There's a pretty long running thread in the ammunition section titled "Did Glocks kill the .40 S&W Cartridge?" I was thinking about that topic and handgun development over the past 10 years or so, and it made me think that the "death" (yeah, I know it's not totally dead, but it sure ain't healthy from a commercial perspective at this point) of the .40 may have actually paved the way for the engineering and development of a wider range of 9mm-specific compact firearms that didn't have to be quite so bulky and robust.

In the early 2000s through the mid 2010s we all got pretty accustomed to having our choice of calibers in our handguns. If a platform couldn't be had in 9mm, 40, and .357 Sig, we didn't really take it seriously. H&K, Sig, Glock, Springfield, S&W....pretty much everybody offered varying sizes of their flagship platform in all the caliber choices. The downside to this was that your basic 9mm handgun had to be built large and heavy enough to handle the .40/.357 as well. Popular smaller autos were mostly .380 BUGs. The micro-9mm options had a pretty limited market and frankly most of them weren't very good.

Then in the mid to late 2010s when 9mm began to really dominate the market, we started to see the advent of well-engineered, purpose-built for 9mm micro-compacts like the P365, Hellcat, etc. becoming popular to the point that they're now the leading sellers.

So what do you guys think...did the waning popularity of the .40/.357 embolden manufacturers to shift development to new designs, or did the development of quality micro-nines kill the .40? Or was it a little of both?

The micro-nines were going to come, regardless of the .40/.357's status. Despite the hype, those two calibers were never "popular" in the first place, when compared to the 9mm.

Micro autos have been popular for over a century. The big limiter has always been performance of the round. 9mm in a good modern defensive loading brings some performance to a form factor that never really had it on a large scale before. There's a whole host of micro guns in .25, .32, .380 and others that existed well before .40 S&W and will still be offered probably long after you can't find .40 on store shelves, so the micro 9mm's were probably going to happen regardless.

I say they're independent from the .40 phenomenon for the above reasons, but that shooters decided they really loved being able to get decent defensive performance out of guns far smaller than they would have imagined themselves carrying in the days when we were all adherents to the nonsense spouted by the sacred cows writing for the gun magazines, chief amongst that was was "carry a gun in a caliber starting with four" mantra.

The .40 is dead? Damn. I just bought a Glock 23 that did not seem to be decomposed at all!

The caliber debates have been going on to some extent for over 100 years.
As you probably know, the entire reason for the existence of the 40 was the ( perceived or actual take your pick) inadequacies of 9mm. I don’t totally buy into the idea that improved projectile design and performance has made all the service calibers equal in performance.
When the ballistic nerds at the FBI talk, ( for right or wrong) people listen.
When the FBI in the 80’s proclaimed the 9mm inadequate, a very high percentage of police agencies went to 40.
Some things that were seen in this change,while not across the board, were pretty frequent:
Lower qualification scores
Increased rates of wear on guns
And possibly most important for agencies, increased ammo costs.
Fast forward to more recent times, and for the reasons above suddenly the FBI declares 9mm just fine, and now the pendulum has swung to 9mm again.
I am an advocate of caliber doesn’t matter, where the bullet goes and what it hits/ damages is easily the #1 factor in performance.
I doubt the current universal popularity of the 9 with the proliferation of micro carry guns we see today would have occurred without the conclusions made that the larger calibers didn’t offer any better performance in defensive situations.

My long winded point- you need to carry a gun that provides a balance of being reasonably comfortable to carry/ conceal, has sufficient accuracy for the task at hand, and that you can shoot accurately enough to put bullets where they need to go. This last one also means it has to be comfortable enough to shoot and manipulate that you will practice with it. Above all this gun must be very reliable.
Ultimately the gun that answers the criteria in the paragraph above is going to be different for everyone.

In conclusion my opinion is the declaration that the caliber wars are over and 9mm won ( signaling the near death of the 40 as a mainstream defensive gun ) spawned the micro 9 craze

As far as I remember, the 9mm was declared an inadequate police round as a fallout to the FBI Miami shootout, and also in response to the up-arming of street gangs and drug criminals who were more and more out-gunning the po-po. Most police depts declared .40 king.

That is until significant technological advances in bullet terminal ballistics conferred 9mm with more or less the same effectiveness as (the old) .40, but still retained the advantages of the smaller caliber. Handling the .40 was problematic for many officers, and it gained the unfair reputation as an "inaccurate" round. Also more expensive, lower carry count, fewer choices in handgun models, etc.

So in answer to your question, it was the resurgence of the 9mm that crimped the .40 and paved the way for small frame development.

