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.
I agree that virtually all modern calibers are not necessary, and think that many older ones aren't, either, to tell you the truth. If either 9mm or .45 ACP went away, for example, then the remaining one could get the job done. And do we really need both .308 and .30-06? I guess it depends on how narrowly and harshly one defines "useless" (and that's the word we've been using, despite the carefully chosen words of the OP).
If I were to pick one, though, my vote goes for the latest, the greatest, "rivaling the .357 Magnum", the .327.
Sure, nobody NEEDS it, although it does allow an additional round in small-frame revolvers, so it might not be useless in the harshest sense of the term.
Strange how you defend the .40 yet rag on the .357 SIG.
I defended .40 S&W against a generic argument that could be applied to ANY caliber in existence, useless or otherwise, and gave examples to prove my point that the argument itself was not merely right or wrong but invalid (or incomplete). And while I did provide some favorable points for .40 S&W (which could be applied to .357 SIG if you like), I implied that if anybody could refute those points, then their argument that .40 S&W is useless would be both valid and correct by the standard that I had established.
As for the .357 SIG, I hardly ragged on it. It gives people exactly what was intended: somewhat lightly-loaded (but typical for factory loads) .357 Magnum ballistics in one bullet weight (125 grains)--which is widely considered a well-proven load--for autoloading pistols. Based on this alone, it could be considered a success, although it is true that I did not go out of my way to state this explicitly (until now). This is because I'm not trying to tell people what they should think is useless--I only made an exception for .40 S&W because of the type of argument used against it.
By the way, it should not be "strange" if it seems that I favor one over the other, as I generally favor larger, heavier bullets even if they're slower. They're hardly equivalent even if one is based on the other, and I don't care whether a caliber is new or old, either.
The .357 Sig does what the .40 was supposed to do.
I don't see why that would be true--.40 S&W is essentially a light-loaded 10mm Auto, while the .357 SIG tries to mimic a popular .357 Magnum load. Both have their uses, as well as proponents and detractors.
It is also very flexible in reloading.
Admittedly, I'm no expert on .357 SIG loading, but my understanding is that it can't keep up with .357 Magnum performance with heavier bullets, and I like heavier bullets. If this is incorrect, then you have a point, although I don't feel that I was ragging on it to begin with--somebody else said it was useless and I made comments both for and against. .40 S&W can't keep up either, of course, but I like bigger bullets in general.
