Sig dropping 40sw/357sig

[lazarus]

I think that the P99 in 40 S&W is probably similar to the original Glock 40 - that, and it's lightweight. I think that contributes to the snap.


I find the love affair folks have for the 10mm to be an interesting development, and I'm not sure why there is the belief that 9mm/45ACP is suddenly not enough gun. Then again, there are plenty of folks out there chomping on the bit to get their hands on a 500 S&W Magnum. I'm not one of them. I have a 44 Mag, and that's enough for me. (For that matter I also have a 41 magnum, and that out-performs the 10mm every day of the week in all aspects but capacity.)

IMHO what 10mm is great with is that A) for big wildlife, a hard cast bullet is going to make a .40" hole through about 3+ feet. 9mm and 45 aren't going to manage something like that.

For barrier penetration, a 180/200gr .40 bullet traveling in the realm of 1200-1300fps is going to punch through something with plenty of oomph to mess up whatever is on the other side.

Beyond that, shrug.

In a pistol platform, unless you are going to shove it at slow rifle velocities, all you are doing is making a hole through something the diameter of the expanded bullet. The wound channel of a properly expanded .40 isn't all that much bigger than .355 expanded and isn't that much smaller than an expanded .45. Yes, yes, the bigger the wound channel the better.

But doubling your energy from 9mm to 10mm isn't realistically giving you twice the "killing power" or whatever. In most engagement aspects, the bullet is traveling straight through 9mm, .40, .45 or 10mm. Times it wouldn't, a 10mm is probably going to be better there as it is more likely to penetrate deeper (at least looking at various tests of loads, 10mm is much more likely to be at or even a bit past the FBI standard max, while expanding nicely. 9mm when it expands nicely is typically more towards the minimum. Same with .45 and .40. All that said, most people aren't 12+" thick.

But you have to deal with all that extra recoil. 10mm to me is a great caliber for shooting at the range, shooting targets and shooting at dangerous game. If someone might be shooting back at you...not sure it is what I'd want to go with unless I think they are likely to be hiding behind walls or cars.

 

[lazarus]

IMO 10mm is better than 45ACP in modern 1911s. An extra round capacity, wider range of performance from light 180s up to full power loads, and can be the same cost as 45acp, and cheaper if you reload. It can do all 45 can and more, if you want a 1911 that's cheaper to shoot, get it in 9mm.

Depends on what you are going for.

I just said how the expanded wound channel isn't vastly larger, but .45 it is still larger.

Looking at Lucky Gunner's defensive ammo tests and throwing out the loads that didn't expand at all (some not designed to, some JHP that isn't really defensive ammo) I see .6775" average expanded diameter and 16.88" average penetration depth.

One common and basic round is Hornady XTP 180gr .64" and 16.9" depth.

45acp I get .653" average, but that includes a few that just barely expanded, but did more than .45 (10mm there were 3 that did not expand at all out of 11 test. 45acp there were 5 out of 35 that didn't expand at all and 2 that just barely deformed (.46"). Drop those two that just barely did anything and it is .668". Just a little less than 10mm average. 16.84" average penetration depth.

So in comparison, they are pretty close to identical averaged.

Picking though an "average load". Hornady 230gr XTP +p manages .60" expansion and 18.6" of penetration.


Also pretty darned close.

If you look at "best" tested though. Winchester Ranger T 230gr .45acp expands to ONE INCH and penetrates 14.5" deep. Federal HST 230gr which expands to .85" and penetrates 14".

The best 10mm load is the Barnes VOR-TX 155gr that expands to .81" and penetrates only 12.5" deep. Next is the V Crown 180gr at .76" and 19.4".

Honestly looking over the information I have two conclusions. There are a LOT of legacy 45acp defensive rounds out there still based on many that don't expand well, but are JHP or even billed as expanding rounds.

Also that there aren't a lot of 10mm tests out there and as usual, most manufacturers load them on the lighter side of 10mm. Also because it is much newer, most manufacturers are loading only newer defensive bullets in 10mm.

45acp gets you a lot lower muzzle blast and recoil (and can be properly suppressed as it is subsonic for heavy weight bullets). You also want to be a bit choosey in your 45 bullet.

10mm gets you an extra round or two depending if it is single or double stack and with only a couple of exceptions it is hard to choose a bad defensive bullet.