Re: .45 vs. .40

26
Fukshot wrote:Many respected people in the field think .45acp is one of the best choices available. Many people think .40 is just as good and many don't. Few argue that .40 is better.
Then why have most police departments standardized on .40, I wonder? Maybe they see it as the best compromise between magazine capacity and stopping power?

(I'm not a particular proponent of any caliber, I'm just thinking out loud.)
"To initiate a war of aggression...is the supreme international crime" - Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson, 1946

Re: .45 vs. .40

27
larrymod wrote:
Fukshot wrote:Many respected people in the field think .45acp is one of the best choices available. Many people think .40 is just as good and many don't. Few argue that .40 is better.
Then why have most police departments standardized on .40, I wonder? Maybe they see it as the best compromise between magazine capacity and stopping power?

(I'm not a particular proponent of any caliber, I'm just thinking out loud.)
I think you have it on the head right there. Also, on paper, .40 has less recoil impulse, but I have never thought it felt that way in the hand.

Re: .45 vs. .40

28
GuitarsandGuns wrote:
rglad wrote:This is why I am comfortable carrying a .380. That .45 coming out of a short barrel may not be lethal instantly, but it will seriously injure, knock down and cause numerous regrets and second thoughts in your adversary. As I'm sure you already know, practice and shot placement are two of our greatest allies in a gunfight. I say shoot it and carry it with confidence.
I feel the same about the .380 and although I can hit with my LCP, I'm not all that fond of it. I hope to get a Sig P238 in the future. So .45 when I have the large pocket and .380 for the smaller pocket.

Today I can hit better on the first shot with the .45 over all my revolvers but, Since the .45 requires releasing a safety, that is one step before firing. Cocking my double action Ruger would also be one step before firing.
So almost equal. The thing is weird. at contact distance I'd prefer a LCR revolver. At aiming distance I'd prefer the .45..

Last night we put the Laserlyte trainer in the barrel and were hitting the top of a cactus with the laser dot at 50 yards plus.
That is how good the trigger is.

I carry the p238 and love it. I practice my draw (unloaded) at home and include the motion to drop the safety every time. I have developed enough muscle memory to feel confident I can do the same when things get real. A lot of people worry about the extra fraction of a second it takes to drop the safety, but carrying a SAO pistol like an XD seems to have more of a risk of an accidental discharge than the risk of being attacked while walking down the street and needing to defend yourself. Does that make sense?

Also, are you talking about the new (used) kimber I read about recently? If so, congrats and color me jealous. I would love to add one of them to my family.

Re: .45 vs. .40

30
edfromnj wrote:just fyi the info posted helped quite a bit in my .40 cal shooting. The "head shots" are from my .357 and the body shots are from the glock. Just hitting the target is a huge improvement with my Glock :smart:

Ed- how many times have you fired the Glock? Hitting low usually means the shooter is anticipating the recoil and is compensating for it by "pushing" the muzzle downward. If you have only shot it on a few occasions, I'd say keep shooting it and see if you get used to it. If you've fired it a lot and don't see much improvement, it may not be the right gun for you.

Re: .45 vs. .40

33
larrymod wrote:
Fukshot wrote:Many respected people in the field think .45acp is one of the best choices available. Many people think .40 is just as good and many don't. Few argue that .40 is better.
Then why have most police departments standardized on .40, I wonder? Maybe they see it as the best compromise between magazine capacity and stopping power?

(I'm not a particular proponent of any caliber, I'm just thinking out loud.)
Most police dept's just 'me too' after the FBI and Border Patrol adopted it. The reason the FBI and BP use it is barrier penetration, which the .45acp lacks a bit. Because the .40 is great at penetrating barriers, it will go right through a human in a frontal shot, so hollow points are used to increase the chance some round doesn't go wandering off into a bystander with a good lawyer.

