40S&W…Have you seen the deals?

[Forte S+W]

Originally Posted by Webleymkv

I suspect that many of the LE agencies that replaced their .40's with 9mm's did so at the time they did because many of the .40 S&W pistols were nearing the end of their service life and would need to be replaced soon anyway.

You'd think so, but in my experience, it isn't so. All but one of the .40 S&W police trade-ins that I purchased only had light wear. A few years ago I purchased an unissued Glock 22 Gen 4, and many of the earliest .40 S&W police trade-ins to hit the market were marketed as such.
For whatever reason, a lot of PDs dropped .40 S&W despite having a large amount of lightly used if not completely unissued pistols in their armory.

The only exception is my California Highway Patrol 4006TSW, which the CHP only dropped because Smith & Wesson no longer produced the 4006, not even for special orders, so the CHP switch to the M&P40 in 2017. Regardless, my 4006 is nowhere near the end of its service life, and has more wear outside than it does on the inside.

[Red Devil]

Because .40 sucks and 9mm is so effective in gel:

Gross Failure to Stop

Yeah, the Mozambique drill, practice it.


Red

[JustJake]

Because .40 sucks and 9mm is so effective in gel:
Gross Failure to Stop
Yeah, the Mozambique drill, practice it.

Proper Mozambique @ proper speed …

https://www.facebook.com/practicalde...9979644262104/

Drill, baby, drill.

[Nathan]

“Split times” are not just for gamers. I use split times, draw to fire times and target to target times in my defensive training because good shooting does not care what the target is.
Follow this logic,….Good cartridge designs expand and penetrate in calibrated gel (plain and with barriers). Firing a single round can be effective and predicted by the one stop shot data study. Firing multiple rounds greatly closes the effectiveness gap between rounds like 380 and 9x19 from rounds like 45 auto and 357 mag. Split times are your ability to deliver multiple rounds. This drives stopping the attack.

Trying to combine and generalize 9/40/45 performance is ok, but that is some really dirty data. How many times did they shoot? What was the receivers adrenaline, attitude, drug use, etc? What was hit? If nothing is hit and a round stops the attack in one shot, is it a superior round? Shots to stops is super messy considering shot reactions are all over the map. That alone is another reason to put 2-3 on target and assess. Getting 2-3 out requires good split times. Unlike cardboard, most criminals are on the move as you put rounds down range.

380 will replace 9mm when they get the bullets and powders right. The split times are better!

[Nathan]

Saw the video. Do you drop mag and clear chamber before assessing the attackers condition?

[Forte S+W]

Ballistics Gel Tests are obsolete, full simulated torsos are what the Military uses and they ought to be the norm by now, but they're expensive, and as we've covered, the driving force behind the adoption of 9mm was cost per round, despite the difference being mere pennies, so like heck are the FBI going to adopt a more expensive testing media, much less one which presents results which would show that 9mm is not in fact as similar in overall performance to more powerful cartridges with greater energy/momentum.

The real game-changer isn't how tissue reacts, but rather bone. This is a difference which becomes readily apparent in tests which use full simulated torsos. Amusingly enough, this is something that hunters typically already know from experience because they've observed it themselves in the field. So yeah, all those old foggies that everyone is so quick to dismiss when they say that they only trust older, more powerful rounds like .30-06 or .45-70, or even 12 Gauge Slugs because of how they more reliably drop deer in one shot weren't just telling stories after all, and their dismissal of the latest whiz-bang ".177 Beast-Blaster" cartridges was completely warranted because they'd been through ever fad before until they realized that they were better off sticking with what they already knew worked rather than trying to cheat physics with some lightweight, low-recoiling, small caliber cartridge traveling at Mach 3 that makes a big mess out of a block of gel for the first three inches before leaving a tack-sized wound channel which goes straight through, but nothing else.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by Forte S+W

Ballistics Gel Tests are obsolete, full simulated torsos are what the Military uses and they ought to be the norm by now, but they're expensive, and as we've covered, the driving force behind the adoption of 9mm was cost per round, despite the difference being mere pennies, so like heck are the FBI going to adopt a more expensive testing media, much less one which presents results which would show that 9mm is not in fact as similar in overall performance to more powerful cartridges with greater energy/momentum.

