I like .40 S&W.
 

I don't spent much time on spoons anymore, but with deer season coming, I got some range time, and brought along some pistols.

About 15-ish years ago, I bought a Sig 226R. Because .40 was the new hot thing at the time, I got that. Recently military and police agencies seem to be abandoning .40, so I was tempted to trade it in for some newfangled 9mm. It's entirely possible it will get quite a bit more expensive to shoot .40.

But I decided against it letting it go. While the recoil profile is sharper than .45 and greater than 9mm, I don't find it off putting at all. I think the original arguments for more power than 9mm, greater capacity than .45 hold true. The 226 with Hogue grips fit like a glove.

Bummed to see the caliber falling by the wayside. :( I'm a fan.

.40 S&W is going the way of the 16 gauge shotgun.

The modern ballistics of 9mm +p JHP are excellent and ammo is far more available. After that, I'd go to a 10mm or .45.

Deer season coming? It's here!... if you do archery. I already got a decent 8.

A good friend has a .40 and really likes it. After shooting my brother's M&P Shield EZ 380, I wish I would have bought one of those. Man that thing was smooth. But saying that finding .380 ammo is difficult is an understatement. Once the ammo is available I'll probably buy an EZ 380 for my daughter.

.380 is a lot easier to find than it was back at the beginning of the summer. Just stock up when you find it. The bigger issue is cost. I love my LCP II .380 for a nice deep concealment pocket rocket. Not smooth but great power for a small package. Definitely not a range gun for fun target shooting.

Sig P938 9mm for my pocket. Excellent weapon.

I've been keeping an eye out for .380 at places like Rural King and Dunhams (they're both local) but haven't seen any. I have a friend who owns a 9mm EZ. I might have my daughter shoot it to see if she likes it.

The EZ 380 is far smoother than the LCP II but not as small. She'd probably like the EZ. I also like the LCP 22 for practice since it is identical in size to the II.

A lot of cartridges seem to be a flash in the pan.

10mm, 40sw, 357sig to name a few. I think 300 blackout and 6.5 creedmoore will also fade away after another decade.

300 blackout may stick around on the fringes with people who want a subsonic supressed AR

I don't understand 300 blackout. 7.62x39 is superior and cheap!

40 S&W is a great compromise round. If the hydrostatic shock theory is correct, it produces the best results. I love 357 Sig, but a lot of 9mm rounds are nearly equal.

I just hate stocking so many different calibers.

I never did figure out why the venerable .45 ACP was attempted to be replaced in the first place.... for open carry spoons. I get the 9mm for smaller pistols, but never understood the in betweeners, etc.

It took me decades to violate Cooper's admonitions... but I really like my Ruger LC9S as a pocket spoon fwiw.

I was in Dunhams two weeks ago looking at .380. The closest one to the EZ was a Ruger. I don't recall what model it was. But when racking the slide, the effort for each was about the same. The Ruger was the only one out of 5 or 6 that I tried that even came close.

My Beretta 96 hasn't gotten alot of love since the 9 mm came along, but I'm not letting go of it...ever.

This

40 S&W has LOTS of energy and a larger diameter. The theory behind hydrostatic shock, they look at the cross-section and the energy for how it imparts the impulse. 40 S&W should be the best for the semi-auto. .41 magnum and .44 Magnum beat it, but those are not "carry" calibers.

But this is where I've gone. .380 ACP and above are good for self defense. My Standard carry is SIGP290, 9mm 6 shot. My other standard carry is a late model COLT 1903 in .380. It has nearly a 4" barrel, is "heavy" which means almost no recoil and I had the slide modified for snag-free night sites. I had it ceramic coated for rust protection. This was the "gangster gun" of the 1920's and 1930's.

If I could find a 6 shot small 40 S&W, like the SIGP290, I would upgrade to that.

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One Stop Shot

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Fail Rate

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I have a Sig P229 SAS in 40 SW and also have the 357 SIG barrel. It's a nice spoon and accurate.

I also have a 226 in 9mm that is really growing on me.

I have a P226 in 40/.357. But it is larger than I like for carry. The largest I like to carry is my FN Hi-Power or one of my baby 1911s

its for AR rifles and AR magazines

7.62x39 don't work well in AR mags

back in the late 90's, when I carried for work it was a Glock 22 in 40, I still have it and LOTS of rounds for it. I do not plan on letting it go.

