9mm vs .40 Smith & Wesson - What happened?

[User 1234]

Just ask any coroner what .40 does that 9 doesn't.

Shares a name with cheap malt liquor packaging!

I actually prefer 40 but I don't believe 9 is ineffective.

 

[No_Regerts]

There are very few examples of new .40 S&W pistols being any cheaper than the 9mm version. People keep saying there are awesome deals on new .40 S&W pistols. I haven't seen it.

I have bought several new pistols this past year in both 9mm and .40 S&W. The cheapest were in 9mm.

I like .40 S&W. I reload for it. It is much more of a flexible round for me than 9mm and more accurate.

A store here locally was selling new M&P40 2.0s for $390.

 

[GWS]

Remington RP9's are going for $199 at Sportsmen's
It was my experience that .40 ammo was always available even during the worst ammo runs on the market. It is an effective round and I for one like it and have no intention of abandoning it. re: 9 vs 40 vs 45; The only thing I will say definitively is i don't wish to be shot with any of them.

 

[leadcounsel]

I prefer the .40 in a full sized gun, but the 9 or .45 will work. They are all compromises to some extent.

The OPs answer is plain and simple. Budget, and smaller framed or "non-gun" officers find 9mm easier to use.
With very strained budgets, the aggregate savings of a few pennies per round equates to a lot of money that can be used for new body armor, more training, new gear, or a new patrol car. 9mm is nearly as effective, and cops have lots of additional tools like backup, instant access to long guns (shotguns and ARs) in squad cars, they wear body armor which is adequate for most engagements (so they're almost certain to survive most shootouts) and have near instant access to medical treatment from trained professionals.

Therefore, engagements will always go in favor of the police, and nearly always go in favor of the individual officer. A 9mm is generally sufficient.

 

[No_Regerts]

From what I've seen with shootings with various agencies that I've worked around, .40 is superior to 9 and 45 when it comes to shooting through barriers.

 

[Kruel J]

.40 Short and Wimpy is a hyped cartridge that was made for folks that boo-hooed about 10mm hurting their hands.

9mm has been around longer than most and has proven itself effective time and time again. With bullet technology where it is today, the argument for .40 has become one of novelty and for guys that just like to be be different. Guys that like .45GAP and .357 SIG seem to gravitate towards .40 SW more than most. For practical shooters that just want capacity and effectiveness without trying to impress their neighbor, 9mm works just fine.

Oh yeah, and 9mm is cheaper to shoot and more mainstream.

 

[DB is Here]

 

[titsonritz]

40 wears out guns faster then 9, when buying hundreds or thousands of pistols at a time that is huge a factor.

 

[titsonritz]

Yes, the .380 and 9mm will do the job, but usually multiple hits are required as opposed to single hits with a .40 or .45.

Tell it to this guy...

At the core of his desperate firefight was a murderous attacker who simply would not go down, even though he was shot 14 times with .45-cal. ammunition — six of those hits in supposedly fatal locations.

Why one cop carries 145 rounds of ammo on the job

 

[Kruel J]

Watch this. Tells the story right here.

 

[Kruel J]

LOL you know I like stirring the pot!

 

[PNWguy]

More points from an actual expert that has performed thousands of autopsies on actual shooting victims...

So let me give a few thoughts here. First, as you've pretty well guessed by now, I'm a big fan of the .40 and .45 for personal defense, and for the same reasons. They're both big, slow-moving bullets. Of the two, I think big is more important. As I've said before, I want something that will plow through bone and keep going, not skip off of it. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a .380 or 9mm strike bone on a well-placed shot and skip off in a non-vital direction, leaving the BG free to return fire. With the .40 and .45, this seldom happens. Bone is in the body for basically two reasons--to give support as with the legs and spinal column and to protect major organs, such as the ribs protecting the heart or the skull protecting the brain. Skip a bullet off a support bone, such as the leg, and the BG will keep shooting. Break it, like you generally do with a .40 or .45, and the BG is going to hit the pavement and your chances of survival increase dramatically. It's the same with a shot to the chest. Skip a 9mm off the sternum (breastbone) and the fight continues; plow through the sternum with a .45 and, trust me, the fight is over. I'm just convinced that all things being equal, bigger is better when it comes to bullet size.