So for civilians, much less likely to have to defeat a barrier, and more likely to have a frontal shot (since running away in any direction other than towards the civilian is less likely to get a perp shot) my argument is it's too much, leave it to the LEO's to use. Although I don't own anything that shoots them, I think the .44 special and .45ACP are great self defense rounds being slow enough not to overpenetrate easily.
When only cops have guns, it's called a police state.
I carry due to toxic masculinity.......just other people's.

Re: .45 vs. .40

34
atxgunguy wrote:I'm most accurate with my .45ACP. Heavy and soft with manstopping power, there's a lot of innuendo in that bullet.
I've been carrying my full size 1911 with increasing frequency. It's so darn accurate and easy to shoot. In summer I'll switch to a 9mm shield.

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Re: .45 vs. .40

35
A .45 as a sidearm gives me more confidence than a .40 when the possibility of crossing paths with a feral pig or a black bear exists. Which is basically why I own one.
"Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism. Our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction." ~ Alexander Solzhenitzyn

Re: .45 vs. .40

36
rglad wrote:
edfromnj wrote:just fyi the info posted helped quite a bit in my .40 cal shooting. The "head shots" are from my .357 and the body shots are from the glock. Just hitting the target is a huge improvement with my Glock :smart:

Ed- how many times have you fired the Glock? Hitting low usually means the shooter is anticipating the recoil and is compensating for it by "pushing" the muzzle downward. If you have only shot it on a few occasions, I'd say keep shooting it and see if you get used to it. If you've fired it a lot and don't see much improvement, it may not be the right gun for you.
My glock is only 3 months old so I am still getting used to it. I used to have a Ruger LC9 and I could hit nickels with it.
GuitarsandGuns wrote:I went from glock to XD because of the grip angle. The grip angle on the lcp is terrible.

Point your finger with it in your hand. In my case, the glock pointed down.
I also noticed the difference in grip angle it feels like the glock is more obtuse (and i mean that geometrically not aesthetically) and because of that obtuse angle I feel less "right" in my grip.

I'd say its likely the combination of a few things... not quite used to the grip and because of that the recoil from .40 and a working on my stance.

I noticed that loosening my grip helped, I was probably squeezing the grip to death to compensate. I also noticed bringing my weapon closer to me seemed to help. having more bend in my elbows seemed to deliver better shots. Also What John Deer and Shinzen said I think helped as far a finger position on the trigger.

I'm going to keep pluggin away at it... however I think I'll be devoting considerably more time to my .357 :yahoo:
E pluribus unum

Re: .45 vs. .40

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larrymod wrote: Then why have most police departments standardized on .40, I wonder? Maybe they see it as the best compromise between magazine capacity and stopping power?
Marketing?

A couple of decades ago, Glock convinced police departments that their .38 and .357 revolvers were outmoded and got them to standardize on 9mm. Ruger, Sig, et. al. owe them a great deal, since they rode that wave.

But then what? With every cop in the country, practically, already carrying a 9mm semi-auto what was left. Those service weapons, at 10 years old, had perhaps under 500 rounds through them and the worst they had was holster wear.

How to make more sales? Well, you had to convince the police brass, perhaps with help from the rank and file and the unions, that 9mm is an inadequate round. "Shouldn't your officers have superior stopping power to the guys with illegal 9mm's????"

Well, that worked.

On top of that, many departments have a policy of destroying, not selling, the old but serviceable 9mm's when they're replaced. That means that in the civilian market, the manufacturers didn't even have to compete against their own, pre-owned, product!

Something they haven't yet tried, and which I would recommend, is to give away a free latest-model iPhone with each new service-weapon sold.