I am more inclined to think they developed independently. .40 is simply too much cartridge for this size of gun.

The .40 was killed by YouTubers and the FBI. It is a superior cartridge, you can't argue with physics.

When you look at the calibers objectively, you come to the conclusion that the .40 is superior round-for-round. One round of .40 will perform better than one round of 9mm. Period. The same advancements in cartridge development get applied to the .40 as well, so that argument is invalid. 9mm does winning the categories of cost and round count. I'd argue that the recoil argument is drastically exaggerated in certain cases. As an example, I have a p226 in .40 and 9mm, and don't think there is enough of a recoil difference to even talk about.

There is also an odd phenomenon with ballistic gel. If you shoot all of the popular calibers from .380 to .45, you get very similar results, with most reputable loadings penetrating between 10 and 18". But the real world results of Police shootings suggest that the .40 was way more capable of stopping a threat. Life isn't a gel blocks, and the heavier projectiles seem to do more damage to bad guys that the gel doesn't show.

Also, a word on the FBI switching to 9mm. This is possibly the most compelling argument AGAINST the 9mm. The FBI is literally the worst, most incompetent, corrupt, wishy-washy, nonsense agency in law enforcement. Why everyone takes their word for anything is beyond me.

Don't rush out an sell your .40s or pick a gun in 9mm because the guy behind the counter tells you that 9mm is just as good. I carry a 9mm from time to time, heck, I'll even carry a .380 on occasion. But I am not delusional enough to think that the .40 was made obsolete.

This thread is not intended to be a discussion of the ballistic merits or shortcomings of the .40 S&W. As other have said, that's been rehashed 1000 times over. It's about commerce, engineering, and timing, and what factors led to the current glut of high capacity, small-frame 9mm pistols.

Kind of an egg before the chicken, or chicken before the egg kind of thing. Or if it's neither of those, could it possibly be said that the popularity of the .40/.357 in the early 2000s delayed the development of the small-frame 9mm? Or are the two things just completely independent and the small-frame guns came about once the technology existed to create them, as 12131 seems to be suggesting?

I don't claim to have any answers, just thought it might be an interesting discussion, and maybe if there are any industry insiders here they could shed some light behind the scenes about how it all came to be.

The spread of CCW-permit-issuing states increased dramatically. That fueled demand for something packing more punch and ammo capacity than a snub .38 revolver or a .380 pistol such as the Walther PPK/s.

I think the first micro-9mm that seemed effective, efficient and practical I owned was the Glock 26. It had the 10-round magazine, and then the Clinton mag-ban came along. Until it was repealed, that sort of gummed up micro 9mm innovation. The Glock 26 was fatter but still trimmer than other 9mm single-column pistols such as the Sig Sauer P239.

The Kahr pistols seemed to have a following.
I gave various Kahr pistols a try in .45 ACP, .40 S&W, and 9mm, but they all lacked something, usually reliability. The mag welds left a lot to be desired. I sent pistols back to Kahr for various repairs, and they often came back with the same problems.

Micro .45s -- tried those too. None of them had the reliability of my Colt Commander.

None of the .380s had the reliability needed once more effective ammunition appeared except for the Sig P230 and Beretta 84/85. The 9mm Glock 26 still came out on top. The Walther PPS worked, but it lacked the capacity of the Glock.

When Sig Sauer came out with the P365 with the double-column magazine with the narrow grip, it was like Christmas for CCW carriers. A lot of other manufacturers caught the same wave.

Thus, in my opinion: The ability to pack more 9mm rounds into a double-column magazine while keeping pistols trimmer held back adoption of the .40 S&W.

Honestly I think the AWB started the ball rolling as that was the birth of the small sub compacts as mainstream guns. I think tech just caught up.

That said I haven’t found a micro 9 that is as shootable as a subcompact at least in my hands.

Chris

…..said the guy carrying a hellcat pro today.

I think 'micro-nines' would have come alon on their own merit, even if the .40 S&W had never been hatched.

But the .40 ain't dead; it's just kippin'. Remarkable round, the .40.

I think you're basically right. There was probably a time where someone would propose a new gun design, and an executive would ask "can we chamber it in 40 too?" If the answer was no, the project didn't get very far.

By the early-to-mid 2010's, that pressure was diminishing fast and there was suddenly a risk of being left behind in the emerging super-concealable 9mm niche.

quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:
I think 'micro-nines' would have come alon on their own merit, even if the .40 S&W had never been hatched.

But the .40 ain't dead; it's just kippin'. Remarkable round, the .40.

