6 Dead, Dying, and Soon-To-Be-Obsolete Handgun Cartridges. Agree?

[Mesatchornug]

Why does 40 S&W get all the hate but 10mm gets praised from the high heavens for being the same thing, just a little longer.

Technically, 40 is "basically the same as" 10 - just shorter and less powerful. Which is the whole complaint: 9 wasn't "enough" any more, so we made 10, which was too much, so we made 40. Taken alone, 40 is a fine cartridge. But it will always be discussed (in a space like this) within its historical context.

Also, neckbeards.

 

[Broc]

Why does 40 S&W get all the hate but 10mm gets praised from the high heavens for being the same thing, just a little longer.

I am still pissed that 10mm is not called 1cm.

I will buy one, when the gun says "1cm" on the side.

 

[kalash]

.40 doesn't do anything that 9mm doesn't. However 10mm does - it's a lot more powerful than .40 when loaded hot.

 

[Picton]

I am still pissed that 10mm is not called 1cm.

I will buy one, when the gun says "1cm" on the side.

"Hey homes, what's that gat you got in your waistband? Is that a nine, man?"

"No. It's a ONE."

-Broc, chatting with his fellow bangers.

 

[Mesatchornug]

.40 doesn't do anything that 9mm doesn't. However 10mm does - it's a lot more powerful than .40 when loaded hot.

Which is why I want a Ruger carbine in 10mm...

 

[40 Creedmoor fan]

GSC

I assume the abbreviation means something. I never cared for caliber arguments so I'm clueless.

P.S. I shoot what I like. Some calibers are good in one gun but suck in everything else. I suppose for me it's more the gun than the caliber that matters. If the gun fits, I can manipulate it under pressure, and it's reliable, I could care less about the caliber the gun uses! Case in point, I own a 1911 but I never felt like it fit me. I think I went through a box of 45 once every two years. Recently, I bought CZ 97 and love the way it handles and shoots. I go through 200-300 rounds every time I go to the range. This brings me to my next point: reload whatever caliber you need. Besides, it's fun to flex on those who buy ammo. Just do a couple of mag dumps of 45 as fast as you can and watch them cry. Last year, I showed up at a SIG Advanced Precision Shooting class with 300 rounds of 6.5 PRC(I got lucky @Creedmoor sports when they had in-stock ADG brass for 65c). The looks on everyone's faces were priceless!

 

[drgrant]

I assume the abbreviation means something. I never cared for caliber arguments so I'm clueless.

P.S. I shoot what I like. Some calibers are good in one gun but suck in everything else. I suppose for me it's more the gun than the caliber that matters. If the gun fits, I can manipulate it under pressure, and it's reliable, I could care less about the caliber the gun uses! Case in point, I own a 1911 but I never felt like it fit me. I think I went through a box of 45 once every two years. Recently, I bought CZ 97 and love the way it handles and shoots. I go through 200-300 rounds every time I go to the range. This brings me to my next point: reload whatever caliber you need. Besides, it's fun to flex on those who buy ammo. Just do a couple of mag dumps of 45 as fast as you can and watch them cry. Last year, I showed up at a SIG Advanced Precision Shooting class with 300 rounds of 6.5 PRC(I got lucky @Creedmoor sports when they had in-stock ADG brass for 65c). The looks on everyone's faces were priceless!

GSC gun shop commando

You know the gun shop Commando was there when some guy has his newbie friend with him in like four seasons and he's egging him on to buy a 40 for his first handgun....

 

[40 Creedmoor fan]

I am still pissed that 10mm is not called 1cm.

10mm sounds longer. 1cm sounds short, tiny.

It is the same reason the 10mm crew hates 40. 40 is bigger than 10 and therefore the implication is that their caliber is ....less. Now, if they called 40 "10mm Short", the "macho men" of the 10mm world would not feel so emasculated. Why do you think they keep calling the 40S&W caliber "gay"?

 

[40 Creedmoor fan]

GSC gun shop commando

You know the gun shop Commando was there when some guy has his newbie friend with him in like four seasons and he's egging him on to buy a 40 for his first handgun....

Oh, man! I have seen this exact scene take place at Four Seasons!!!!!!!!!!

 

[drgrant]

10mm sounds longer. 1cm sounds short, tiny.

It is the same reason the 10mm crew hates 40. 40 is bigger than 10 and therefore the implication is that their caliber is ....less. Now, if they called 40 "10mm Short", the "macho men" of the 10mm world would not feel so emasculated. Why do you think they keep calling the 40S&W caliber "gay"?

10mm was unique and purpose driven. It's pretty much the largest reliable handgun caliber in a semiauto pistol.

40 SW was basically a shitty hack job invented via junk science reasoning. It turned out to be accidentally OK though in reality, albeit overrated.

10mm guys resented 40 because it sort of curbed interest in more 10mm handguns. Especially at the time because those guns were more LE driven not consumer driven.