Re: .45 vs. .40

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gascolator wrote:
larrymod wrote: Then why have most police departments standardized on .40, I wonder? Maybe they see it as the best compromise between magazine capacity and stopping power?
Marketing?
Well, lets look back to back at how the .40 was developed. After the Miami shootout, the FBI decided to blame their failures of training on the 9mm not being "powerful" enough. So they adapted the 10mm in a firebreathing load. At which point they discovered that virtually all their female agents and more than a few of their male agents couldn't handle the things; far too much recoil and muzzle blast. So S&W said, let's make a 10mm SPECIAL! They trimmed the case down, massivly downloaded the charge & created the latest & greatest .40 S&W. The FBI snagged it up & many other PD's did too on the "monkey see, monkey do" principle. The .40 still remains unpleasant to shoot but people presume that means its a "better" round for shooting bad guys... :roll:

The reality remains that the .40 is a solution in search of a problem. 99.999% of the time, a 9mm with modern bullets is more than sufficent for a peace officer's sidearm. On the rare occasions where it really is insufficent, the .45 is a far better choice. The .40, like the .41 before it, is a niche product but unlike the .41, the .40 got the cachet of the FBI behind so, alas, we're stuck with it. :no: Heck, I'd rather a .38 Special revolver with the proverbial "FBI Load" of 158 grain LSWCHP at 1000fps over a .40 semi auto as it would be just as good at stopping a bad guy while being far easier to shoot well & shot placement will win in the end.
Live like you will never die, love like you've never been hurt, dance
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Alex White

Re: .45 vs. .40

40
wlewisiii wrote:Well, lets look back to back at how the .40 was developed. After the Miami shootout, the FBI decided to blame their failures of training on the 9mm not being "powerful" enough. So they adapted the 10mm in a firebreathing load. At which point they discovered that virtually all their female agents and more than a few of their male agents couldn't handle the things; far too much recoil and muzzle blast.
Which I find gut-bustingly hilarious. I had a Glock 20 (full-sized 10mm) and rolled my own seriously hot loads, although nowhere near potential kB! territory, and it was a beautiful shooter. Stout, yes, but no worse than hot .357 in a snub.
Those who know what's best for us / Must rise and save us from ourselves - Rush, Witch Hunt

Re: .45 vs. .40

41
It is very interesting though to see just how different people react to recoil or even between different calibers. There should be little, if any, difference between .44 Mag & a stout .45 Colt yet I find the Colt more pleasant to shoot. You had a generation of shooters that were used to .38 Special &/or 9mm standard pressure rounds and even then the training was with range loads that were even lower. The 10mm could have been trained for but if they weren't being trained properly in the use of thier previous 9mm's what was the chance of that? So instead, they bought into the .40 & that was that.
Live like you will never die, love like you've never been hurt, dance
like no-one is watching.
Alex White

Re: .45 vs. .40

42
Sanow was the guy who picked the .40 for the BP, and he wrote a book about why. Most interestingly, his other book settled on the .357 using a 125gr hp as the greatest one shot stop round evah...

Y' know, I get the feeling we keep re-inventing rounds. What the hell happened to the .38 Super? Capable of defeating auto bodies of the 1930's (about 5x thicker than today's) and class II body armor, pretty much on par with the Tokarev. Works great in a 1911 frame.
When only cops have guns, it's called a police state.
I carry due to toxic masculinity.......just other people's.

Re: .45 vs. .40

44
Antiquus wrote: Y' know, I get the feeling we keep re-inventing rounds. What the hell happened to the .38 Super? Capable of defeating auto bodies of the 1930's (about 5x thicker than today's) and class II body armor, pretty much on par with the Tokarev. Works great in a 1911 frame.
The .357 is what happened to it. Cops were still using reliable uncomplicated revolvers.

Re: .45 vs. .40

45
Antiquus wrote:Sanow was the guy who picked the .40 for the BP, and he wrote a book about why. Most interestingly, his other book settled on the .357 using a 125gr hp as the greatest one shot stop round evah...

Y' know, I get the feeling we keep re-inventing rounds. What the hell happened to the .38 Super? Capable of defeating auto bodies of the 1930's (about 5x thicker than today's) and class II body armor, pretty much on par with the Tokarev. Works great in a 1911 frame.
Methinks marketing comes into play here.

