.40, why/why not?

[Gadgetsrfun]

One of the more interesting studies done on 'stopping power'... i.e. how many shots a particular caliber takes to stop an attacker.

The full article is here:
http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/alternate-look-handgun-stopping-power

But when it comes to 9 vs. 40, here's a few relevant findings...

9mm Luger
=========
% of hits that were fatal - 24%
Average number of rounds until incapacitation - 2.45
% of people who were not incapacitated - 13%
One-shot-stop % - 34%


.40 S&W
=======
% of hits that were fatal - 25%
Average number of rounds until incapacitation - 2.36
% of people who were not incapacitated - 13%
One-shot-stop % - 45%

There's a lot more in the article, and the study it's about, but as you can see there really isn't much difference between the results you get with 9mm and 40 S&W.

Very interesting.. Even the little ol 22 does the job..

.22 (short, long and long rifle)

# of people shot - 154
# of hits - 213
% of hits that were fatal - 34%
Average number of rounds until incapacitation - 1.38
% of people who were not incapacitated - 31%
One-shot-stop % - 31%
Accuracy (head and torso hits) - 76%
% actually incapacitated by one shot (torso or head hit) - 60%

 

[medium187mph]

Correct me if I am wrong but they created the 10mm because at that time the current duty weapon was either a 38/357....

Ended up being too powerful for the ladies to qualify with/ control carry and so it got watered down to a .40 cal...

It was more cost effective for LPD to order 9mm in bulk and appealed because of higher capacity and more control (for the ladies)

Every cop/deputy I talked to a few years back during the round swap were pissed....

It's a mind/sales control pitch if you ask me and most have taken the bait!

 

[spencer60]

^ I would assume threats were 5 yards at most... A .380 could do that but that's for another thread (380 vs 9mm)

Actually, that data is based on real incidents. The author compiled them and tabulated the various items. the article is worth a read.

Very interesting.. Even the little ol 22 does the job..

.22 (short, long and long rifle)

# of people shot - 154
# of hits - 213
% of hits that were fatal - 34%
Average number of rounds until incapacitation - 1.38
% of people who were not incapacitated - 31%
One-shot-stop % - 31%
Accuracy (head and torso hits) - 76%
% actually incapacitated by one shot (torso or head hit) - 60%

Yeah, I thought that was interesting. It shows how much of 'stopping power' is really people's reactions to simply being shot at all.

 

[spencer60]

Correct me if I am wrong but they created the 10mm because at that time the current duty weapon was either a 38/357....

Ended up being too powerful for the ladies to qualify with/ control carry and so it got watered down to a .40 cal...

It was more cost effective for LPD to order 9mm in bulk and appealed because of higher capacity and more control (for the ladies)

Every cop/deputy I talked to a few years back during the round swap were pissed....

It's a mind/sales control pitch if you ask me and most have taken the bait!

The way I understand it is that the FBI switched from revolvers to 147gr 9mm, which is what they (in part) blamed for the failure at the "Miami Shootout" Monte mentioned earlier. They briefly went to the 10mm, but honestly nobody, male or female easily qualified with it, and it beat the guns to snot.

For a while they downloaded it, but it was still a big round and required a large-frame pistol, which wasn't very easy for suit-wearing agents to conceal. In the background, they worked with S&W to replicate the downloaded 10mm in a more compact size, leading to the 40.

I'm sure I'm missing some parts there, but that's the general drift of events as I always understood it.

 

[NWSharpshooter]

Love my Glock 23

 

[protective measures]

The way I understand it is that the FBI switched from revolvers to 147gr 9mm, which is what they (in part) blamed for the failure at the "Miami Shootout" Monte mentioned earlier. They briefly went to the 10mm, but honestly nobody, male or female easily qualified with it, and it beat the guns to snot.

For a while they downloaded it, but it was still a big round and required a large-frame pistol, which wasn't very easy for suit-wearing agents to conceal. In the background, they worked with S&W to replicate the downloaded 10mm in a more compact size, leading to the 40.

I'm sure I'm missing some parts there, but that's the general drift of events as I always understood it.

I was just beginning my odyssey into defensive firearms at that time. There was no Internet so I would go by the grocery store or book store DAILY to look for articles on new developments.
Mas Ayoob, Leroy Thompson, Chuck Taylor, Jan Libourel, etc were the authors & I was on the mystical hunt for "Excalibur" both the "Magic Gun" & the "Magic" bullet.