The real game-changer isn't how tissue reacts, but rather bone. This is a difference which becomes readily apparent in tests which use full simulated torsos. Amusingly enough, this is something that hunters typically already know from experience because they've observed it themselves in the field. So yeah, all those old foggies that everyone is so quick to dismiss when they say that they only trust older, more powerful rounds like .30-06 or .45-70, or even 12 Gauge Slugs because of how they more reliably drop deer in one shot weren't just telling stories after all, and their dismissal of the latest whiz-bang ".177 Beast-Blaster" cartridges was completely warranted because they'd been through ever fad before until they realized that they were better off sticking with what they already knew worked rather than trying to cheat physics with some lightweight, low-recoiling, small caliber cartridge traveling at Mach 3 that makes a big mess out of a block of gel for the first three inches before leaving a tack-sized wound channel which goes straight through, but nothing else.

My understanding is that the FBI uses ballistic gel that needs to be calibrated and is different than the typical clear ballistic gel that is cheaper and a lot more popular on YouTube. The calibrated gel is either solid or translucent, making it less camera friendly. The ballistics gel is denser than some parts of the human body, and less dense than others. It’s an averaged medium. The issue I have seen with most of the mediums that try to incorporate some kind of bones is that it doesn’t present a uniform front, which makes comparison among cartridges difficult. One round that strikes a rib directly as opposed to pushing between two ribs is going to penetrate differently. The purpose of gel is to have a basis of comparison, not to perfectly replicate the human body. I haven’t seen reports detailing what specifically the US military uses, that would be interesting.

The differences that are seen among the rifle cartridges out there are generally much more dramatic than what is seen in handgun cartridges. This isn’t me saying the 40SW doesn’t perform better in one way or another than 9mm, it’s pointing out that rifle cartridges vary more in bullet lengths, weights, and profile and case space for powder charges.

Edit: an article talking about the differences in performance that can be seen with different gels.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/...stics-gelatin/

[Pumpkin]

In a personal defense situation I would take a 40 Silver Tip @ 1,200+ FPS over any 9 or 45 ACP. Gel used for comparison leaves a lot of gray area for basing decisions on cartridge choice.

[JohnKSa]

Gel used for comparison leaves a lot of gray area for basing decisions on cartridge choice.

The funny thing is that the main evidence usually cited to indicate superiority of one service pistol caliber over another is gel testing. The reason is that it is easy to measure the differences and one can easily create controlled tests and generate reproducible results. The problem is that proving those differences correspond to a measurable advantage in terms of real-world shooting outcomes has, so far, proved impossible.

Anyway, I agree. There's information to be learned from gel testing, but one must be careful about concluding that because one loading/caliber looks better in gel than another, one can assume it's going to provide measurably better incapacitation times or defender survivability in real-world gunfights.

[TruthTellers]

Originally Posted by Forte S+W

You'd think so, but in my experience, it isn't so. All but one of the .40 S&W police trade-ins that I purchased only had light wear. A few years ago I purchased an unissued Glock 22 Gen 4, and many of the earliest .40 S&W police trade-ins to hit the market were marketed as such.
For whatever reason, a lot of PDs dropped .40 S&W despite having a large amount of lightly used if not completely unissued pistols in their armory.

The only exception is my California Highway Patrol 4006TSW, which the CHP only dropped because Smith & Wesson no longer produced the 4006, not even for special orders, so the CHP switch to the M&P40 in 2017. Regardless, my 4006 is nowhere near the end of its service life, and has more wear outside than it does on the inside.

True dat. The G27 Gen 4 I got years ago looked like it had been barely shot, which after I shot it I understood why.

[wild cat mccane]

Classic research problem:

What I saw didn't work, so something else would work/something always works, so something else would never work.

This logic keeps me employed in stats

[Forte S+W]

Originally Posted by TunnelRat

My understanding is that the FBI uses ballistic gel that needs to be calibrated and is different than the typical clear ballistic gel that is cheaper and a lot more popular on YouTube. The calibrated gel is either solid or translucent, making it less camera friendly. The ballistics gel is denser than some parts of the human body, and less dense than others. It’s an averaged medium.

No argument there, Clear Ballistics isn't a very good tissue simulate for flesh because it's too soft and too elastic, so bullets end up penetrating deeper and wound channels shrinking back more than they would in Organic Gel.

