Is the 40 S&W headed for obsolescence?

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I saw the start of what appears to be a growing trend a couple of years ago. I had occasion to place a call to Glock and at the close of our call, I asked which was their most popular model. The G19 was the answer and not unexpected. Then the customer service rep told me that a number of police departments were gravitating back toward the 9MM. That was a bit of a surprise. I chalked it up to the growing number of women in law enforcement. Fast forward to a trip to a local gun shop this week. The conversation was: "Hey, I have a SP2022 SIG you might be interested in. Let you have it at a good price. It's a 40S&W and I can't given 'em away hardly." Say hello to my like new condition SP 2022 in like new condition. $260. So my question is this: Why is the 40 apparently fallen from grace? I have always known it had its detractors but it's also got some good numbers behind it and the platform is still basically that of the 9MM. Comments please? Me? I will be looking for smoking hot deals on 40s going forward!
 

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Is it Saturday already? :)

Short version - blah blah harder to shoot blah blah 9mm current tech just as good etc. etc. more expensive. Blah less capacity.

Is it waning yup. Can I still go buy .41 magnum fairly easily... yup. If I can buy .41 magnum fairly easily I think .40 will be no problem for a LONG time.

Shoot what ya like and don't sweat it.
 
When military or police, choose a new gun or caliber, that gun or caliber becomes popular. Similarly, the gun or caliber they drop also becomes unpopular. IMHO.
 
People cite advances in bullet tech making 9mm comparable to old .40s, without realizing that the same bullet tech has also advanced the .40. The difference in hole size, or so-called "stopping power", is negligible. You get slightly less power, but slightly more capacity with 9mm. I prefer .40, but don't think that anyone who carries 9mm is "undergunned". Carry what you like, shoot what you carry, and be confident in our choice.
 
The .40 isn't going anywhere, IF anything the police dept's switching will help it spread as more cheap surplus guns become available. There are some awesome deals on trade ins now.

If you reload, it's a very, very, versatile cartridge due to the bullet weighs available and cheap brass is plentiful. Big plus for me is that for most guns, you're just a barrel swap away from having a 357 SIG.

Chuck
 
Well the 40 is falling out of favor with Law Enforcement Agencies for the following reasons;

1. The 40 is harder on the pistols they are chambered in meaning more maintenance and shorter service life than the 9mm.

2. Ammunition is more expensive than 9mm.

3. The 40 has significantly more recoil than the 9mm. This makes training new officers more difficult and longer.

4. 9mm bullet designs have greatly improved and are current state-of-art.

6. The importance of higher capacity magazines can not be ignored.

Even the FBI has recognized the advantages of the 9mm over the 40 and is readopting the 9mm.

All of above reasons are important for Department budgets. A nearby large Metro Department issues Glock 40's. The Trainers and Range Officers want to change to the 9mm. However the Administration is choosing to buy body cameras for all of it's Officers.

So someone looking to buy a 40 S&W thinking that is the best cartridge because that is what the Police carry is misinformed. Most Police Administrators are not "gun people" and it is hard to argue against the importance of body cameras when the 40 is good enough.

7. 9mm is chambered in a wider size and variety of pistols than the 40. It is more controllable in a smaller gun than the 40 which is important as most conceal carry folks choose their gun on the basis of it's size.

8. The 9mm is and will remained the primary handgun cartridge for our military for many years to come.

The 40 is far from dead but it's high water mark has long passed.
 
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cslinger said:
Is it Saturday already? :)

Short version - blah blah harder to shoot blah blah 9mm current tech just as good etc. etc. more expensive. Blah less capacity.

Is it waning yup. Can I still go buy .41 magnum fairly easily... yup. If I can buy .41 magnum fairly easily I think .40 will be no problem for a LONG time.

Shoot what ya like and don't sweat it.
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This sums up my thoughts as well.

And yes, apparently it is Saturday. Saturday's are "Is 40 S&W disappearing?" day. Tuesday's are "Bear gun" days.:D
 
When the 9 mm kind of took over the market you couldn't hardly give away 1911's for a while.

SIGs will be real popular now because the military is changing to a SIG pistol and all the Tactical guys want to have whatever the military guys are wearing.

40s got popular when the police departments changed to them because everybody had to have what the police had.

It seems to me that the marketplace is mostly about concealed carry these days and for the most part 9 mm has advantages for concealed carrier's over forties. Mostly it has to do with the Comfort level of the shooter shooting it. I find it much more comfortable to shoot 9 versus 40 especially in a smaller frame gun.

Some of the shifts between calibers are just because of the latest Fad in guns. Sometimes there's a legitimate reason that is not always real obvious. One obvious reason is that 9 millimeter is less expensive to shoot then 40.
 