If you'll CAREFULLY read this thread, I think you'll find that you can condense the vast majority of it to one thing and one thing only--my OBSERVATIONS from the morgue regarding the wounds I see inflicted. Not what I've heard, not what I've read about, not what I "believe" or "think." Take it a step farther and you'll see that my concern with the 9mm and .380 (and other calibers) as a defensive weapon is that I've SEEN it fragment and fail to penetrate to the vital organs whereas I don't think I've ever SEEN the .45 fail to penetrate to the vital organs if headed that way to begin with. As I've clearly stated, most of the time the 9mm works just fine. It's the times that it doesn't that bother me. Obviously, there's no one bullet/caliber that's going to work all the time in all cases, not even the .45, but IN MY OPINION (and I've said this is opinion many times) I think the .45 adds a margin of safety that the 9mm doesn't have, that's all. I happen to carry the .45 because it's the largest caliber I feel like I can shoot effectively when the chips are down. Frankly, I'd rather be carrying Smitty's beloved .500 Magnum but I know my limitations. Virtually all thoughts expressed in my posts are predicated on what I've SEEN.

 

[PNWguy]

Tell it to this guy...

At the core of his desperate firefight was a murderous attacker who simply would not go down, even though he was shot 14 times with .45-cal. ammunition — six of those hits in supposedly fatal locations.

Why one cop carries 145 rounds of ammo on the job

Pretty meaningless example.

Addressed in the link I provided...

Second, there has been a fair amount of anecdotal evidence presented in the past few posts, little of which I have much faith in. We've all read stories about the BG who was hit with 2 magazines of +P and lived to tell the tale, often with the conclusion that the caliber used was ineffective. And, as I said in an earlier post, what isn't said is what clothing he was wearing, what his state of mind was, what the bullet did once it hit bone and/or flesh, what ammo was used and whether the hollowpoint hit an intermediate target before reaching our BG... The list goes on and on. We can rehash stories we've read citing various calibers and bullets, but are these really a basis on what we should be using do decide what to carry? I think not.

Third, there's no "magic bullet", caliber, or weapon. Folks, it just doesn't exist. No, not even the .45. The closest thing we'll ever get to a "magic bullet" is the one that hits the central nervous system, and that's also the only one that guarantees a one-shot stop.

 

[Jonnyuma]

Wow.... we do this again?

There is nothing weak about the .40 cal.
Every type of bullet and/or propellant technology development that has hit 9mm has been applied to the .40, only slightly bigger.

I like 187gr HST in my .40 Walther PPS.

I haven't seen low prices on new .40s, but top notch (HK, Walther, SiG, etc) police trade-ins are available for crazy cheap... a PD trade-in HK USP40 replaced my P220 .45 as my bedside piece as soon as this manufactured "scare" started.

 

[Kruel J]

Pretty meaningless example.

Addressed in the link I provided...

Second, there has been a fair amount of anecdotal evidence presented in the past few posts, little of which I have much faith in. We've all read stories about the BG who was hit with 2 magazines of +P and lived to tell the tale, often with the conclusion that the caliber used was ineffective. And, as I said in an earlier post, what isn't said is what clothing he was wearing, what his state of mind was, what the bullet did once it hit bone and/or flesh, what ammo was used and whether the hollowpoint hit an intermediate target before reaching our BG... The list goes on and on. We can rehash stories we've read citing various calibers and bullets, but are these really a basis on what we should be using do decide what to carry? I think not.

Third, there's no "magic bullet", caliber, or weapon. Folks, it just doesn't exist. No, not even the .45. The closest thing we'll ever get to a "magic bullet" is the one that hits the central nervous system, and that's also the only one that guarantees a one-shot stop.

I don't think his example was meaningless at all. No more so than the link you provided.

 

[Kruel J]

Wow.... we do this again?