Simulated Torsos consist of a simulated rib cage with simulated organs, filled with simulated blood, and encased in an Organic Gel torso. This combination presents the most realistic simulation of an actual human torso currently available.

The issue I have seen with most of the mediums that try to incorporate some kind of bones is that it doesn’t present a uniform front, which makes comparison among cartridges difficult. One round that strikes a rib directly as opposed to pushing between two ribs is going to penetrate differently. The purpose of gel is to have a basis of comparison, not to perfectly replicate the human body. I haven’t seen reports detailing what specifically the US military uses, that would be interesting.

And therein lies the issue with FBI Ballistics Gel Testing, it's too laser focused on consistency and repeatable results within the confines of a simplistic testing protocol based on dated information and theories crafted in the aftermath of the 1986 Miami-Dade Shootout.

The human body isn't a consistent medium, nor are streets a laboratory. Bullets may or may not strike bones, may or may not deviate after penetrating solid objects, ergo because combatants tend to be moving targets and gunfights occur in an environment without perfectly repeatable results, the best way to test something is through repetition, recording and documenting the results under a variety of conditions in order to better understand the nature of ballistics.

The differences that are seen among the rifle cartridges out there are generally much more dramatic than what is seen in handgun cartridges. This isn’t me saying the 40SW doesn’t perform better in one way or another than 9mm, it’s pointing out that rifle cartridges vary more in bullet lengths, weights, and profile and case space for powder charges.

Indeed they are, in Ballistics Gel Testing, Rifle Bullets showcase the more devastating effects of cartridges with enough energy to result in remote damage which extends beyond the diameter of the projectile itself.

However, Bones don't require nearly as much energy to critically damage, and that's where simulated torsos better illustrate the differences between handgun cartridges.

It's important to note that incapacitation isn't necessarily lethal. For example, a shot to the pelvic girdle will cause a combatant to collapse because if that support structure becomes structurally compromised, the combatant can no longer regain upright.

In addition, if bones are shattered with enough energy, then it's possible for the bone fragments to result in additional damage, and there's the kicker.

Some pistol cartridges make bones shatter more dramatically than others, and furthermore, some won't shatter bones at all.

Don't get me wrong, Ballistics Gel Testing has its place, but at this point the the results are so well documented that the testing has reached the limitations ofwhat it can tell us about Terminal Ballistics.
We know how bullets perform in tissue, but what about how bones behave when struck within that tissue. That's where this new testing comes into play.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by Forte S+W

No argument there, Clear Ballistics isn't a very good tissue simulate for flesh because it's too soft and too elastic, so bullets end up penetrating deeper and wound channels shrinking back more than they would in Organic Gel.

Simulated Torsos consist of a simulated rib cage with simulated organs, filled with simulated blood, and encased in an Organic Gel torso. This combination presents the most realistic simulation of an actual human torso currently available.



And therein lies the issue with FBI Ballistics Gel Testing, it's too laser focused on consistency and repeatable results within the confines of a simplistic testing protocol based on dated information and theories crafted in the aftermath of the 1986 Miami-Dade Shootout.

The human body isn't a consistent medium, nor are streets a laboratory. Bullets may or may not strike bones, may or may not deviate after penetrating solid objects, ergo because combatants tend to be moving targets and gunfights occur in an environment without perfectly repeatable results, the best way to test something is through repetition, recording and documenting the results under a variety of conditions in order to better understand the nature of ballistics.



Indeed they are, in Ballistics Gel Testing, Rifle Bullets showcase the more devastating effects of cartridges with enough energy to result in remote damage which extends beyond the diameter of the projectile itself.

However, Bones don't require nearly as much energy to critically damage, and that's where simulated torsos better illustrate the differences between handgun cartridges.

It's important to note that incapacitation isn't necessarily lethal. For example, a shot to the pelvic girdle will cause a combatant to collapse because if that support structure becomes structurally compromised, the combatant can no longer regain upright.

In addition, if bones are shattered with enough energy, then it's possible for the bone fragments to result in additional damage, and there's the kicker.

Some pistol cartridges make bones shatter more dramatically than others, and furthermore, some won't shatter bones at all.

Don't get me wrong, Ballistics Gel Testing has its place, but at this point the the results are so well documented that the testing has reached the limitations ofwhat it can tell us about Terminal Ballistics.
We know how bullets perform in tissue, but what about how bones behave when struck within that tissue. That's where this new testing comes into play.