I will show my ignorance here. Were all these commercial pistol cartridges made by one tinkerer in a garage? Or were they at least supplied with R&D money from some like S&W. Then yeah, marketing.

I think the .45 may have been different.
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Re: .45 vs. .40

46
GuitarsandGuns wrote: Methinks marketing comes into play here.

I will show my ignorance here. Were all these commercial pistol cartridges made by one tinkerer in a garage? Or were they at least supplied with R&D money from some like S&W. Then yeah, marketing.

I think the .45 may have been different.
I kind of thought the .45 may have been different, too. I mean, the "story" oft-told is that the Army was looking for something that would stop drugged up savages better than the standard-issue .38 side-arm.

But I think something else was in play. After all, this was 1911, and the Browning-designed semi-auto pistol was heading for a decade-old. That's pretty new-fangled.

Now if the Army just wanted something that could pack a punch, why not a heavy-caliber revolver? Couldn't the .44 Magnum have been developed 50 years sooner?

Nah, somebody wanted a more "modern" semi-auto, which to be fair, must have seemed incredibly cool at the time.

Re: .45 vs. .40

47
The Army, in the requirement that led to the 1911, wanted a round that could do what the .45 Colt had been designed to do in 1872 - be able to go through a horse sideways and kill a man on the other side. Colt & John Browning had been working on a .41 cartridge when the Army, and especially the Cavalry branch, decided it needed to be .45 after the Thompson-LaGarde Tests of 1904. They modified what they were working on in 1904 and the rest of their prototypes were all in .45 ACP. It was actually closer to the .45 Schofield in power but it was significantly shorter than the .45 Colt so that once they saw the speed of reloading, they were willing to accept it.

That's my reading of the history at least. It's probably close though, it's not nearly as messy as some of the rifle controversies the US has had... :roll:
Live like you will never die, love like you've never been hurt, dance
like no-one is watching.
Alex White

Re: .45 vs. .40

48
Since combat involves dropping your weapon in the mud, the 1911 didn't let dirt on the inside.

Mud, sand, a piece of grass can disable a revolver.
In 'Nam, many pilots were issued revolvers because they weren't expected to roll in the mud.
Also, the people who carried the 1911 were machine gunners radio operators ,officers and corpsmen.

It is a defensive weapon.
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Re: .45 vs. .40

49
I wonder if powder speed has much to do with the snappiness.

I have just started loading for the 40 s&w and am starting out with a light 155 gr bullet and N320 as a target load.

When I head out to the range with both my 155 load and some heavier factory loads I can have more to contribute.

Given what shinzen said, I think I will order a range of bullet weights to test his hypothesis. For the time being I am in the .40s&w camp until a .45 comes into my life.

:beer2:
Bleeding Heart Liberal with Second Amendment Benefits.
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Re: .45 vs. .40

50
Since this thread was revived (and I missed it on the first iteration) ... I agree with this basic premise:
Fukshot wrote:.45 recoil is heavy and soft. .40 recoil is sharp and snappy. I find .45 way more comfortable to shoot.
I really think that it is a matter of what you shoot better, rather than a particular cartridge (or brand of ammo). This chart is telling:

Image


In terms of muzzle energy (granted, just one possible factor, but an important one), the curves for .45ACP, .40S&W, and 9mm+P all are *very* similar over a range of barrel lengths.

That said, you can always tweak things to get the best performance out of a given gun or cartridge. If you have and like a .45ACP, but want higher velocity like the .40S&W, just drop down to a lighter bullet (compare 165gr or 180gr/185gr loads out of each cartridge they're almost identical). Or go with a brand you think does a better job with pushing 'hot' loads.

For me, it's much more about what I shoot well, what I know I can (and will) carry, than it is about a magic bullet/cartridge/brand.*


Jim

*Even though I have been known to get a bit evangelical about the .460 Rowland ... :mrgreen:
James Downey

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