You can rest assured that women can shoot a .45. My mother who is 58 can ring more steel with her .45 than most men I've seen. I believe they were looking for more capacity than the .45 and more energy than the 9mm and the .40 is a great compromise.

 

I don't think it has anything to do with women not being able to shoot the .45 Several women have shot my .45 and my .40 and they both remarked something along the lines of "I figured the .45 would have more kick because it's bigger but it doesn't". Basically, I don't think the .45 has more recoil then the .40. I think it's a different kind of recoil. .45 = push, .40 = flip. I think LEO's switched to the .40 because they wanted something with more power then 9mm but didn't want to give up to much capacity. The .40 is a good middle ground. I used to hate on the .40 constantly but I have recently came to really like it as a defensive round.

 

Your father is right in some cases.

Florida went with the .45 GAP partly because Glock gave them a great deal but also so that they could get a .45 on a smaller frame that the female officers could handle.

 

You mention one of the reasons for the shift to the .40 . It was economics, they got a deal on the guns from Glock when the .40 came along just as they are now getting a deal on the GAP. The other was they needed a replacement to the dismal performing 9mm.

 

My agency went from the 9mm to the .40 S&W in early 2001 because a neighboring agency had two failure to stop shootings with the 9mm and the feeling was that the more powerful .40 S&W would have made the difference. In 2006 my agency switched to the Glock 21 .45 ACP because head to head range testing between the two calibers showed that the .45 ACP 230 grain Remington Golden Sabers were easier to shoot for the vast majority of officers than the .40 S&W 180 grain Golden Sabers.
Some of the officers, myself included wanted to keep the Glock 23 because of the weapons size for on and off duty carry but the department wanted standardization to .45 ACP.

 

9mm wasnt getting the job done reliably at the time, 10mm was a little too much recoil, and most 45s were too big in the grip for various sized officers to get any real capacity out of. .40 is essentially a 10mm short.

.40 S&W really came about for the FBI when their experiment with 10mm didnt go as hoped. 9mm had proven itself to not be the fight stopper in some of the older ammo packages htey had as proven in the Miami Shootout, in 1986. Most common .45s of the day were single stack and only 7 or 8 rounds. .40 was a good balance and became a proven performer when all things were considered.

 

And now you have the rest of the story.

 

The problem with the Miami shootout is that there is no evidence whatsoever that a .40 or .45 with the exact same placement as the 9mm SilverTip would have done any better than the 9mm. Let's remember that the .40 was not the round selected by the FBI after the Miami shootout - it was the 10mm - a much more powerful round. The .40 was a compromise.

Let us not forget that there are number of very large agencies, the NYPD just to name one, that use the 124 gn 9mm and are very pleased with it's effectiveness. Another PD I know of had so much trouble with the gen 4 Glock 22s that they swapped them for 9mm G17s and are very pleased with them.

I think the real issues with the 9mm/.40 are one, bullet design was just beginning to improve effectiveness. The 9mm was evolving while the .40 was designed around the newer technologies. I seriously doubt that the same hits with similar bullets with a 9mm and .40 would show any significant difference in stopping power. I mean is the 9mm gonna fail where the .40 would have stopped them instantly?

Second, I think a lot of 'conclusions' were based on mistaking poor bullet placement with bullet effectiveness. It's kinda like a miss with a 9mm is just as good as a miss with a .40.

Third, there was a lot of marketing hype about the .40 just as there was about the 5.56 when the M-16 was introduced. Everybody bought into this hype and made decisions based on little experience. Then the whole thing became a follow the leader.

There do seem to be some trends. I've seen several reports about PDs moving from the .40 back to the 9mm and several reports that indicate PDs are moving from the .40 to the .45. Then there's the .357 Sig round? What's it supposed to do that the .40 wouldn't? So why do a number of PDs choose the .357 Sig round?

 

The problem with the Miami shootout is that there is no evidence whatsoever that a .40 or .45 with the exact same placement as the 9mm SilverTip would have done any better than the 9mm. Let's remember that the .40 was not the round selected by the FBI after the Miami shootout - it was the 10mm - a much more powerful round. The .40 was a compromise.

Let us not forget that there are number of very large agencies, the NYPD just to name one, that use the 124 gn 9mm and are very pleased with it's effectiveness. Another PD I know of had so much trouble with the gen 4 Glock 22s that they swapped them for 9mm G17s and are very pleased with them.

It's a well known fact that the ammo selection during the Miami incident was to blame, no doubt about it. I'm sure a design similar to something we carry today would have fared better. Second, I do not believe the NYPD is a good indicator of anything. They have an unusually high number of stray rounds hitting various structures and people. Just because it's deemed "good enough" for the NYPD doesn't in any way indicate top performance. The Gold Dot itself is a good round, but I do not think this based on how the NYPD deploys it.

 

There was also probably some bandwagoning. Back during the last major caliber changes, from 9mm/.357/.38 to .40, I'm sure a fair number of agencies simply switched because all the other agencies were doing so.

I wonder if we might see some agencies return to 9mm with the advent of more effective ammunition for it.

 

What Tangle said. Bullet design/ time warp.

Bullets kill, not calibers.

Correct shot placement puts bullets where they need to be to do their job.

 

What Tangle said. Bullet design/ time warp.

Bullets kill, not calibers.

Correct shot placement puts bullets where they need to be to do their job.

I think so too. Although we would certainly see differences when this is taken to extremes. E.g. a .22 would not be as good of a fight stopper as a major caliber round; Tte .22 may have indeed killed as many or more than any other caliber, but few wish to count on it as a fight stopper.

But among the major calibers there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference.

 

I hate it when some of these threads turn towards caliber debate ,geesh . How soon we forget what caliber the madman used at Virginia tec to slay 30 + innocent people in the worst mass shooting in U.S History.