I’m aware of what the torsos are. I wasn’t aware that the US military had officially adopted them for their testing protocols. I asked above, but where did you read that? I find a lot of things in this space are repeated as true because someone said it, but when you actually try to find if that’s true you just get directed from person to person.

I don’t know that I see the desire for consistency as a problem per se. If you’re going to compare bullets and cartridges you need consistency, at least to some extent. I’m pretty aware that the human body itself isn’t consistent, but again the point was for comparison purposes. Even with repetition in ballistic gel there is already variation in bullet performance. Add in some of the variation associated with some of the other testing methods and you have no idea if the differences observed are from the bullets themselves or random deflection in the medium. The “streets” may not be a laboratory, but if you’re going to approach an experiment with even a basic attempt at the scientific method then controlling variables matters. You can keep repeating experiments to try to minimize the outliers, but I don’t think people credit how much data you start to need at some point.

I don’t know that how bones react to getting shot by bullets within tissue is not understood. We have at this point decades of trauma medicine from military actions and domestic shootings. The cartridges in discussion here are in many cases older than anyone here. None of this is really new.

People often point to the limitations of ballistic gel testing. I find it’s next to impossible to find someone unbiased on this. The people that agree with the results support them, those that don’t suggest the testing protocol is deficient. Again, I myself admitted limitations with it. What I don’t understand is if it is so limited and if it is not indicative of actual real world results, as some here suggest, then why is it still used? Is it a function of a mass delusion, that we couldn’t come up with anything better, or that we are under the sway of the 9mm Illuminati who are hiding the truth from us? In all the decades it has been used, no one has been able to come up with something better than ballistic gel? Heck, even the ballistic gel torsos are a sort of extension of shooting pigs or meat carcasses as was done in the past and they still rely on using gel. Again, this isn’t new.

John has asked for people to show results definitively concluding differently at multiple times through this thread, and I haven’t seen one person address the request. Can someone point me to one documented example where the relative differences between ballistic performance of 2 or more cartridges in ballistic gel are shown to be largely false by another type of test? Where is the evidence that penetration of bullets to at least a certain extent in gel covered by layers of denim is “dated”? I’m not saying it’s unfathomable, I’m asking where is the document or organization putting in writing what the masses seemingly already know?

[JohnKSa]

What I don’t understand is if it is so limited and if it is not indicative of actual real world results, as some here suggest, then why is it still used?

Because it provides reproducible results that are easily measured and compared.

It's as simple as that.

I'm not saying that gel results are invalid. They provide information that is useful, especially in comparing different loadings. The problem comes when there's an attempt to take those comparisons, those easily measured differences, and say that they translate to a difference in the outcomes of real world shootings. That this extra expansion, this extra penetration, this larger temporary cavity is going to provide a measurable/significant advantage if one ever gets into a shooting using caliber X vs caliber Y.

That is why the FBI eventually went back to the 9mm. Not because it performs better in gel, nor even because it performs the same, but because it meets their pass/fail criteria and they can't prove that a more "powerful" cartridge that performs better in gel is buying their agents anything if they get into a gunfight.

I'm sure that people think I'm trying to be a jerk for pointing out the lack of evidence, but it's really just logical. If no one can prove X is better than Y in terms of actual practical benefit, then what makes more sense? Assume that X is better than Y and that it's significantly better? Or assume that IF X really is better than Y, it can't be that much better or someone would have been able to show that it's better after all the time and effort that's been expended in the attempt?

To me, it's an obvious choice given the current situation.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by JohnKSa

Because it provides reproducible results that are easily measured and compared.

It's as simple as that.

I'm not saying that gel results are invalid. They provide information that is useful, especially in comparing different loadings. The problem comes when there's an attempt to take those comparisons, those easily measured differences, and say that they translate to a difference in the outcomes of real world shootings. That this extra expansion, this extra penetration, this larger temporary cavity is going to provide a measurable/significant advantage if one ever gets into a shooting using caliber X vs caliber Y.

That is why the FBI eventually went back to the 9mm. Not because it performs better in gel, nor even because it performs the same, but because it meets their pass/fail criteria and they can't prove that a more "powerful" cartridge that performs better in gel is buying their agents anything if they get into a gunfight.