Maybe it's just pinin' for the fjords !

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vZ...&si=JRxVFrrIpg5W0JB-

The FBI drives a lot of law-enforcement ammunition development and police firearms purchasing decisions. The .40 S&W came about after they turned away from 9mm and .38 Special after the 1986 Miami shootout. They gave the S&W 1076 10mm a try. Agents didn't receive those that well: larger frames, more recoil, increased failure rates, harder to conceal, etc. Then the .40 S&W hit while the FBI was stumbling around with their loaded-down 10mm, the shorter round's parent. Later, a lot of the agents were carrying Sig Sauer P226s and P228s with 147-grain hollowpoints, until 1997 when the FBI issued Glock .40 S&Ws. Around 2014, the training division decided the .40 S&W bucked and kicked more than the 9mm (but 9mm ammo had improved a lot since that evil Winchester Silvertip 115 grain ammo that failed in 1986).

For some, usually ones in charge of spending money while parked behind desks, the FBI speaks with the authority of God.

There are a lot more women in law enforcement now, and no doubt many of them and a lot of men, too, are going to handle a pistol of comparable size and weight better when it's chambered in 9mm compared to .40 S&W. I think that was what the trainers at the FBI were primarily concerned about.

Yeah, but the smaller grip diameter allowed by the 9mm was better for the underserved group of those with smaller hands that did not want a revolver.

For me personally and in general, the .40 was likely more popular in LE circles where as the 9mm popularity (due to the M9 adoption in 1985) was in the civilian market and remained and trended that way.

Some guns like the HK USP were designed around the .40 and then the 9’s followed.

The early Shields and Kahrs K9/MK9 were also available in .40, but over time as manufacturers were asked to meet market demands and offer new product for the growing CC market, the research and dev focus shifted to 9mm based on sales figures.

9mm ammo performance enhancements probably has more to due with people sticking with 9mm. That’s where the bulk/money/profit was to be had.

9mm practice ammo remained and was significantly cheaper due to the new .mil contract around the M9, especially in the early days.

Remember too, when the .40 was developed it was designed to fit in the same envelop as the wondernines, but in the end it was a weakened 10mm so the performance gains over the 9mm the the FBI was hoping for from the 10mm were not met by the .40.

A solution no one really asked for.

ever try and sell a .40 you can't give them away around here.

The FBI's decision to go back to 9mm effectively squashed any further growth in .40S&W. Police departments see what the Feds are doing and hear the reasons for those changes, then turn around and analyze their own issues with .40 in the context of their officers and staff, and generally wind up following suit (soot?) (suite?) (sue it?). So in that respect I do agree with earlier comments about the complicity of the G-men turning up their noises at 40 cal and what effect that had in the downward spiral of popularity of fo-tay.

Civilians in turn also see what law enforcement are doing. Many also long ago decided that they really didn't like shooting 40 snappy&wicked anyways, and so they also follow suit. Plus add in that 9mm is not insignificantly cheaper to shoot than 40. There's all sorts of developments of kewl 9mm firearms of differing forms being made (MPX/Scorpion EVO/AR-9s/etc., etc.). Add in developments of state-of-the-art defensive projectiles that make 9mm all the more appealing. Yes, there was a LOT of positivity going on with 9mm.

So to me the evolution of the micro 9 form factor wasn't a cause OR an outcome of 40's decline; those as I see it are exclusive from one another.

Because of this: SIG came along and (ahem) "invented" this 'special' double-stacking pattern of magazine that quite conveniently worked fluidly in a rather small form factor of 9x19 pistol that also allowed for a "shocking" number of cartridges. Ten (gasp!) rounds of REAL 9mm Luger in a diminutive flush fit magazine fit into a gun almost small enough to comfortably slip into most pants pockets. When worlds collide, indeed.

That to me is when the actual birth of the "Micro 9" happened. Earlier small 9mm guns like the Shield and the Walther PPS were referred to as "subcompacts"; it was the capacity afforded by the P365 magazine that the micro 9 label was born, and its feeding and creation crazes started. Plus the profile of the SIG was even smaller still. Moreover, I doubt anyone over at SIG was thinking that this product of theirs would conjure the demise of .40S&W, especially because the caliber was already on the downslope side of its mountain before the little SIG went live. If anything it was to show up the limited vision of Glock and its silly little limited cap G43. Had .40 been still healthy and popular at the time of the P365, SIG would've certainly sought to make a .40 variant of the pistol, just like they have done with the previous P320 that came immediately before. The lack of a .40 P365 was just SIG reading the tea leaves correctly.