 

[kalash]

There's nothing inherently wrong with .40 - there's just no reason to choose it. It's the same thing with .30 Super Carry - not a bad round but doesn't offer any sort of advantage over the much more popular and cheaper existing cartridges.

 

[T-Unit]

The .25 and .45 GAP, yeah, I think they're done. Firstly, the .25 is from an age when semi auto pistols couldn't be built strong enough and small enough to shoot anything bigger and at a time when medical science wasn't as good, so any shot to the torso was often fatal. Time's have changed, we can get .32's and .380's as small as .25's now and they're better.

The .45 GAP was an attempt to get a .45 into a 9mm sized frame and maximize the firepower of the 10 round mags the AWB gave us. With all the ballistics and data we have today, the .45 GAP offers nothing over 9mm and .40 S&W and that would be the case if we were talking about 10 rd mags, but the AWB is over, most states don't have mag capacity limits, so giving up 5 or 7 rounds to use a .45 GAP is ridiculous.

The others on the list I don't think they're dead or soon to be, the .41 Mag has trucked along for 50 years now and people still buy them, tho I'm not sure why, a .44 Mag is better and more common and can be loaded down to .41 recoil levels. I'll admit to not being a .41 fan and will never own one and I do think it's a poor choice for anyone to own who doesn't reload, but given it's still capable, it will always find some who want one.

The .32 ACP and H&R Mag I think are far from dead, not with the explosion of conceal carry the past 20 years. The .380 is largely the go to for a pocket semi auto, but it is painful to shoot at the range for more than a few magazines, the .32 ACP having less recoil doesn't have that issue and the natural result is it's going to encourage more accurate shooting. .32 H&R, so long as .327 snub revolvers keep selling, the .32 H&R will be around as a reduced recoil self defense load. The whole point to the .32 caliber is reduced recoil in a light, concealable handgun that doesn't greatly sacrifice effect or firepower like a .22 or .25 does.

 

[T-Unit]

What about 45 long Colt?
There can't be that many Governors or Judge's out there?

There are, but people are mostly shooting .410 from them.

 

[T-Unit]

There will always be a nostalgia market for .25 Auto and .32 ACP....just because there are so many guns out there that use them.

The sole reason the .25 will likely live on (not that it should) is the cheap zinc Saturday night special pistols are still out there, heck Phoenix Arms still makes a .25 simply because it fits in the .22 frame and they sell both for under $150 and they work.

So long as people make a .32 ACP in all the .380 polymer pocket pistols, it will never disappear. Problem is only Kel Tec makes such a gun, everyone else like Ruger, S&W, Kahr, Glock, etc. don't make a .32 version of their .380 pocket pistols. That Kel Tec .32 has been around for almost 30 years, the design needs an update, but for all this time people have still bought the thing because of how darn light it is.

 

[Mountain]

europe, south america...all the countries that don't allow civillians to own guns chambered in military calibers or large caliber arms. and there are tons of those places left on the planet.
they've been trying to kill the .41 mag forever...and you guys haven't had much luck on killing the .40s&w. still wildly popular around the country. the .45gap is really the only cartridge that will be extinct in my life time. i've never even seen a pistol chambered for it since i was first cognizant of it's existence much less even seen a box of ammo for it being sold anywhere. maybe i didn't look hard enough.

Agreed. 45 GAP is the only one truly dying.

 

[drgrant]

.40 doesn't do anything that 9mm doesn't. However 10mm does - it's a lot more powerful than .40 when loaded hot.

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[Mountain]

I'll agree with all 6.

Trying to find that stuff at a retail counter is waste of time. Which I think is what the point is. I'll even add to that.

Show me what a 38 spl/ .357 mag / 41 mag/ .44 spl/ .44 mag can do that a 10mm can't.

I'm a big fan of 10mm, but it's no substitute for 44 mag.

 

[T-Unit]

With the extremely small 9mm's coming out, the 'smallness' of the .25 pistols is becoming irrelevant in the 'actual' market.

I'm so sick of seeing this comment. Show me one 9mm that is as small as a Baby Browning or even an LCP. No 9mm is ever going to be as small as a smaller caliber pistol.

 

[Picton]

I'm so sick of seeing this comment. Show me one 9mm that is as small as a Baby Browning or even an LCP. No 9mm is ever going to be as small as a smaller caliber pistol.

Calm down.

He's not saying pocket 9mms are "as small as" a Baby Browning. He's saying a pocket 9 is small enough these days that a Baby Browning is less and less important.

It's not necessarily a "Which one is smallest" contest. It's a balance between size and power, and increasingly, the optimum choice is no longer likely to be a .25ACP simply because it's small. The trend is not "Let's make .25ACP as awesome as we can make it!" because that goal was reached a hundred years ago. The trend now is "Let's make 9x19 as carry-able as we can make it!" and we're going to get there soon, if we haven't already.