I'm sure that people think I'm trying to be a jerk for pointing out the lack of evidence, but it's really just logical. If no one can prove X is better than Y in terms of actual practical benefit, then what makes more sense? Assume that X is better than Y and that it's significantly better? Or assume that IF X really is better than Y, it can't be that much better or someone would have been able to show that it's better after all the time and effort that's been expended in the attempt?

To me, it's an obvious choice given the current situation.

Which is why what I wrote in the rest of that post gets to my point and was included. If someone has some evidence otherwise, even limited, then present it.

[Forte S+W]

Unfortunately, I cannot provide you with any official sources which verify that the US Army has indeed adopted Ballistics Torsos because as far as I can tell, no such sources exist. It doesn't appear to be information which is highly publicized, just a lot of hearsay from folks online who claim to be in the Army or know someone in the Army, so that portion of my argument is essentially null and void.

As for the rest, it comes mostly down to opinion as well as the results of admittedly amateur testing I've seen on YouTube, so if all you are willing to accept is verified, scientific laboratory testing, then there's no point in me directing you to videos comparing 9mm to other cartridges in Ballistics Torsos in which the differences when said bullets strike bones are readily apparent.
Besides, you seem to have made up your mind on the subject regardless, so frankly I see no reason in spending a portion of my Easter attempting to convince you otherwise.

As you yourself have said, folks tend to have confirmation biased on the subject, and I am admittedly biased in my opinion that .40 S&W along with other more powerful cartridges are more effective than 9mm. I have seen no convincing evidence that 9mm is objectively better outside of the narrow parameters of the FBI Protocol which simply doesn't account for any of the advantages of .40 S&W, because all of which are tied directly to its characteristic straight line penetration through hard barriers.
Ballistics Torsos illustrate this advantage because they include simulated bones which react far more dramatically when struck with .40 S&W than they do 9mm.

It is my opinion that shattered bones have a higher probability of resulting in incapacitation than bones which merely have holes in them or have fractured, ergo bullets which result in more damage to bones are preferable to those which do less.

Feel free to disagree and have a Happy Easter.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by Forte S+W

Unfortunately, I cannot provide you with any official sources which verify that the US Army has indeed adopted Ballistics Torsos because as far as I can tell, no such sources exist. It doesn't appear to be information which is highly publicized, just a lot of hearsay from folks online who claim to be in the Army or know someone in the Army, so that portion of my argument is essentially null and void.

As for the rest, it comes mostly down to opinion as well as the results of admittedly amateur testing I've seen on YouTube, so if all you are willing to accept is verified, scientific laboratory testing, then there's no point in me directing you to videos comparing 9mm to other cartridges in Ballistics Torsos in which the differences when said bullets strike bones are readily apparent.
Besides, you seem to have made up your mind on the subject regardless, so frankly I see no reason in spending a portion of my Easter attempting to convince you otherwise.

As you yourself have said, folks tend to have confirmation biased on the subject, and I am admittedly biased in my opinion that .40 S&W along with other more powerful cartridges are more effective than 9mm. I have seen no convincing evidence that 9mm is objectively better outside of the narrow parameters of the FBI Protocol which simply doesn't account for any of the advantages of .40 S&W, because all of which are tied directly to its characteristic straight line penetration through hard barriers.
Ballistics Torsos illustrate this advantage because they include simulated bones which react far more dramatically when struck with .40 S&W than they do 9mm.

It is my opinion that shattered bones have a higher probability of resulting in incapacitation than bones which merely have holes in them or have fractured, ergo bullets which result in more damage to bones are preferable to those which do less.

Feel free to disagree and have a Happy Easter.

To some extent I think you’re fair to say you think I’ve made up my mind, as I could see how my skepticism above would come across that way. However, my comments above are less about me demanding scientific rigor (though that is important in testing) and more about me being cynical. The firearms space is awash in rumors, many of which never pan out or amount to a seemingly endless game of telephone with no one knowing the true source. I have been bitten multiple times by sharing “facts” I was told by what I thought were good sources, so now I am skeptical of everyone. It’s not personal.

If you don’t want to share those videos, it’s your call. At this point I’ll take any evidence other than people saying there’s evidence and then not sharing anything. If those videos are amateur in nature, so be it, I will have to accept that going in as I do understand the costs associated with getting data (I admitted as much above). I do think making claims and then not presenting evidence of claims is a growing trend that I personally find problematic.