I reckon I question those "theories" .... counter to what I learned as a youngin'. Being a Cooper fan, I've had my .45ACP Combat Commander (steel) for over 40 years .... back then, that round was touted as having 95% of the stopping power of a .44 mag, but in a realistic defensive spoon.
I've had the revolver hand canons forever too.... they just aren't fun to shoot with magnum loads to me..... so my goto was the Colt for decades. But I'd hate to part with any of my old Colts or Smiths, so they became safe queens. The baby Ruger LC9S is my pocket spoon (living in my truck toolbox), and for home defense I opt for 00 defensive load buckshot out of a Remington pump, or my Marlin .357 lever.... I gots 4 legged predators too ;). Anything I grab is more than potent for any threat... and Jeff Cooper taught me well 5 decades ago :D.

The 6.5 is flat shooting and is very accurate at long range.

The 6.5 x 54 was used to great effect by the Ivory hunters in Africa in the early 20th century.

The Swedes used the 6.5 x 55 as their military round for apx 70 years..1896 through the 60's. The 96 and 38 Mauser's are very popular milsurp rifles.

Long range is relative I suppose .... due to hilly terrain here and woods, most shots are short, and 100 yds would be "way on out there"... nothing even my magnum Smiths couldn't reach if necessary.
My uncle sights his rifles for reaching out to 500 yds, but that's for out west, Alaska, and Canada.... unheard of in these parts.

Hence my old .30-30 is a long range spoon :D

If you are talking feeding issues, I thought the issue was the feed ramp on the upper.

I've seen way too many calibers come and go over the course of my shooting career. I'm leery of buying anything that appears to me to be the "next big thing" because, well, every damn one of them that has been introduced during my lifetime has petered out. .357 Sig, .40 S&W, 10mm Auto, .32 H&R Magnum, and a few other handgun calibers come to mind. And look at all of those Winchester Short Magnum rifle rounds - all but gone and forgotten. Next up will be all of these new introductions from Nosler - I'll bet they are gone and forgotten in less than a decade.

I like my "using" calibers to be pretty mainstream. .38 Special, .357 Magnum, .44 Special, .44 Magnum, .45 Colt, .45 ACP for handguns. .223, 6.5x55, .30-'06, .375 H&H, .45-70, .458 Winchester Magnum for rifles. I know when I'm traveling to hunt, should my ammo get somehow separated, I can find these locally.

Of course, I do like the obsolete and weird, you guys know that. But I understand and fully accept the fact that those are handloading only, if not bullet casting only options. Those are just "fun guns", for range, match, and plinking use. When I hunt with them, I'm not traveling, so ammo logistics are never a thing.

Unfortunately, the shine has kind of worn off of the .40 S&W. It's neither fish nor fowl. It's a compromise that made sense at the time, but with modern ammo developments, it just cuts too fine of a line between the 9mm and .45 ACP. Much like the .41 Mag, there is no gun specifically tailored to its size and, even if there was, it would be so damn close to a small .45 ACP or a large 9mm that it just wouldn't matter.

Shooters who really like this caliber would be well advised to start saving their brass and learning to handload.

Well, for now ammo is plentiful. I think .40 had more market penetration than .357 Sig or 10mm, so I don't think the ammo will become as scarce. Time will tell.....

Do you know where I can get primers? I only have 1000 rds. :(

I'm seeing them pretty regularly on both Midway and Brownell's websites. I've purchased at least half a dozen bricks of various primers in the last couple of months. I'm not even watching all that close, I only check when I think about it. Just ping both sites once or twice a week and you'll be surprised how often they show up.

I have one of the best 22H collections in the world..and it's only 7 pieces..its not how many it's what..

I bet you have 7 NIB 22H all with serial #00000001.

WTF is 22H ;)?

I had no idea that S&W .40 was getting unpopular. I haven't tried to buy any ammo in a while and almost never shoot my guns, unfortunately. I have enough for one good battle here at the ranch, between 12G/.40/.38 Special/.32 ACP and a baseball bat somewhere if they all run out. :)

If I was a regular target shooter, I'd be more concerned. 10mm I knew was pretty obsolete, I remember when it was somewhat popular when I bought my first Glock back in about 1992. I've never heard about that caliber since.