OK, I'm a new kid here, but I really have shot a couple of rounds in the past. I'm (just barely) old enough to remember when the Glock 17 hit the streets in the States, and to remember when S&W introduced the .40 S&W.
My tastes are wide-ranging and kinda eclectic, and I waste time "just settin' here thinkin' about stuff" sometimes.
When the .40 came out, I was ecstatic. Why, it was the .41 AE with big factory support! It was the .40 G&A, in production! It was the Centimeter! It was a self-shucker-suitable .38 WCF.
Now, kids don't believe this, but "back in the day" we didn't have really good JHP bullets. The 1980s were only fifteen or twenty years after Lee Jurras and Super-Vel introduced actual working "holler pernt" ammo. Today it's pretty dang easy to get good 9mm JHPs----but it wasn't always so.
The gripes about good JHP ammo also sort of applied to the .45 ACP, but hey, at least we were already throwing a goodly chunk of lead.
I thought that the .40 made a really nice middle ground between the 9mm and the .45 ACP. Sixteen rounds of 9mm, 8 rounds of .45 ACP, split the difference and you get 12 rounds of .40 S&W . . . and in 9mm sized pistols, too! Sure, there were, and are, big 9mms, but a lot of the 9mm pistols themselves were svelte and handy in comparison with a "big ol' 1911." (Think with particularity here of the Browning Hi-Power.)
Bullet weight was the same "split the difference" as the magazine capacity. 9mm standard was the 115, the .45 ACP was 230, and right between them ought to be 172 or so grains---and the .40 was introduced standard with a 180 grain. All to the good, right?
Unfortunately, our old friend "Mr. Laws of Physics" came to visit.
I think---and this is just my theorizing here, so take it as you will---I think that the whole problem with the .40 S&W is that they tried to make it a "big 9mm" instead of a "little .45" (if that makes any sense).
At introduction, the standard .40 was (as mentioned above by me and by earlier posters) a 180 at 950 fps. It also had a JTC bullet profile that I'm convinced works better than the round nose of 9mm and .45 ACP hardball. Since then, bullet weight has been dropping, velocities have been accelerating, and my enthusiasm for the .40 has been dropping some as well.
With today's technology, I'm sure it would be no problem at all to whip up a good working .40 S&W JHP load that pushed a 180 grain bullet at a .45 ACP's traditional 850 fps. This would have been the "little .45" approach.
Above I mentioned our old friend Mr. Laws of Physics. Regardless of the virtues of the cartridge in isolation, you have to consider it in conjunction with the "launching platform." When you take a perfectly fine 9mm handgun, and put another high pressure cartridge in it, that launches a heavier bullet, you're pretty much just stuck with heavier recoil.
For me, the recoil of the .40 mitigates many of its virtues. With a 9mm, I have a high capacity, fast stepping, soft recoiling pistol, With a .45 ACP, I have a low capacity, slow walking, soft recoiling pistol. With the .40 S&W, I end up with a mid-capacity, mid-speed, harsh recoiling pistol. For me, it's neither fish nor fowl nor good red meat. I can get faster, and more accurate hits with either a 9mm or a .45 ACP, and thus prefer those cartridges.
Circling back to the original subject (does this nickname make any sense?), I'd have to say "NO." It's a very modern, high pressure, mid-size handgun cartridge. The 10mm will ALWAYS be able to gin up more fpe, because there's more powder room. Calling the .40 Short and Weak is like calling the .44 Special Short and Weak, and no one wants a horde of .44 Special junkies to be coming after them, for dissing their round.
That's my BS for you.
(Umm, that's "Ballistic Speculation," folks!)
