolete”.38 Special or.357 Magnum revolvers. This is despite police departments switching to semi-autos in late 1970s. I ask again: Why do people think the.40 S&W has died?
Is the 9mm really better?
The question is: Which one is better? Because NATO allies have standardized 9mm, it made sense to switch to 9mm for the military. 9mm ammo costs half as much as.45 ACP. Many 9mm semi-autos have a significant firepower advantage compared to most.45s.
I was able to see an Army training film in the 1950’s on the tactical use and the M1911.45 pistol. It showed that double tapping with the 1911 greatly increased the chances of scoring a crucial hit.
Eight shots were the standard for military.45s. The total number of shots in the “new” SIG M17 is 18 using the flush-fit magazine. Do you prefer to shoot or reload during a human wave attack, or both?
From the military’s perspective, the 9mm is clearly superior to the.45. But what about civilians and officers armed with.40? Is the 9mm better?
Are Recoil and Capacity Viable Arguments
People who claim the.40 is dead argue that you can get more 9mm rounds in similar-sized magazines. The difference is usually 1 to 2 9mm rounds more in similar guns with flush-fitting magazines.
This is a small advantage and it becomes even smaller when you consider that shooting incidents rarely involve a shooter firing more than 16 rounds from my Ruger SR40.
The next argument is that the.40 S&W produces too much recoil. This claim is difficult to evaluate as each caliber has different loads. CorBon’s 9mm +P115-grain JHP, however, produces 3.7 lbs of free recoil in a loaded S&W M&P9c.
Compare that to the 4.7 pound Winchester’s.40 S&W 165 grain PDX-1 produced in my fully-loaded Ruger SR40. In this case, the 9mm kicks less. The.40 recoil is also quite abrupt due to the steep pressure curve.
The Terminal Effect
It appears that the 9mm has the advantage up to this point. We haven’t yet examined the final effect of each cartridge. I used data from Lucky Gunner Labs to review the muzzle energy, penetration and expansion of the Lucky Gunner 9mm and.40 S&W loads.
To include a load in my analysis, each bullet fired using that load had must expand and penetrate at minimum 12 inches in Clear Ballistics gel covered by Lucky Gunner. These strict criteria resulted in a consistent performance.
The Smith & Wesson M&P9c 9mm test gun and the Glock 27.40.40 were both Smith & Wesson M&P9c 9mm guns. Both are compact concealed carry pistols. Lucky Gunner’s data was the best I could find and it’s easily accessible to our readers. It allows for a controlled comparison between some commonly available personal defense loads in 9mm or.40 S&W.
Lucky Gunner Results
Lucky Gunner only tested seven of 52 9mm loads (13%) that met my criteria for consistent performance. This compares to 11 of 37 (31 percent) of the.40 S&W loads.
The 9mm average penetration was 14.02 inches, while that of the.40 was 16.3 inches. The 9mm average expansion was 0.59 inches, while that of the.40 was 0.77.
The average muzzle energy of the 9mm was 304fpe. The average muzzle energy of the.40 was 373 FPE. Lucky Gunner’s database clearly shows that the best-performing.40 S&W loads had superior terminal performance to the best 9mm loads. Particularly in terms of controlled penetration, muzzle energie, and expansion. So why is anyone declaring the.40 dead?
A Switch to 9mm
The.40 was adopted quickly by LE agencies. It was created to compensate for the 9mm bullet that was used in the famous Miami Incident of 1986.
A 115-grain 9mm JHP failed in its mission to penetrate deep enough to stop Michael Platt’s shooting spree. He killed two FBI agents and injured several others. In the three decades that have passed since the.40 was introduced, several agencies and the FBI switched to 9mm.
One reason was that most law enforcement recruits today have very little experience with firearms. They face a steep learning curve to become proficient with the.40. This results in increased training costs and requirements.
Agencies also learned that guns can be damaged by the steep pressure curve of a.40. Over the years, the cost of repairing and replacing the.40s has risen significantly.
Also, it is assumed that 9mm ammo with a lower price would always be available and affordable. This is mainly due to the large number 9mm guns currently in service around the world. Ammo companies would have plenty of 9mm ammunition in their arsenal.
Recent ammo famines proved the opposite. The current rush to hoard ammo has led to rapid depletion of stocks of 9mm ammunition and nearly tripled its price. The slower-selling.40 S&W was more readily available, and sometimes even cheaper!
Last Licks
A.40 S&W pistol can be compared to a high-performance sportscar. It is not for everyone. Generally speaking,.40-caliber ammunition is more expensive than 9mm. The.40 ammo requires more skill and attention to maintain and requires more skill to shoot. However, 9mm loads perform better than loads of.40 caliber in the ballistics laboratory.
Some will switch to 9mm while others will stick with.40 as it offers more firepower and on-target effectiveness. Despite recent “rumors” of its demise, the.40 will continue to be available for many years.
This rescue of an airplane hostage was done from 10 yards. The shot was taken from low-reach. A head shot in a narrow space is usually required to neutralize the threat. When the target is stationary, the head can be difficult to hit. It can be a difficult target if you need to shoot quickly in an unstable aircraft.
This article was originally published by Combat Handguns January/February 2022. Subscription is available in print and digital editions at OutdoorGroupStore.com. Or call 1-800-284-5668, or email [email protected].
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