Posted on 12/17/2013 9:02:36 AM PST by Scoutmaster
I don’t own anything .40 caliber...but I want to. I’d ask Santa for one of those.
Get an FN 5.7mm and good luck finding ammo ;)
.45 ACP remains my favorite caliber. I have a P220 but find it hard to carry for CCW. About the largest I can go is a P229.
You’re always going to get a pretty bad signal to noise ratio asking questions like these on an internet forum. The fact of the matter is that with modern hollow point ammunition, there’s very little difference between the standard service pistol cartridges. All handgun calibers are weak and relatively ineffective, as they all lack the energy to wound except by crushing tissue. All that hooey about “energy transfer” with handgun rounds is just that. Any trauma surgeon will tell you that there is no observable difference from their perspective between a handgun gun wound made with a 9mm or a .45.
To address your original question about .357Sig and .40 S&W, the differences are minor. The .357Sig is louder and shoots a little flatter out to longer ranges. Inside of 50 yards they are effectively the same.
I say save your money and spend it on extra ammo and realistic training.
I usually practice with 38 for the snubby and carry 357.
I’ve pretty much trimmed down to 9mm and .357 along with .22 and a .38 snubby.
It was easier to build up my inventory. Waste not, want not.
Answer: .45 ACP
:^)
I was going to tell you that either of these is just a barrel swap but you already seem to know that.
Personally, I think the .357 Sig has a lot to offer. An attempt at .357 magnum ballistics in an auto-loader and all. But, due to price/availability, I wouldn’t touch it unless I intended on reloading.
A search on ammoseek.com
980 hits for available .40 starting @ $0.25 a round.
120 hits for 357 sig starting at $0.43 a round.
Mirroring what others have said, I’d go with the 40. More availability and less costly to shoot.
I have 4 scenarios:
1-To and from work...can’t carry.
2-Mountains/wildlife protection .357 in S&W 686, 7 rd.
Shoulder Holster
3-Sketchy neighborhoods CCW .45 Sig P220 Carry, 5 o’clock IWB
4-Just being prudent, extended CCW periods FNS-9, 5 o’clock IWB
Bingo. Go with the 40 sw. It is everywhere.
Good luck finding .22 Jet brass.
I owned a .357Sig but traded it for a gun that then was lost in one of those 10,000 lakes in Minnie-Soda while a friend and I were canoeing under the influence of Patron tequila. That said, I liked the way the weapon handled and shot. Just didn’t like the idea of buying what was to me another exotic caliber of ammo. So I standardized.
If you decide to buy the .357Sig I do believe I still have some ammo that’s useless to me that I could be convinced to part with.
Pray that santa has better judgement, and brings you almost any other gun than a Sig 226.
They are useless crap, and I am not against Sig in general, just the ill conceived 226.
10 mm gives an excellent choice of ammunition options. With merely a spring change one can shoot light target loads all the way to 700+ft/# handloads.
Velocity of 135 grain Urban Feral defense loads is high enough to raise the eyebrows of even experienced handloaders.
210 grain ammo for four legged game is equivalent to .357 magnum bear loads.
If you want to use some of the future surplus supply of .40 cal. Short & Weak - just get a second barrel and springs.
Install a good Red Dot such as the Burris Fastfire II or FastFire III and you have a handgun able to serve well as a defense weapon out to 100 yards, should you find yourself in a situation where you forgot your rifle.
;-)
>> “They’re both pretty much the same” <<
No, they’re not. The Sig 226 is rarely accurate, and quite prone to jams, and the ammo is difficult to get.
Taking into account the availability and price of ammo (and the Betamax analogy of the .357 Sig round), I think I'll go with the .40 S&W and possibly buy the .357 Sig barrel.
My main choice of handguns will continue to be .45ACP.
I mostly purchased a .40 sig 226 to have a gun in that caliber. Its a high quality firearm and fun to shoot. However I think I like the .45 better. Perhaps because I’m used to the .45.
The .357 sig is a good round and according to the tests I’ve read it only beats the .40 in performance by a very small margin. For me that margin was outweighed by the availability of ammo.
There are differences in handgun rounds but it I think it depends on what type of shooting you will do. If you are a cop who is likely to shoot through car windows or doors then you want a round with a little more speed and weight. The 9mm tends to perform poorly when it hits windshields or other hard barriers. The .45 is a little slow to penetrate a metal car door dependably. It can also be slowed by heavy clothing enough to limit its ability to do significant damage.
The .357 sig and .40 S&W have both the weight and energy to penetrate and retain sufficient energy to create a significant wound in the target.
I live in Florida where heavy leather jackets are rare and I doubt I’ll be shooting into cars. For me the .45 acp is preferred except its hard to carry concealed in shorts and a tshirt. I plan to get a small .40 that I can carry concealed.
“The Sig 226 is rarely accurate, and quite prone to jams”
So I’m not hitting the black circle at 25 yds with my sig 226??? I’ve only put about 500 rounds through it so perhaps it will start jamming when I’ve warmed it up.
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