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ilbob said:
SIGs will be real popular now because the military is changing to a SIG pistol and all the Tactical guys want to have whatever the military guys are wearing.
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I think you mean whatever the military guys are pulling out of the arms room once a year for range day. :p
 
I shoot and reload 4 handgun calibers. Once upon a time I shot primarily .40 and believed it a good self defense round. Over time I found that shooting for recreation and the abrupt recoil of .40 did not mix that well. I sold of couple of .40 guns and augmented my 9's and .45's. Just way more enjoyable to plink away with other than .40. I also find that sweeping up range brass currently yields a lot less .40, a good indicator it is in decline.
 
its popularoty has fallen off, but it came in over the top as well. people following fbi and police trends and now that they gravitated back to 9mm, so have the bulk of the buying public. also most new shooters always went straight to 9mm, so 9mm has always been the most popular.

.40 aint going anywhere. its a fine round. now .357sig has fallen off and far less pistols available for it. its the one that will follow 10mm into a small group liking it and still shooting it. ironically 10mm was declared dead long ago especially when .40 came into production, but its come back fiercely and thank god. it is still the best all around round out there, besides .45acp of course.
 
Similarly, the gun or caliber they drop also becomes unpopular.
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Yeah exactly like happened with .45ACP, .38 Special, and .357 Magnum. Expect the relative bargains in used police trade-in .40S&W to more than keep it alive.
 
In a full-sized service pistol I don't find the recoil to be much more than a 9mm. Wow, the deals on 40 caliber police turn-in pistols right now are sweet! Within the past few months I got a Beretta 96 and a Beretta PX4 for a little less than $500 total OTD combined. My FiL got a S&W MP and a full-sized Glock (also both 40 caliber) in the same time period for a little over $600 total. I don't know about y'all, but we have been shooting plenty of 40 caliber lately.
 
I love 40 cal but 9mm is half the price for factory ammo. That's what is hurting the 40.
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Not recently, the cheapest brass cased 9mm FMJ runs about $9/50 180gr FMJ in .40S&W runs about $13/50 so 9mm is more like 2/3 or 3/4 the cost of .40 S&W practice ammo.
 
Thursday is still truck gun day, right?


I don't think the .40 is going anywhere. I think it's matured enough to hold relatively the same market share as it does now into the foreseeable future.
 
The 40 is a compromise. One particular reason it will remain, the need for a caliber for to be carried in countries that do not allow carry of "military" cartridges. A lot of US organizations have 40's on their equipment lists for this reason.
 
Do you want a high capacity pistol that's more powerful than a 9mm? Then you get a .40. It's only a matter of time before 9mm appears to fail again, and some police want a more powerful caliber again. And everyone else will as well, and around in circles we go.

Then you have USPSA where a .40 makes major, and/or IDPA where you can use .40 minor with light recoil. And then there's 3 gun with more and more steel targets that sometimes get hard to drop with 9mm.

And some of us, just plain want as much power as we can handle.
 
Gun stores here basically dont stock .40s anymore, and no full size guns, which is unfortunate. Since we dont have CC home defense is really the only "defensive" role a pistol is likely to be employed for which i think the larger pistols are much better than the compacts.
The .40 with moderate loads dosent have much worse recoil in full size guns than the 9 does running hot loads, and is a much better field cartridge when loaded to the upper end of its performance range.
I recently worked on a couple .40s and probably shot 500rounds thru 2 guns over the course of a month. I am not a very good pistol shot but even my handloads of 165s at 1200+ were controlable and delivered 2-5" groups at 30yds. I cant do any better with my .45 and 230s at 900, or my 9mm and 124s at just under 1200.

My .45 (xdtac) is larger but the .40s (witness steel small frames) and my 9 (witness P-S) are basically the same size.
 
It's never going to be obsolete. There are simply too many existing guns out there in the caliber and more being made all the time.

The fact that it fits into 9mm-sized pistols means that its easy for manufacturers to make firearms and accessories for it. Then there's always the fact that it's so simple to convert between .357SIG/.40S&W.

The fact that the 10mm didn't disappear after the FBI dropped it should provide solid assurance that the .40S&W isn't going to either. And it's got a lot more going for it than the 10mm did.
 
Well I own a few 9's and a few 45's. I had always considered 40 to be an in-between caliber and as such never bothered to get one. Then during the last ammo drought the last handgun caliber left on the shelves at WM and such was 40. So I purchased a couple and also the dies/bullet molds to go along with the 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket of brass that I had collected in recent years. I see it as one more option if this ever happens again. Also why I save my small primer 45 ACP brass.:thumbup:
 
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