Least useful modern caliber?

I've always thought that the .50 action express was a little absurd. I've also never had any respect for anything made in .17 caliber. If you want small and fast why go smaller than .22? I know I'm going to get some hate for this, but I don't see the point in .40. It manages to take away the size advantage of the .45 and the capacity and low recoil advantages of the 9mm.

.25 acp is at the top of the list though.

.25 acp

for me also. Very under powerword from the start, and NO great improvement
has been made. Often found chambered in handguns that qualify as the
infamous "Saturday Night Special"~!

I'll have to agree with you about the .40 S&W.

Least "useful" caliber? I don't know, even a .25 could be useful. Maybe not for shooting a 300lb guy trying to rape you, but useful for walking around a junkyard and shooting junk. I just bought a smith and wesson 6 shot .32 magnum. A lot of people would consider it to be a useless cartridge. It's not. It's a caliber that says, "hey bad guy, not only am I going to kill you, but I'm gonna do it all silly like with this .32."

mesinge2 said:

I personally do not like the .25 ACP at all.

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Yes, .25 ACP gives you weak .22 LR pistol ballistics in a more reliable centerfire cartridge while giving up cost-effectiveness. Moving up to at least .32 ACP makes much more sense and would not increase the size of the pistol. And yes it's not modern, but we need to get this off our chests.

ljnowell said:

I will go out on a limb and say .45gap. Makes no sense at all. Instead of making a gun with a normal size grip, they make an entirely new cartridge that mimics another one so that they can not modify "perfection". I own a glock, and I like it, but the GAP is a joke.

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Wow, if they shortened an existing cartridge but did not make the grip any smaller, then this is the very definition of useless.

GunsAmerica Fan said:

.357 sig. It's like someone at Sig read all the .45acp vs. 9mm stories in the gun rags and said hey we can do this,

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Well, if you like the typical, somewhat lightly loaded factory 125gr .357 Magnum ballistics for self-defense, then .357 SIG will give you that in an autopistol. The trouble is that this is pretty much all it can give you, as there is not much flexibility in loading it.

GunsAmerica Fan said:

and what came about was the first useless necked pistol cartridge since the .44-40.

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I think you mean the .38-40.

Ben86 said:

I know I'm going to get some hate for this, but I don't see the point in .40. It manages to take away the size advantage of the .45 and the capacity and low recoil advantages of the 9mm.

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I don't hate you for this , but try to be fair. It's like saying 9mm manages to take away both the size advantage of .45 ACP and the small frame, simple blowback operating design, and low recoil advantages of .380 ACP. Or that .45 ACP takes away both the size advantage of .50 AE and the capacity and low recoil advantages of 9mm. Any caliber that is between two others will give up something in order to get something else if it is not useless. The reason .40 S&W has been so successful--thus far--is that it gives up only a couple of rounds of capacity (none where magazines are restricted to 10 rounds) in exchange for more punch and it comes in the same size handguns as 9mm, maximizing what you can comfortably fit into more people's hands (without the grip feeling like a 2x4 in small hands or not being able to reach the trigger). This is what .45 GAP should have achieved, but it looks as though Glock inexplicably blew it.

Now, if you think that .40 S&W has no advantages and only disadvantages, then that would be a valid (though not necessarily accurate) reason to believe that it's useless.

.50 Action Express.... seriously, ***?

I'd have to say the .260 Remington and 6.5 Swede. I hear lots of accolades on the internet, but I've never seen a single box of factory ammo anywhere. I've also looked in quite a few reloading manuals and the stats on both are pretty tame. Nothing that factory ammo in a common caliber couldn't meet/exceed.

.327 mag. i just have no need for it

I know I'm running BIG risk of getting flamed here, but..........

I'm a bit of a traditionalist I suppose. I haven't seen ANY caliber that's been developed in the last 20 years-ish, except for the .40 S&W, that can do anything that isn't already being done. I know, I know, "but it can go x feet per second faster and get a flatter trajectory". True, but I bet the deer, elk, antelope, bad guy, or whatever you're shooting at won't know the difference. If flatter trajectory is the issue, maybe you should practice more and sample different loads.