[JohnKSa]

I have seen no convincing evidence that 9mm is objectively better outside of the narrow parameters of the FBI Protocol which simply doesn't account for any of the advantages of .40 S&W, because all of which are tied directly to its characteristic straight line penetration through hard barriers.

Is the FBI really saying 9mm is better? I haven't seen anything like that. What I've seen is them saying it meets their pass/fail criteria.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by JohnKSa

Is the FBI really saying 9mm is better? I haven't seen anything like that. What I've seen is them saying it meets their pass/fail criteria.

If you look in the white paper I linked above that was published by the FBI Training Division in 2014:
https://www.gunnuts.net/wp-content/u...paper-2014.pdf

There is this bullet point in the Executive Summary on the first page:

9mm Luger now offers select projectiles which are, under identical testing
conditions, I outperforming most of the premium line .40 S&W and .45 Auto projectiles tested by the FBI

I’m not sure which are the select projectiles referenced here. As best as I can tell in a quick Google search, this is what the FBI is using now:
https://www.shootingillustrated.com/...tion-contract/

In reading the white paper I don’t know that I would say that the main argument from the FBI is that 9mm is better. The larger argument seems to be the emphasis on shot placement and the fact that most shooters, experienced and otherwise, can shoot faster and more accurately with 9mm. There is also a strong emphasis on the importance of projectile design and bullet penetration.

[JohnKSa]

The larger argument seems to be the emphasis on shot placement and the fact that most shooters, experienced and otherwise, can shoot faster and more accurately with 9mm.

Sure, that's why the practical pistol sports penalize "minor" calibers.

I looked through the 2014 white paper and I'm not impressed. I think their overall conclusion makes sense, but I disagree with a lot of how they rationalize it.

I don't see how the 9mm is going to provide better terminal performance than .40S&W unless one cherry picks rounds. But it is certainly true that no one seems to be able to show that the terminal performance benefit of the .40S&W over the 9mm translates to better outcomes in real-world shootings.

My thoughts on the whole mess are:

1. The FBI didn't want to focus on the real issues that drove the outcome of the Miami shootout so they focused on caliber. They built a house of cards on the foundation that differences in terminal performance (measured in gelatin) could reliably predict advantages to defenders in real-world shootings. You can read Urey Patrick's paper on this and it's obvious from the contents that he realizes caliber differences are not driving the outcome of real-world shootings, but he then draws conclusions that don't follow from that knowledge.

2. The FBI continued to espouse this reasoning/strategy until it became obvious that it was unsupportable with real-world data. But then rather than admit they had been wrong all along, they justified their change by overselling the improvements in ammunition technology and their effects on 9mm loadings as tested in their performance protocol (measured in gelatin).

It is, in my opinion, unfortunate that so many people are still spending so much time and effort and thought on this topic. If they want practical benefit, they should spend the time shooting/training instead. Once you get beyond luck, winning gunfights is the result of skill, not of numbers stamped on a pistol or on the case head of a round of ammunition.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by JohnKSa

I looked through the 2014 white paper and I'm not impressed. I think their overall conclusion makes sense, but I disagree with a lot of how they rationalize it.

To be clear, I did not share the paper because I thought it was impressive. I shared it earlier to provide some context of the decision to move back to 9mm that went further than “limp wristed males and clerical women”. I shared it again because you stated you hadn’t read the FBI saying 9mm is better, and at least partially in the white paper they do state that. I am not sharing that information as my own endorsement of the idea, but rather that I think it is important to keep in mind what the FBI did or did not claim. Forte was right that to an extent the FBI claimed better performance out of 9mm.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by JohnKSa

2. The FBI continued to espouse this reasoning/strategy until it became obvious that it was unsupportable with real-world data. But then rather than admit they had been wrong all along, they justified their change by overselling the improvements in ammunition technology and their effects on 9mm loadings as tested in their performance protocol (measured in gelatin).

I found it interesting in the white paper that the paper touts the improvements to projectiles from 2007 and onward, but from what I can tell all of the references to wound studies in the paper itself are from 1987, 1989, and even 1958. If the projectile technology really jumped as was stated, you would think the FBI would include some data on that or references to where that can be seen.