 

[T-Unit]

I happened to be looking at the Just Right Carbines page and noticed this graph. I'm not surprised by the tiny share of .357 Sig, but I expected 10mm to be a bit more popular for a PCC.
View attachment 607508

People still think that 10mm is hard to find, hard to get, and expensive ammo. The reality is that before the pandemic I was seeing 10mm ammo for under $20 a box, cheaper than .45 ACP.

Most 10mm's can shoot .40 no problemo, not sure about carbines, but I've been told the Hi Point 10mm carbine shoots .40 just fine. That being the case, I have zero use for a .40 carbine anymore. Would rather get a 10mm carbine and try .40 in it. If it works, great, if not nbd.

 

[1903Collector]

.

Most 10mm's can shoot .40 no problemo, not sure about carbines, but I've been told the Hi Point 10mm carbine shoots .40 just fine. That being the case, I have zero use for a .40 carbine anymore. Would rather get a 10mm carbine and try .40 in it. If it works, great, if not nbd.

Wait...how does that work? they headspace on the case mouth.

 

[T-Unit]

There's nothing inherently wrong with .40 - there's just no reason to choose it. It's the same thing with .30 Super Carry - not a bad round but doesn't offer any sort of advantage over the much more popular and cheaper existing cartridges.

I've shot .40 and 9mm back to back in the exact same gun (G35 conversion) and on target the .40 hits so much harder than 9mm. Because of that, I really don't see any point to buying 9mm +P or +P+ for defense, standard pressure is fine in the typical subcompact and P365 style pistols we have now, but if I was going to use a larger full size pistol and wanted more power, .40 would be it.

10mm is still better, but also a bigger gun and so few options out there compared to .40's, which are available in like every 9mm pistol.

 

[T-Unit]

Wait...how does that work? they headspace on the case mouth.

.40 headspaces on the extractor in 10mm chambered guns.

 

[1903Collector]

.40 headspaces on the extractor in 10mm chambered guns.

And you've done this? Not making fun of you but I have never heard this before.

Edit: so apparently this is a thing but only for Glocks it seems, apparently not to be attempted with other 10mm's

 

[Realtor MA]

Ding dong the wicked fotay's dead!
I thought it was France's most popular cartridge.

 

[40 Creedmoor fan]

I thought it was France's most popular cartridge.

It's the official caliber of Justin Trudeau's government.

 

[T-Unit]

Get you a date with a woman.

Seriously though

Be found in every gun store with proper loads. Every factory 10mm I’ve shot that wasn’t boutique stuff is loaded to 40 cal type loads. Weaksauce.

The foreign 10mm ammo that's not botique priced can be pretty warm, but it depends. I think the Magtech and Fiocchi are warm, PPU isn't. Federal is the worst when it comes to 10mm, if it weren't for the brass being good and worth keeping I'd rather buy .40 and shoot it in a 10mm than buy Federal 10mm.

And that's really where the 10mm is going to shine at its best is reloading it. I've gotten 1150 fps with a 200 grain bullet using a moderate charge of Blue Dot, not even close to max out of a Glock 40. That smokes any .40 I've ever shot.

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

The foreign 10mm ammo that's not botique priced can be pretty warm, but it depends. I think the Magtech and Fiocchi are warm, PPU isn't. Federal is the worst when it comes to 10mm, if it weren't for the brass being good and worth keeping I'd rather buy .40 and shoot it in a 10mm than buy Federal 10mm.

And that's really where the 10mm is going to shine at its best is reloading it. I've gotten 1150 fps with a 200 grain bullet using a moderate charge of Blue Dot, not even close to max out of a Glock 40. That smokes any .40 I've ever shot.

Yeah if you reload it’s good.

 

[weekendracer]

I'm so sick of seeing this comment. Show me one 9mm that is as small as a Baby Browning or even an LCP. No 9mm is ever going to be as small as a smaller caliber pistol.

I said in the other thread, I don't judge.

 

[T-Unit]

And you've done this? Not making fun of you but I have never heard this before.

Edit: so apparently this is a thing but only for Glocks it seems, apparently not to be attempted with other 10mm's

I asked this a few years back somewhere and what I remember is that 1911's, some of them, can have issues shooting .40 in a 10mm. It was then that I decided to never buy a 1911 in 10mm. Pretty much all other 10mm pistols that aren't 1911 can run .40 without problems. I just went with Glock for 10mm because it's pretty much the only 10mm worth buying and the Glocks were purpose built to shoot 10mm, most other pistols are .45's modified to shoot 10mm.

Which is why I think a lot of the factory 10mm ammo is watered down, the manufacturers know that 1911's are weak shit and will break down faster with hot 10mm.

IDK about all carbines, but my sense is most of those in 10mm will shoot .40 just fine. There's only two 10mm carbines out there that I give a shit about: the Hi Point and the TNW Aero, mostly because I don't think any PCC is worth more than $700. The calibers are not accurate enough to make the carbines worth as much as a fukking mid range AR build.