I know the slew of new calibers has been good for the biz in general, but it's just not "tripping my trigger" so to speak. But hey, to each his own. If you like it, buy it and shoot away. As another poster mentioned, if I'm in the middle of nowhere, and there's a lot of that in Wyoming, and need ammo, I can find the "basics", as in .22, .22 Mag, .223, .243, .270, .308, .30-06, 9mm, .38/357, .40, .44, .45, you get the picture? One must also account for the general shortage of ammunition, and that makes the "core" calibers even MORE attractive, IMO. But hey, that's just me, maybe I'm too "old-fashioned". God, I never thought I'd hear myself say that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I had to pick a specific "worthless caliber"? Hmmmmmmm.............., probably have to go with the .25 as well, it does makes a good paperweight though. But it's better than a rock or a stick. Maybe anything that ends in WSM or WSSM also. Never been a fan of short and "plump" anything, although as I get older...............

Hey Silent Flatulance, very good point. Usefulness, or uselessness, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder, or just "the holder" in this case. Like I said, ANYTHING is better than nothing. I bet the rapist would prefer that petite lil thing he's been eying to have just a heavy purse, rather than a .25 or .32 in it that she KNOWS HOW TO USE. Your point is well taken.

I suppose all of God's calibers, like his children, have a place somewhere. Even if it's not in MY hands.

.25 ACP here, too. .22 mass, at low .45 speeds? It beats out the .45-vs-9mm debate; it wins over the 9mm for small, and the .45 for slow!

On the more modern side, .25 and .32 NAA. Just buy a .32 or .380 for the size. "Smaller but faster" isn't nearly as appealing when .380 FMJ would poke bigger holes than good hollowpoints in those rounds.

Not a fan of .357 Sig, either. You can get the same speeds from 9mm +P or +P+ for the same feel at the wrist, or move to .38 Super which is generally in a nicer platform anyway. Or for the size, just go .40.

Ninety percent, or more, of the available calibers and cartridges for both handguns and rifles are either useless or unnecessary. Shotguns the same.

A shorter list is those which are useful because these work and are commonly available.

I personally can do without any cartridge invented in the past 40 years. Many of them seem to have been invented by marketing departments, as they are the latest and greatest thing, when there were other older cartridges which had been doing the same thing for decades, but they weren't "new" and didn't have "sexy" names. Many are answers to questions nobody asked.

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+1, I couldn't agree more.

I agree that the 327 is not needed, but that said, I like 32 caliber revolvers and have over a dozen, some over a hundred years old, I cast load and shoot all of them and they are fun, so I added a 327 to the group and it is just as fun and adds a new dimension to and old spectrum of calibers.
Same can be said for several other modern cartridges that I have no use for in my day to day shooting, but come to think of it; I own several that don't get fired but once every couple of years.
And for those that think a 32 in a 357 size revolver need to look back---I have a 32 WCF in a 45 size revolver(Colt Bisley, 7 1/2") dating from 1912. So, a 32 in a 357 doesn't seem such a leap!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, if you think that .40 S&W has no advantages and only disadvantages, then that would be a valid (though not necessarily accurate) reason to believe that it's useless.

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Strange how you defend the .40 yet rag on the .357 SIG. The .357 Sig does what the .40 was supposed to do. It is also very flexible in reloading.

WSM, WSSM, RCM, SAUM, UM, etc.

All of the above are reinventions of the wheel and were only developed to create a false market to sell more guns.

.45acp

Would love to see the ammo makers get together and drop al those rifle calibers in short, ultralarge , supersised, short, bald super mags. Why do we need them all except to sell rifles and confuse shooters. Ain't nothing wrong with the 30-40 Krag.

I guess the most useless modern automobile is the Franklin Light Tonneau with its 20 HP engine. It was introduced in 1905, just like the .25 ACP.

There are lots of useless calibers

All calibers for which I do not currently have a gun that shoots it is useless (to me). However that list of useless calibers is subject to change at any time.

All of the above are reinventions of the wheel and were only developed to create a false market to sell more guns.

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If they're selling more guns, I'd say that's a real market

.700 nitro, more recoil than .500 and .600 nitro but dosn't have the penetration to reliably stop the african game that it was made for. .416 ruger is equally useless, it is just slightly less powerful than .416 rigby and it costs more.

shaggy430...You need to do more research!!

.327 Mag. Why? They developed a new round so you can get one more shot in the cylinder w/o upping the cylinder size. Whoopie!!
Any .327 Mag. revolver can also fire .32 H&R Mag. and .32 S&W Long cartridges but unlike the .357 Mag revolvers which can shoot the .38 Special (extremely popular cartridge - read : cheap and easily found) these .32 H&R Mag. and .32 S&W Long cartridges are much less popular and much harder to find.............. so what's the point?

P.S. All ammo is made by Federal, Speer and American Eagle (which just happened to all be owned by ATK Industries - the developer of the ......327 Mag.)