From what I can find online for release dates of 9mm “duty” ammunition, the Speer Gold Dot, which meets the FBI criteria, was released in 1991. Federal HST was released in 2002 and also meets that criteria. Hornady Critical Defense and Critical Duty were released in 2008 and 2011 respectively, so maybe those are the bullets being referenced (and those were the ones the FBI seems to have adopted most recently). However, you can look at the Lucky Gunner ballistics testing and see similar performance among those, at least in clear gel with the caveats from above. I don’t see much evidence that 9mm projectiles from 2007 and onward represent a dramatic leap in performance.

In my own opinion the paper goes too far. I think the differences in accuracy and speed as a function of less recoil and the fact that there are 9mm loadings that meet the FBI protocol in terms of penetration are meaningful, but the paper seems to want to say 9mm is better in all categories. I feel like that last part is a stretch, and an unnecessary stretch. It also comes across to me as a doubling down on the kind of logic that saw them adopt the 40SW in the first place. Similar to what I believe John is saying, I see this as a way for the FBI to get around admitting they were wrong.

[Webleymkv]

Originally posted by Forte S+W
Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
I suspect that many of the LE agencies that replaced their .40's with 9mm's did so at the time they did because many of the .40 S&W pistols were nearing the end of their service life and would need to be replaced soon anyway.
You'd think so, but in my experience, it isn't so. All but one of the .40 S&W police trade-ins that I purchased only had light wear. A few years ago I purchased an unissued Glock 22 Gen 4, and many of the earliest .40 S&W police trade-ins to hit the market were marketed as such.
For whatever reason, a lot of PDs dropped .40 S&W despite having a large amount of lightly used if not completely unissued pistols in their armory.

The only exception is my California Highway Patrol 4006TSW, which the CHP only dropped because Smith & Wesson no longer produced the 4006, not even for special orders, so the CHP switch to the M&P40 in 2017. Regardless, my 4006 is nowhere near the end of its service life, and has more wear outside than it does on the inside.

When I say "end of service life" I don't necessarily mean the guns themselves are worn out. Government agencies often replace things that are still quite useable based on a set usage schedule or timetable. For example, I once test drove a very lightly use Ford Crown Victoria that had been a ex-police car. The car had no mechanical issues and less than 70k miles on it, but was 10+ years old at the time and the department it came from had upgraded to newer cars (later body style). I suspect that many departments may also replace their pistols not based on the guns being worn out, but rather based on them being in service for a set period of time or having had a set number of rounds fired through them.

Also, Police agencies often replace equipment in batches and relatively new equipment is often replaced alongside that which is severely worn. Considering the very low price that barely used .40 S&W pistols are being sold for, I doubt that a ratty, shot-out one would bring enough money to be worth the distributor's efforts to attempt to sell. I think it's entirely possible the the barely used .40's you're seeing on the market may actually be the "cream of the crop" of the totality of those being replaced. If you can only get $200-300 for a barely used or unissued pistol, then a distributor is likely to simply part out or scrap the ratty ones rather than invest the time, energy, and money in trying to sell them.

Finally, as I said in my previous post, I think that the cost of the ammo plays a big part in all of this. At sgammo.com, you can currently buy 1000 rounds of Winchester White Box .40 S&W 165 gr FMJ for $499 while 1000 round of Winchester White Box 9mm 115 gr FMJ will cost you $259.80. So for 1000 rounds of ammunition you've got a difference of $239.20. Considering that it's not uncommon for polymer-frame, striker-fired guns to sell for as little as $300 when bought in large quantities by police agencies, the savings in the cost of the ammunition might come close to, or even cover, the cost of new pistols. Like I said before, if the new 9mm ammunition can deliver comparable performance to the old .40 S&W ammunition, which most departments were quite satisfied with, then it makes financial sense to switch to 9mm. The new .40 ammunition might very well deliver superior performance, but you're getting into a case of "better is the enemy of good enough."

[Webleymkv]

With regards to ballistic gel, I think it is misunderstood. Ballistic gel is a tool that is useful in predicting what a bullet will do when it strikes a target. It has been in use long enough to show that, while not perfect, it is about the best test medium we have and that, outside of very unusual circumstances, a bullet will usually do similar things in living flesh to what it does in ballistic gelatin. What ballistic gel does not and cannot do, however, is predict how the intended target of a living organism will react to being shot. Every shooting is a unique event unto itself and there are a nearly infinite number of uncontrolled variables that will influence the outcome of a shooting that cannot be predicted or replicated in a lab.

