Archive for Nine Versus Forty

Nine Versus Forty

I clearly remember the press conference where Smith & Wesson’s Tommy Campbell announced the .40 S&W cartridge along with the Model 4006 pistol to fire it. The announcement created such a stir that almost anything “Forty” was a viable product. Like so many things, the .40 was a compromise, an effort to increase stopping power without increasing gun size or inadvisably reducing capacity. Most of those design criteria were pretty well met. But I want to make a couple of points here, and that means putting the situation in context.

September 06, 2012