It was exciting times. The race was on by the ammo mfrs. to come up with something to replace the weak, effeminate 9mm.
The .41 Action Express was a candidate, so was the .38 Super.
The goal was to split the difference between the 16 shot 9mm & the 8 shot .45.
Then out of nowhere S&W came out with the .40 S&W.
('90 or '91 I think it was).

Then Mr. Glock, who was really turning some heads left the SHOT show, flew back to Austria, tweaked his design, & beat S&W to the market with their own caliber.
Then he took over 80%+ of the L.E. community on top of that.

I was so excited. I immediately switched to the G-23 since the ballistics pretty much matched the .357 Mag. which everyone knew was the King of the Stopping Power crowd.
14 rds. of .357 Mag. power in a 23 oz. package semi-auto that was reliable & loved to "play in the dirt".... I was ecstatic.

Carried that gun till probably about 7 or 8 years ago when I finally, reluctantly acknowledged that if the whole training community & the leading ballistics experts agreed that the 9mm loadings were finally effective enough to equal or very closely match the best loadings in .40 & .45 then I needed to quit making decisions based on emotion & follow facts.
It ws hard.... I was a diehard .40 guy.
But I finally got over it & have never really looked back.

 

[MMatt30]

The round that "failed" at Miami was the 115 gr. Winchester Silver Tip.

I still say tactics and piss poor planning by the FBI that day had more to do with it....

 

[protective measures]

In addition or to elaborate on Spencer60's post other reasons for the change away from the 10mm was that the recoil of the full power 175 gr. Silvertips was so hot that follow up shots were very slow & rapid fire strings were very difficult to keep on target.
Also even many of the agents with small to normal sized hand struggle with shooting the gun one-handed.
Go grab a 3rd Gen. Glock 20 & see how it fits your hand. Though it was not the actual gun being used it will get the idea across.

Another reason they needed something else was that the round would zip right through the flesh of a bad guy w/o even expanding so it did not create much h of a wound channel.
They figured out that just like the .41 Mag. that the pioneer & who is consixered the father of the .44 Mag. Elmer Keith (who was seldom wrong) thought would be the perfect L.E. round was found out to have too much power.

 

[protective measures]

The round that "failed" at Miami was the 115 gr. Winchester Silver Tip.

I still say tactics and piss poor planning by the FBI that day had more to do with it....

I would say that all of those factors combined together to make for a terrible day.
For anyone who is a serious student of defesnive firearms, ballistics, & tactics that shootout is a "must read".

There are so many elements that can be studied.
Unless something has changed that event is still studied & analyzed by top Fed. & State agencies so others can learn from what happened that day.

 

[republican]

I was just beginning my odyssey into defensive firearms at that time. There was no Internet so I would go by the grocery store or book store DAILY to look for articles on new developments.
Mas Ayoob, Leroy Thompson, Chuck Taylor, Jan Libourel, etc were the authors & I was on the mystical hunt for "Excalibur" both the "Magic Gun" & the "Magic" bullet.

It was exciting times. The race was on by the ammo mfrs. to come up with something to replace the weak, effeminate 9mm.
The .41 Action Express was a candidate, so was the .38 Super.
The goal was to split the difference between the 16 shot 9mm & the 8 shot .45.
Then out of nowhere S&W came out with the .40 S&W.
('90 or '91 I think it was).

Then Mr. Glock, who was really turning some heads left the SHOT show, flew back to Austria, tweaked his design, & beat S&W to the market with their own caliber.
Then he took over 80%+ of the L.E. community on top of that.

I was so excited. I immediately switched to the G-23 since the ballistics pretty much matched the .357 Mag. which everyone knew was the King of the Stopping Power crowd.
14 rds. of .357 Mag. power in a 23 oz. package semi-auto that was reliable & loved to "play in the dirt".... I was ecstatic.

Carried that gun till probably about 7 or 8 years ago when I finally, reluctantly acknowledged that if the whole training community & the leading ballistics experts agreed that the 9mm loadings were finally effective enough to equal or very closely match the best loadings in .40 & .45 then I needed to quit making decisions based on emotion & follow facts.
It ws hard.... I was a diehard .40 guy.
But I finally got over it & have never really looked back.

I think you said it best when you said 9 mm loadings were finally improved enough to make sense. You are right about all handguns pretty much sucking as a primary weapon. When police first started switching to .40 all they probably needed to do was use more modern slugs. Now everything with a modern hollow point works well even .38 special is an option again. But when I say energy transfer I basically mean the bullet needs to stop inside the target . Obviously anyone with any sense doesn't think that a bullet of any size is going to " knock someone down" , with that being said bigger + faster + stop in target = better no matter what you call it.