.40 S&W Input?

[G11354]

I recently purchased a Smith & Wesson M&P-40 (my first handgun) because I was looking for a happy medium between the .45 ACP and 9mm. I wanted to be as close to the stopping power of .45 as I could with a mag capacity closer to that of a 9mm.

I'm finding a great deal of conflicting information regarding the effectiveness of the .40 S&W regarding its advantages (if any) over other calibers.

Arguments included that handguns chambered in .40SW wear down faster due to it being a "high pressure" round.

Not looking for a caliber war, I simply would like some fresh perspective on the .40SW.

 

[ATLDave]

Its SAAMI spec for PSI is the same as for 9mm. Do 9mm's wear down faster?

If you're reloading it, just be aware that some .40 chambers don't have a lot of case support, which raises the risks of kabooms. And it's fairly sensitive to bullet setback causing pressure increases, so you'll need to watch neck tension - if the brass gets slack, you'll want to toss it, even if it otherwise looks ok. And gun frames/models that were built around the 9mm sometimes have longevity issues when running .40 - not because of "pressure," but simply because the recoil forces are greater. But in a platform built for .40, with good chamber support, and good QC re: seating and setback, I don't think there's any reason to avoid .40.

I will leave questions of terminal ballistics/effectiveness to others, but I will note that the term "stopping force" is likley to draw some criticism. You may want to prepare your explanation of what that means to you.

 

[cfullgraf]

I was looking for a happy medium between the .45 ACP and 9mm. I wanted to be close to the stopping force of .45 with a mag capacity closer to 9mm.

The 40 S&W will fit that nicely.

Lots of different opinions on the 40 S&W but I feel it serves its purpose well.

My S&W M&P40 is holding up well but probably less than 1000 rounds through it. I had Springfield P9C Compact in 40 S&W that required various parts to be replaced constantly.

Remember a hit with a 22 LR trumps a miss with a 44 Magnum so practice and get good with your pistol.

As an aside, I have an APEX kit in all my M&Ps except the 9Pro. It improves the stock trigger a lot.

 

[rsrocket1]

The high pressure is not going to affect the barrel life of your M&P40.

I have a 2 year old M&P40 and it has about 10k rounds through it. The only issue with my gun was that the left side slide lock lever snapped off after about 700 cycles where I used it as a "slide release" instead of using the slingshot method of chambering the first round. S&W replaced it fairly quickly for free and now I use the slingshot method all the time.

The trigger was a little gritty to begin with, but now breaks at about 4 pounds with no grit at all.

My only mod to the gun has been a 9mm barrel and two 9mm mags so I can now shoot either 40 or 9 in it. Luckily for you, you can also shoot 9mm with the gun which would not have been the case if you bought an M&P9 (you can go from 40 to 9, you cannot go from 9 to 40).

If you want to know what a 9mm round would fee like in the M&P40, load 3.0g Clays under a 180g RF plated or lead bullet. Very light recoil and cases that will fly only about 1-2 feet up.

The .40 packs a very good punch.

 

[greenlion]

To keep things in perspective, the 9mm has exactly the same pressure limit that the 40S&W has (35,000psi). The 45acp has a lower pressure limit, at 21,000.

If you shoot loads that are similar to the original loadings for the 40S&W; a 180gr bullet at 950fps, or a 165gr bullet at 980fps, you will have pressure levels very similar to the 45acp (around 23,000psi). Your gun will last as long as any 45acp or 9mm in that case, and the loads are very controllable and still effective as self defense rounds.

Remember though, that 40S&W's are built on 9mm frames, not an intermediate frame between the 9mm and 45acp. If you shoot ammo that is loaded to the full 35,000psi in 40 pistols, yes it will batter your gun more than the lightweight 9mm will. You would still be hard pressed to afford enough ammo to wear out a GLOCK 22.

 

[Sunray]

"...the stopping power of .45..." That'd be a myth. No handgun cartridge will stop anything. Physics won't allow it.
"..."stopping force"..." Another invented term.
The .40 S&W came along because the FBI couldn't shoot the 9mm's they had accurately enough and they had a protracted gun fight. Having a larger calibre was deemed to be the answer instead of mandatory practice. No cartridge is effective unless you hit what you're shooting at.

 

[LiveLife]

I'm finding a great deal of conflicting information regarding the effectiveness of the .40 S&W regarding its advantages (if any) over other calibers.

I started with 45ACP/9mm and switched to 40S&W. While 40S&W is our current SD/HD caliber, I would be OK with 45ACP and 9mm +P (my nightstand gun is a 1911).

