Neophyte question 10mm/.40

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I'll just throw out that "performance" and muzzle velocity are not necessarily the same thing. They may have been talking about penetration in ballistics gel in that article in cartridge world. I dunno. For instance, the 45 and 357 both are great "stopping" rounds, but they do it in very different ways.

Got a friend that has a .40 Glock. Comparing it to a 45, it feels a lot "sharper" of a recoil, but not as "powerful" as the 45. That could all be the gun (HK versus Glock), but I wasn't super happy shooting it. It's all preference, I know.
 
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I agree that the .40 is not my favorite round. The only guns that I have liked in .40 are the XDs of which I own 2. I fired a Sig 229 in .40 when they first came out and did not like it all.
 
The original 10mm ammo was from Norma, and was a 170gr bullet at 1400fps. Pressure was 53000CUP! Fairly impressive in an autoloader.
 
I believe Norma also had a 200 grain load that was pretty stiff. The 10mm was originally developed for the Bren 10 pistol made by Dornaus & Dixon. It did not stay on the market very long, but was followed quickly by Colt with their Delta Elite pistol. I had read some gun rag reports the original loadings for the 10mm were really hard on guns. Colts were experiencing frame cracks with < 500 factory rounds. I am not certain, but I think only Glock has a 10mm offering.
 
Glock and EAA are still selling pistols in 10MM. I had a Delta Elite and traded for a Smith 1086. The Delta elite was a 1911 frame designed for a .45 ACP round and couldn't handle the awesome power of the 10mm for long. I and my friend with a 1076 have fired thousands of rounds from our smiths which were designed for the 10mm and show no signs of any type of unusual wear or breakage. These are sturdy stainless pistols. Let's face facts here, the .40S&W duplicates the bottom end of 10mm ballistics not because of barrel length but cartridge design and the small guns it had to fit into, I seriously doubt anyone regularly shoots the hottest loads in a .40 smith because it wquld be really unpleasant whereas firing any 10mm out of my 1086 it is hard to tell the difference between a 1100 fps load and a 1300+ burner by way of how it shoots or recoils. The 10mm is just way more versatile, sort of like the 38/357 versatility in a revolver except you got 10 Shots in a Smith and I think 15 in a glock and are a serious deadly accurate threat at up to 100 yards taking on some of the duties of a carbine in police applications.
 
"are a serious deadly accurate threat at up to 100 yards taking on some of the duties of a carbine in police applications."

Reminds me of a guy I went to the academy with a few years back. He was a 2 or 3 time distinguished Marine Corp competition shooter. He qualified with a perfect score on our range using a 10mm, forget the model. He had to "compete" against another perfect shooter for the title of "Top Gun". It wasn't much of a competition. I was amazed to watch that man shoot. 50yd groups of about 3" (rough guess as I don't recall the actual grouping but it was close) free hand and he didn't miss.
 
You describe a perfect example of something that was properly designed from the start (S&W 1076) vs. something hastily retrofitted and put on the market (Colt Delta).

Reminds me of the GM auto diesels in the 1980's. People paid big bucks to get what amounted to a gasoline engine with a half-a$$ retrofit for diesel. Then the ultimate salt in the wound was the hit they took when they tried to resell the vehicle.
frown.gif
 
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