I can't comment, or won't comment, on labnoti's comments on Dr. Fackler's opinions on the 357 Sig, etc. If someone has a link to his criticism of the Secret Service and the 357 Sig I'd like a link to that please. It would be interesting reading.
In Wound Ballistic Review, 2000, Volume 4, Issue 4, there was an article "Preliminary Evaluation of .357 Sig JHP bullets intended for law enforcement duty," by Gary K. Roberts DDS, and Don Lazzarini SCPD who had worked with the CHP Academy to test and study .357 Sig in gelatin. The results and data was published in WBR, where Dr. Fackler was the editor. Roberts and Lazzarini's conclusion reads, "Compared to a 9mm, the .357 Sig has a decreased magazine capacity, more recoil, as well as greater muzzle blast and flash, yet at best it offers no gain in bullet penetration and expansion characteristics. What is the point of this cartridge? At this time, the new .357 Sig cartridge offers NO advantages and several disadvantages for Jaw enforcement use compared with current 9 mm Parabellum, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP loadings.
Dr. Fackler added this editorial comment which goes on to cite references for further study:
"I want to emphasize the question "What is the point of this cartridge?" posed by Roberts and Lazzarini in their article reporting testing of the .357 Sig (pp. XX). Apparently Sig's point is sell guns by pandering to the ignorance of
those who still believe that bullets with more velocity invariably cause increased incapacitation....Martin L. Fackler"
In the same issue of Wound Ballistic Review, Fackler wrote in another comment:
"In addition to the BATF, the US Treasury Department has another branch that has made fools of themselves regarding wound ballistics. I speak of the Secret Service. For many years the Secret Service have chosen bullets for their agents based on the "one-shot stop" pseudo-data which was proven so clearly fraudulent last year (Volume 4 issue 2 of this journal), that even the least analysis-inclined cannot fail to recognize it as such. In the 1980s, I was contacted by two extremely firearm-literate Secret Service agents who sought aid in trying to educate those in the US Treasury Department, or in the higher levels of the Secret Service, whose ignorance of bullet effects was forcing
Secret Service agents to be handicapped (and have their lives unnecessarily endangered) by using the inefficient too-light and too-fast bullets. These agents indicated that the Secret Service had been using the falsified "one-shot-stop" statistics as the basis for their choice of handgun bullets. Fortunately, the Secret Service is practically alone among major law enforcement groups in ignoring the findings of the FBI wound ballistics conferences where the importance of bullet penetration depth adequate to reach and disrupt major blood vessels was strongly emphasized. As any experienced hunter knows, in addition to good bullet placement, adequate bullet penetration is needed to have any chance of causing rapid and reliable incapacitation. The Secret Service agents who contacted me were stymied in their attempts to point out that the ill-chosen handgun bullets they were forced to use are a threat to
the lives of Secret Service agents as well as those of the elected officials they are assigned to protect. Martin L. Fackler"
Now this criticism was not specifically directed to the .357 Sig, but to the Secret Service's choice of 115 gr. 9x19mm +P+ cartridges. They had not adopted the .357 Sig at that point, but would do so. We know they more recently confirmed an intent to switch to 9x19mm again. I do not know if they're going to use a 115 gr. bullet again or something heavier.
Fackler also rips the Secret Service for their choice of light and fast bullets in Wound Ballistics Review, 1996 Vol. 2, No. 3, page 7.
He also decried their adoption of the 5.7x28 and PDW's for the same reasons. He considered the 9x19 superior to the 5.7x28 and the 4.6x30 in every way. He also considered both inferior to the .223 even with a short barrel (which he did not have a favorable opinion of), and he wondered what the point of a PDW was since it wasn't much smaller than a compact variant of an M4/AR-15 and was ballistically weaker than a 9mm handgun.
Since most of Fackler's criticism of the .357 Sig I've cited was based on a preliminary evaluation, and on principle or theory derived from light, high-velocity 9mm's, and the primary problem he cited was a lack of penetration, let's look at a better example of the current state of .357 Sig:
https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/357-sig-gel-test/ I think it's fair to say that penetration is not insufficient. Fackler, if he were to see those results, would no doubt point out the 9x19mm results and ask Robert's and Lazzarini's question again, "What's the point?"
To get back to .38 Super, there is no question this is a good cartridge of historical interest and with historical significance and which continues to be relevant today, especially in the still-popular 1911. I have nothing bad to say about .38 Super. But what I'm curious about is how the premise that seems to have originally engendered the .38 Super (in 1929, not 1900), namely "high-velocity" seems to have fallen out of favor. As a result, similar high-velocity 9mm's like .357 Sig and even .357 Magnum have also fallen out of favor. This seems to have happened not because the cartridges are antiquated like .38 Super, but because the terminal ballistics and wound ballistics research does not support superior effectiveness with them.