Arguments included that handguns chambered in .40SW wear down faster due to it being a "high pressure" round.

M&P pistols have surface hardening Melonite treatment similar to non-USA made Glock Tenifer treatment (I am not sure what USA made Glocks use). After firing several hundred thousand rounds through 40S&W Glocks, I am sold on the durability of Tenifer/Melonite surface hardening.

If you shoot enough rounds to wear the barrel of M&P, you can always get a replacement barrel but chances are, not likely.

I would just shoot the M&P pistol and enjoy it without worries. With so many quality factory JHP ammunition available, I would focus more on practice than caliber.

 

[jmorris]

It's just another round. It is "the" round for USPSA limited division.

It came out after the 41 AE but was pretty much the equivalent, except that it used the same case head as the 10mm.

Once the FBI neutered the 10mm to levels that their agents felt they could shoot, there was no reason for the longer case and the .40 s&w was born.

 

[GLOOB]

Ehh, gun wear has nothing to do with pressure, period. A rifle barrel wears out from throat erosion, which is a function of gas volume and velocity dictated by powder charge, bullet velocity, and barrel diameter. Well, the velocity part is related to pressure, to a degree, so there's that. This could also be translated to forcing cone and topstrap erosion on a revolver. But a semiauto pistol wears out from metal-on-metal friction, recoil slamming the slide back, and the recoil spring slamming the slide forward. Nothing to do with pressure, at all.

The only way that pressure is going to break your gun is if it blows the chamber up.

That said, a 40SW gun running at 35k PSI WILL wear out faster than an identical 9mm gun shooting even +P ammo at 37.5k SPI. The 40SW produces ~30% more momentum, which translates into more slide velocity. (And even if you jack up the recoil spring, now you have more force slamming the slide shut.) But if the gun is designed strong enough, then this difference will be squat.

So 40SW guns wear out faster than IDENTICAL 9mm guns, due to 40SW being a more powerful round. If you made an identical gun chambered in 9mm, 40, and 45ACP, the 45ACP would wear the hardest, even though it's the lowest pressure. That's the reason why Rohrbaugh hasn't made a 45ACP version, yet. It has nothing to do with pressure.

 

[LiveLife]

By show of hands, how many of you had to replace the 40S&W Glock/M&P barrels from wear?

 

[Bovice]

LOL

Another ".40 wears out pistols faster" thread.

That's not true at all. It isn't any higher pressure than 9mm, setback on a 9mm bullet is much worse with that tiny case, and you can kaboom anything with a bad piece of brass, a double charge, or a severely telescopic round. These issues are not isolated to .40 S&W.

 

[Encoreman]

I'm still working on wearing out 4 .40 cal guns. The Para Ordnance P16-40 limited has in excess of 15,000 rounds that I have shot and I got it used from an IPSC shooter so no idea how many times the slide has went to and fro. Wear one or more out and keep a record of the rounds and come back in 20+ years to tell us how many it took.

 

[Woolecox]

The 40 is a great round! You probably couldn't wear out your M&P40 if you tried. Great choice in a gun and it is highly customizable for match comp.

You will find a lot of info here on reloading the 40. I would just say that if you pick up range brass, get your self a Redding GRx and run all of that brass through it before reloading. It will save you a lot of headaches.

 

[greenlion]

Sunray wrote:
"...the stopping power of .45..." That'd be a myth. No handgun cartridge will stop anything. Physics won't allow it.
"..."stopping force"..." Another invented term.

You do know you are on a gun forum, correct? Are you talking about nothing stopping as in "the movement of all the molecules in the universe", or "the non-movement of the atoms in a perfect crystal at 0 degrees kelvin"?

On a gun forum, when someone says a gun has enough stopping power to stop a squirrel, it means ... oh well... if you don't already know this... I can't help....

 

[ljnowell]

"...the stopping power of .45..." That'd be a myth. No handgun cartridge will stop anything. Physics won't allow it.
"..."stopping force"..." Another invented term.
The .40 S&W came along because the FBI couldn't shoot the 9mm's they had accurately enough and they had a protracted gun fight. Having a larger calibre was deemed to be the answer instead of mandatory practice. No cartridge is effective unless you hit what you're shooting at.

Stopping power is not a myth, knockdown power is. Of course a handgun will stop something, otherwise we wouldnt use them for self defense.

 

[mgmorden]

Remember though, that 40S&W's are built on 9mm frames, not an intermediate frame between the 9mm and 45acp.

That isn't universally true (or at least its not that simple). The Glock 22 is built on a 9mm frame, as is the Walther P99, but other pistols (such as the M&P) actually were designed primarily for the .40S&W round and then adapted for 9mm.

