I was a relatively early adopter of .40 S&W, with the Browning Hi-Power being my chosen pistol, to try .40, due to my being a long-established 1911 shooter. Well, the BHP turned out to not be my ergonomic cup of tea. I bought an S&W Shorty Forty, which would never run reliably enough to trust for street carry. I so much wanted the P229 to fit, but I could not get enough finger on the trigger, for a good DA trigger stroke. (I have long hands, but do not have long fingers.) So, for the rest of the Nineties, and into this century, “big bore pistol” continued to mean .45 ACP. I tried .40 again, in G22 Glock duty pistols, 2002-2004. Gen3 Glocks were just not my cup of tea, either. In 2004, I handled a P229R DAK, with the optional slimmer trigger, with the shorter reach, that DID fit my index finger. Hallelujah! Apex duty pistol, firing an apex duty cartridge. My qual scores went ‘way up, back to the level I had fired with medium/large revolvers, and the 1911. Life was good.
My right hand aged-out of shooting .40 S&W, in quantity, however, from the high-bore-axis SIG P229R DAK, by the time I reached age fifty, in 2011. I reduced my centerfire training round count. .22 LR, fired from a K-Frame revolver, became my norm. Fortunately, DAK closely resembles S&W revolver
DA shooting. I broke from my personal norm of using the same pistol system on and off the clock, and resumed toting a 1911 pistol during personal time, because an all-steel, low-bore-axis, 5” 1911 did not hurt to shoot, if I kept the round count reasonable. In 2015, my chief OK’ed 9mm duty pistols, so I transitioned to Gen4 Glock G17 duty pistols. (Gen4 is a much better fit, for me, than Gen3.) Shortly afterward, my chief re-authorized 1911 duty pistols, so, when I retired, in 2018, I was qual’ed with 9mm Glocks, and a pair of .45 ACP 1911 pistols.
My healthier left hand can still shoot my P229R DAK, and, just yesterday, managed to successfully order my first fresh .40 S&W defensive JHP ammo that I have been able to find, in quite some time. .40 S&W, chambered in a much-loved pistol, still has a place, in our home, even if I no longer carry it on the street. (I carry “primary” at 0300, but write lefty, and am functionally ambidextrous with most handguns.)
To be clear, I do not blame .40 S&W for wrecking my hand. Shooting is likely a major cause, but it would mostly be the too-many big-bore Magnum rounds, fired through N-Frame revolvers, in the Eighties, during my immortal twenties, with my K/L-Frame-size hands.