 

To really understand the LE adoption of the 40, you have to either go back and read, or remember the mindset of the era. Like was pointed out, there was a culmination of events that brought the FBI to search for a better stopper.

Given the advantage of hindsight, today we know that one 9mm bullet fired into Platt did not fail, and we also know even though other agents used 357 revolvers, they were loaded with 38 spls.

Also about that time, I believe the Illinois St Police were one of the first to adopt the 9mm in the S&W M39.
Like was stated earlier, the 40 was found to be a good compromise of bigger bullet and capacity. Years later with bullet design technology we can see there really isn't much difference.

One thing I like about the 9mm is it's tapered case design, which in my opinion lends itself to better feed reliability than the more squared off cases of the 45 and 40. IMO, that is why Glocks became legendary in feed reliability, as they designed the barrels to not fully support the case to allow for the 45 and 40.

 

Excellent points glockman10mm.

 

No Iowa in the chart that started this thread?

 

And NJ still issues the 9mm to the NJ State Police..............probably a 'Politically Correct" statement somewhere there.

NJ has no clue...........

 

.40 s&w - al, ak, az, ca, co, ct, il, io, ky, la, md, ma, mi, mn, ms, mo, ne, nv, nd, oh, or, ut, vt, wa, wi, wy (26)

 

Iowa is abbreviated "IA", not "IO" :wink:

 

IN NYS, only the State Police are using the 45 GAP... most Sheriffs use 40's, and i think the NYC police dept still use the 9mm, but i could be wrong with that one. Bunker

 

Tennessee Highway Patrol issues the .357 sig, as does the Federal Air Marshalls and I believe the US Border Patro, and the US Coast Guard???

 

Tangle,
US Coast Guard issues Sig 226's in 9mm. I work with a few and they are fine weapons and fine Americans.

I do have to respectfully disagree about your opinions on shot placement...though I also have to caveat this by saying that what you said is true. Good shot placement will stop the fight every time without fail. My disagreement is that in those "Oh S%&#" situations, you don't have time to think about shot placement as you won't be able to index the weapon properly nor will you be able to get far enough into it to think about anything but how to stop the situation at hand. You're just looking at getting a bullet or two into the target to slow the progression. And I speak as someone who has used a 9mm in combat over yonder a few too many times...and no, I'm not a fan of 9mm as I think they aren't enough when the adrenaline of battle is flowing through your veins but they sure as heck will make anyone stop and think twice about their choices in life! I prefer to kill my attackers.

 

As it turns out, getting hit with any size bullet hurts like hell. The 40 does seem to be a compromise between round count and effective stopping power. Still, I'm sure a few so-called experts and police chiefs decided on the current trend together with ammo manufactures.

 

Decisions made by any state agency are always based heavily on economics...

 

Why did police switch to 40 S&W.....

The man behind the pen signed the paper for the pistols.... maybe a new trend? Either way I'm sure not a lot of reasonable thought went into the decision on what caliber to get. Anytime you have asset requests it is almost always the lowest bidder that gets the city's business. If a .40 model pistol was priced right then by golly that is what will be in the officer's holsters next year.... now who has the cheapest ammo?

 

There's more truth in that than any of us care to admit!

 

I remember the FBI debate between the 10mm and the .40 "slow and weak" (the terminology of the day). The 10mm was far superior in performance, but many had trouble with recoil.

 

The border patrol carry 40 S&W and From what I hear get around 250 rounds of practice ammo a month,Remington 155 grn hollowpoint I've shot a few boxes thru my sig,amazing what you learn at a gun range that people from different LEO agencies shoot at

 

Marketing. I fell for it when 40 S&W was the new rage. Glock 22 has long been gone after I decided it was an answer to a question that I wasn't ever really asking. Give me 45 ACP any day thank you.

 

A little more history. When the 10mm was under devlopement, the only ammo manufacturer that was interested was Norma in Sweden. The FBI adopted the 10mm for about 5 years and during that period the recoil complaints started. The FBI asked Norma for a weaker load which became known as FBI lite AKA "The FBI load". The 10mm is a .40 caliber bullet. S & W then designed a shorter cartridge that could still use the weaker FBI load but fit in a 9mm frame currently in use by pistol manufactures. The smaller cartridge also allowed higher capacity mags as well. The .40 retained enough of the ballistic characteristics of the 10mm to be acceptable to the FBI. The 40 S & W was "born" as a mainstream caliber when the FBI accepted it as their caliber of choice. When this happened many LE agencies adopted it as well and soon was in use by more LE than any other caliber.

The 40 is a good compromise in effectiveness between the 9mm and the 45ACP, and it some ways, superior to the latter..

 

The 40 is a good compromise in effectiveness between the 9mm and the 45ACP, and it some ways, superior to the latter..

in what way?

2 people can go round and round all day trying to figure out which caliber is superior but the day will still end with both in disagreement. Not every .45 ACP cartridge has a 230 grain bullet that travels 800FPS yet that seems to be the only cartridge people compare their caliber to.

 

I will not start a caliber war but IIRC the 40 has a flatter trajectory. I'm not going to argue about it. That''s not the point of the thread. Each caliber has it's fans. I have all 3

Moving on.

 

I was just curious. I didn't mean to sound aggressive, I believe people are over thinking the reason .40 is so popular with law enforcement.

BTW the trajectory difference between .45 ACP and .40 S&W is negligible up to 50 yards.

 

No worries and agreed. I was just explaining the story of the 40 and what some folks feel. I don't necessarily agree with them.

I have a G30 and a G29 with a KKM 40 conversion barrel. I enjoy all 3 calibers.

 

Glad you got one. They are awesome guns