So in some cases - and most importantly in his case - the frame is indeed a .40S&W frame that they also made 9mm's in.

Also in other cases the frame itself is literally different. The S&W SDVE series utilizes a different frame for both 9mm and .40S&W. Try putting the magazine for one in the other to see what I mean. A .40S&W mag won't even fit the magwell of the 9mm frame.

 

[Elkins45]

Stopping power is not a myth, knockdown power is. Of course a handgun will stop something, otherwise we wouldnt use them for self defense.

Stopping power is often discussed as if it some sort of 'vital substance' like phlogiston that certain cartridges have more than others. Certain loadings in 40S&W may have more or less of it than certain loadings in 9mm or 45 ACP. Certain bullets are said to be practically dripping with the stuff <---think Black Talon, 125 gr .357mag, 45 golden saber, etc)

Stopping power, in reality, is just a statistical assessment of how effective a particular round has been in stopping gunfights. You can't really know this until a few people have been shot with the particular round in question. I would agree that you can look at a round and make some educated guesses (faster is better, wider is better, heavier is better, expansion is better...) but stopping power as a quantifiable thing won't ever be absolute. The person/thing being shot is a crucial part of the equation and you can't know their reaction in advance.

But back to the topic: can the OP afford to shoot enough ammo to wear out a decent quality 40S&W handgun? Does he have enough free time to load and fire the number of rounds it would take? My guess is that he does not, because very few of us do. So there's nothing to worry about.

 

[greenlion]

Stopping power, in reality, is just a statistical assessment of how effective a particular round has been in stopping gunfights. Stopping power as a quantifiable thing won't ever be absolute. The person/thing being shot is a crucial part of the equation and you can't know their reaction in advance.

You be sure to explain this to your would-be murderer while you shoot him with a 22 short. I will shoot mine with a 45 hollowpoint, and not worry a bit about how theoretical it all is.

 

[Lennyjoe]

So is the OP wanting information on reloading the .40 or general discussion on the round itself? Should this be in autoloader forum instead of handloading? Just wondering.

 

[readyeddy]

The 40 will do the job. Trying to find proof of superiority or inferiority will likely end up in an argument. It is what it is in that it is a, in general, a .4" 180 gr. bullet flying @ 1000 fps. If that's what you want, then that's the cartridge for you. I like it.

 

[Buzznrose]

I recently purchased a Smith & Wesson M&P-40 (my first handgun) because I was looking for a happy medium between the .45 ACP and 9mm. I wanted to be as close to the stopping power of .45 as I could with a mag capacity closer to that of a 9mm.

I'm finding a great deal of conflicting information regarding the effectiveness of the .40 S&W regarding its advantages (if any) over other calibers.

Arguments included that handguns chambered in .40SW wear down faster due to it being a "high pressure" round.

Not looking for a caliber war, I simply would like some fresh perspective on the .40SW.

You bought a nice gun. Shoot it in good health, and don't worry about it!

Be safe,

 

[Woolecox]

That's a great gun and a great round. Take a look at this post on loading the 40S&W. Everyone should reload. If you pick up "range brass" to reload, there are some things you need to be aware of. Particularly if you use your reloads for self defense. There are some extra steps you will need for reliability.

40S&W Belted Magnums

 

[Nordeste]

"...the stopping power of .45..." That'd be a myth. No handgun cartridge will stop anything. Physics won't allow it.
"..."stopping force"..." Another invented term.
The .40 S&W came along because the FBI couldn't shoot the 9mm's they had accurately enough and they had a protracted gun fight. Having a larger calibre was deemed to be the answer instead of mandatory practice. No cartridge is effective unless you hit what you're shooting at.

^^ This

But hey, to each their own. You won't go wrong choosing a .40 for defensive purposes, but you wouldn't have gone wrong, either, having chosen a 9 mm, provided that you picked up a good expansive ammo.

 

[Walkalong]

Straight from the OP:

Not looking for a caliber war, I simply would like some fresh perspective on the .40SW.

 

[beatledog7]

I like the .40S&W as is, and I also like that I can easily convert to 357Sig with just a barrel change. It's less fiddly to reload than 9mm and provides a good balance between magazine capacity and terminal ballistics. I decided on it for my no-kidding go-to handgun for situations we don't discuss on THR.

From what I've seen, many of those who don't like the .40cal have little really negative to say about the round itself but do exhibit signs of an ongoing romance with either the 9mm or .45ACP. They often say that because we have the 9mm and the .45ACP, the .40cal is the solution for a problem that didn't exist.

Who really cares? If you like the .40S&W, then shoot it.