Here’s the history of the .40 Smith & Wesson cartridge according to the internet: Once upon a time there was the 9x19mm cartridge, but it was weak and girly and didn’t kill bad guys in Miami during the FBI’s big gunfight there in 1986. So then came the 10mm Auto, but its recoil was horrible, and FBI agents were weak and girly and couldn’t handle it. So then came the .40 Smith & Wesson cartridge. The .40 had so much more “stopping power” than the 9mm that all the police departments adopted it in the mid ’90s, but then bullet technology made 9mm better and so all the police departments went back to 9mm in the late ’00s. The end. But that’s not how it happened. At all.
REAL HISTORY
Here’s the juice. In the ’70s and ’80s, there was a stew of auto pistol cartridge development going on searching for some “ideal” pistol round.