Unlike uniform, strictly calibrated blocks of ballistic gelatin, living organisms are not homogenous and can have great variances in size and anatomy from one specimen to another. If you shoot two rounds of ammunition from the same box through the same gun into two block of ballistic gelatin that are calibrated the same way, you would expect to have very similar, if not identical, results. However, if you shoot a 5'6" person who weighs 120 lbs and a 6"4" person who weighs 350 lbs in the same spot with the same ammunition from the same firearm, you cannot reasonably expect to have identical results because the size and anatomy of the people who are shot are very different. Likewise, you would not expect to have the same outcome in a shooting where the person was shot in the upper chest as one which was shot in the lower abdomen.

Finally, while a "good" result in ballistic gelatin often, if not usually, positively correlates with "effective" results in actual shootings, such is not always the case. If we use 9mm as an example, many of the older 147 gr JHP loadings were adopted by police agencies because they gave "good" results in ballistic gelatin and were perceived as the solution to the penetration issues of the lighter 115 gr loadings available at the time. When put into actual use, however, it was found that these older 147 gr 9mm loadings often expanded little or none despite their favorable results in ballistic gel. By contrast, many of the fast +P and +P+ 115 gr 9mm loadings performed "poorly" in ballistic gelatin due to overly aggressive expansion, fragmentation, and inadequate penetration, but when used in actual police shooting developed favorable reputations for stopping aggressors.

The fact of the matter is we really don't fully understand why people react to being shot in the way that they do and, therefore, don't really have a completely accurate way to predict how a person will react to being shot. The best we can do is predict how the bullet will react to being shot into the target and then try to correlate that with how people react to being shot with said bullet in the real world. We have observed that people tend to react more dramatically to being shot with bigger and/or faster bullets than they do to being shot with smaller and/or slower ones and we also have observed that people tend to react more dramatically to being shot with expanding bullets than with those that don't expand. We have also observed that people shot in vital organs tend to lose their ability to continue doing whatever they were doing faster than people who are shot in extremities or non-vital organs.

The debate about ballistic gelatin is really a debate over whether laboratory testing or case study is the best way to predict the outcome of a shooting when, in factuality, both methods have benefits and drawbacks. Ballistic gel tests in a lab give you the ability to predict what a bullet will do under controlled circumstances and therefore allow you to compare one loading to another with objective criteria. Ballistic gel cannot, however, predict how the bullet or more so the target will react once the uncontrolled variables of the field are introduced into the equation. Anecdotal reports and case study, on the other hand, can tell us what did or did not work well in the field, but because it isn't verifiable, falsifiable, or repeatable like laboratory testing, it can't really tell us much about why something did or didn't work. The best we can do is to look at what does and does not tend to work well in the field, examine the lab testing results of it, and see if there is any correlation to be found, but we must remember that correlation does not equal causation. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of tribalism regarding one method over the other which leads to arguments regarding "one shot stop percentages" being taken as gospel and unproven theories about what kinetic energy and temporary stretch cavity can and cannot do being presented as settled fact.

[Webleymkv]

One final post on the subject regarding the FBI and the Miami-Dade shootout in 1986. A lot of people tend to focus in on the so-called "shot heard round the world" 9mm Silvertip that penetrated the assailant's arm and lung but failed to reach his heart. While that certainly is a data point worthy of analysis and discussion, it must be borne in mind that it was one data point amongst many variable which played into what happened that day. In nearly every re-telling or analysis of the events with unfolded during said incident, I am of the opinion that better preparation and better marksmanship on the part of the FBI agents would have made a much larger difference in the outcome of the shooting than their choice of 9mm ammunition. I don't think that too many people would argue that, in a gunfight against opponents armed with handguns and shotguns, a high-capacity semi-automatic rifle is a force multiplier. I also think it's pretty obvious that had the suspect with the Mini-14 received more gunshot wounds to his vital organs as opposed to the many that he received to his extremities, that he'd probably have been incapacitated sooner. I think it's entirely likely that, had the FBI agents shown up with autoloading rifles of their own and put more shots in the suspect's vital organs, the outcome of the Miami-Dade shooting would have been very, very different.