There is nothing weak about the .40 cal.
Every type of bullet and/or propellant technology development that has hit 9mm has been applied to the .40, only slightly bigger.

I like 187gr HST in my .40 Walther PPS.

I haven't seen low prices on new .40s, but top notch (HK, Walther, SiG, etc) police trade-ins are available for crazy cheap... a PD trade-in HK USP40 replaced my P220 .45 as my bedside piece as soon as this manufactured "scare" started.

Caliber debates crack me up. Hence my cheeky response. These threads always end up the same way.

I say shoot what you're good with. I honestly don't care what caliber anyone prefers, as long as they are safe and proficient with it.

 

[titsonritz]

Pretty meaningless example.

Addressed in the link I provided...

Second, there has been a fair amount of anecdotal evidence presented in the past few posts, little of which I have much faith in. We've all read stories about the BG who was hit with 2 magazines of +P and lived to tell the tale, often with the conclusion that the caliber used was ineffective. And, as I said in an earlier post, what isn't said is what clothing he was wearing, what his state of mind was, what the bullet did once it hit bone and/or flesh, what ammo was used and whether the hollowpoint hit an intermediate target before reaching our BG... The list goes on and on. We can rehash stories we've read citing various calibers and bullets, but are these really a basis on what we should be using do decide what to carry? I think not.

Third, there's no "magic bullet", caliber, or weapon. Folks, it just doesn't exist. No, not even the .45. The closest thing we'll ever get to a "magic bullet" is the one that hits the central nervous system, and that's also the only one that guarantees a one-shot stop.

They are all meaningless examples if one fails to comprehend the fact that ALL pistol calibers suck at stopping people.

 

[Kruel J]

They are all meaningless examples if one fails to comprehend the fact that ALL pistol calibers suck at stopping people.

There's always that too.

 

[surevaliance]

Her personal experience contradicts all his statements.
Bella Twin, the .22 Used to Take the 1953 World Record Grizzly, and More

Quite an enlightening read at the link below. Will take a while to read it all as it is quite extensive...

Terminal ballistics as viewed in a morgue

Some highlights...

I see an average of 8.2 autopsies per day/365 days per year, and I can tell you that when the chips are down, there's nothing that beats a 12-gauge. As for handguns, the name of the game is not only shot placement but how a properly-placed bullet acts once it gets there. I've seen folks killed by a bb to the eye and others survive after being hit by several well-placed rounds with a 9mm.

As for me, I'll take a slow-moving .45 to a gun fight any day. I absolutely despise a 9mm for defensive situations (yes, they will eventually kill but often not quickly enough to prevent the BG from doing you in first)and a .380 as well. These are probably the two calibers I see most often on the autopsy table.


Again, this is from experience that I've made my calls on what works and what doesn't. I have no use for mouse guns like the .32, although it's a lot better to have a mouse gun than nothing at all. Personally, I'll never carry anything smaller than a .40 and prefer the .45. Day in and day out, results from the autopsy table show me that the .45 is the gun to have in a gun fight, provided you can shoot it well. If not, it's better to have something you can shoot well, even if it's a mouse gun, than something you can't.

You're correct in what you're thinking. Yes, the 9mm and .380 are the rounds I most often see on the autopsy table, but they're also the rounds that usually require multiple hits to make the kill. The standing joke in the morgue is to guess the caliber by looking at the x-rays. If multiple rounds show up on the x-rays more often than not it's a 9mm or .380 (or .32 or .25 or some mouse gun caliber). If only one round shows up, it could be an inordinately good hit with a .380 or 9mm, but more likely it's a .40 or .45.

Yes, the .380 and 9mm will do the job, but usually multiple hits are required as opposed to single hits with a .40 or .45.

 

[PNWguy]

They are all meaningless examples if one fails to comprehend the fact that ALL pistol calibers suck at stopping people.

Her personal experience contradicts all his statements.
Bella Twin, the .22 Used to Take the 1953 World Record Grizzly, and More

So, you're saying that the opinions and observations of someone who has performed thousands of autopsies on actual gunshot victims is as relevant as one single incident you found on the internet?

OK...