400 Corbon Why?

[dh1633pm]

Title says it all. Going through my dad’s things I found loaded 400 Corbon Ammo, brass, dies, 1911 barrel, and 40 caliber bullets. Never heard him talk about this caliber and we talked guns all the time. Left me wondering if he tried it, and then forgot it. For some reason I’m not too interested in loading any of these. I load enough calibers already. In fact today I loaded 45 acp and cleaned 10 mm brass. What are your opinions of this caliber? Anybody shoot or tried it?

 

[RevolvingGarbage]

I haven’t loaded any yet, or fit the barrel to either of my 1911s, but I guess I cought idea same idea your dad had or something close. I got a cheap Swenson barrel and a box of factory Underwood .400 Cor-Bon. Supposed to be a 150gr JHP at 1450FPS.

.400 Cor-Bon was a player in the high foot pounds handgun arena in the 1997-2003ish time period. The basic idea is to squeeze the most foot pounds you can out of a standard single stack .45ACP 1911, and to do this they necked .45ACP down to .40 cal to make a fat little bottlenecked round, and from what I can remember it also runs a little more like 25-27kpsi versus 21-23k for .45ACP.

Anyway, it didn’t sell well, and it seems CorBon may have contributed to its failure by having a 165gr@1450FPS powerball load in .45ACP that basically did the same thing or so it was said.

I think the benefits of higher sectional density and (in theory) better feeding were overlooked when they had some real merit. It’s cool, if nothing else.

 

[unspellable]

Bottle necked cartridges will feed better. Used to run semi-wadcutters and full wadcutters in a 30 Luger with never a single malfunction the entire time I had it.

 

[W.E.G.]

Bullet development caught up with brute force.

Nothing you can do with 400 Cor-Bon that you can't do with premium .45 ACP.

 

[Walkalong]

Bullet development caught up with brute force.

There's a lot of merit to this. Back then it was a bit unique, but now you have the .40 S&W and 10MM, so there's really no benefit to it anymore.

I still have a .40 Corbon barrel, it was a fun diversion for awhile.

 

[InTheSwamp]

Yep, it had its 15 minutes of fame, but the 10mm and hot 45's rendered it obsolete.

 

[cfullgraf]

I load and shoot 38/45 Clerke, another bottle neck cartridge developed for the 1911. At least the way I load for it, it does not perform any better than 38 Super.

But, enjoy forming cases, reloading the round and shooting it. It is fun when folks at the range see a strange cartridge being shot from a 1911.

You’d probably get similar reaction to 400 Corbin.

But not everyone liked the extra time and work.

An aside, there was a cartridge around for a brief time, 38 Casull. The case was essentially the same external dimensions as 38/45 Clerke but the case was designed for higher pressures and therefore higher velocities. The round did not catch on, maybe in part it was introduce around the same time 357 Sig hit the market.

 

[MikeInOr]

I am pretty sure 400 Corbon predated the common place use of 10mm in 1911's. Now days I don't think it has much practical advantage over 10mm.

 

[Walkalong]

I am pretty sure 400 Corbon predated the common place use of 10mm in 1911's

By a lot, iirc

 

[Ohen Cepel]

Necking down readily available cases has been done a lot, and I often think it is a good idea (at the time). Usually can run in the original platform and mags which is a plus. If one had buckets of 45, a 1911, and just needed a barrel/spring to do this it made sense. However, other/better options came along later.

 

[Miami_JBT]

During the Clinton AWB, if you were limited to 10rds, folks looked at every way to squeeze everything out of those 10rds. .400 Corbon, .45 Super, .460 Rowland, and .40 Super all were semi-popular during that time period.

 

[JTQ]

I am pretty sure 400 Corbon predated the common place use of 10mm in 1911's.

By a lot, iirc

"Common place use" maybe, but the Colt Delta Elite in 10mm predates the .400 Corbon by about a decade.

 

[LV Gun]

During the Clinton AWB, if you were limited to 10rds, folks looked at every way to squeeze everything out of those 10rds. .400 Corbon, .45 Super, .460 Rowland, and .40 Super all were semi-popular during that time period.

Yes they were popular during Clinton’s reign I have a Springfield V-16 Longslide in 45 super very hot cartridge.

 

[Miami_JBT]

Yes they were popular during Clinton’s reign I have a Springfield V-16 Longslide in 45 super very hot cartridge.

I remember those V-16 longslide guns.

 

[SDGlock23]

Never had one, but the idea was okay I guess. This was before 10mm had regained some of its popularity, so it offered an easy .400" option (barrel swap) to existing .45 ACP guns. There was also the more powerful .40 Super which was a .45 Win Mag, shortened to 10mm length and necked down, whereas the .400 CorBon was/is a necked down .45 ACP.

 

[Walkalong]

"Common place use" maybe, but the Colt Delta Elite in 10mm predates the .400 Corbon by about a decade.

 

[Rock185]

I always figured the 400 Corbon was just to keep the Corbon name out there, and since there were already about a Zillion easily converted 1911 type pistols out there, well..

I'd been a 10mm shooter/reloader since the first, and noticed something interesting when the 400 Corbon was introduced. With the factory 135 grain Corbon 10mm ammo, the advertised ballistics were suddenly reduced 50 FPS, while the new 400 Corbon was advertised at the higher velocity. I think that's what they call marketing

 

[Gun-Reck]

It's an interesting field round in a longer barrel.

Though have settled on the heavy .357Sig for that.

 

[jdh]

My reason for the 400 Corbon was a simple reaction to the over reaction of a COP. About half the department carried a 1911, the other half revolvers. We get a new chief who decreed no magnums in the revolvers and no 45s. What he wanted to do was get rid of the cocked and locked single action pistols, because they were offensive to the public, but wasn't firearm familiar as he thought he was. SO, several of use ordered 400 Corbon barrels and ammo. He then revised the policy to prohibit the "Colt's Government Model Pistol" and the Browning High Power. I bought a S&W 645 two weeks before he left the department for a bigger city Deputy Chief position.

I did keep the 400 barrel and put it in a parts built 1911.

 

[Jeff62]

No pressing reasons. I started playing with this round 20ish years ago and I’m still playing. I have .45 and 10mm too.
The process of making rounds and load development is interesting to me.

 

[CapnMac]

Was not the AWB so much as "gaming" the system to "make major" in IPSC, where all manner of expense was spent to gain a hundredth of a second in competition.
There were a lot of people bound and determined to spend a thousand on a $400 gun "for reasons." The market was all too happy to offer them ways to spend the dosh.
Which the gun periodicals were all to ohappy to tout as The Next Big Thing or The New Hotness. Which kept rice in their rice bowls, too.
All manner of things will make all manner of people happy, every so often for inexplicable reasons. After all, there were people who liked Disco.

 

[GarrettJ]

Was not the AWB so much as "gaming" the system to "make major" in IPSC, where all manner of expense was spent to gain a hundredth of a second in competition.

No, not so much this one.

.45 ACP already made major power factor easily and the .400 Corbon gave no advantage in mag capacity, having the same case diameter as the ACP. And people had been making major for years prior with .38 Super, which does provide a capacity advantage.

I had bought a .400 Corbon barrel in the ‘90s and payed with it for a while. I recall it being sold as an upgrade to give 10mm power without having to buy an expensive gun in that caliber.

The issue I had was the neck was too short to provide adequate neck tension. Chambering a round would often drive the bullet back in the case, driving pressures through the roof. This was the case with both factory ammo and reload.

I ended up selling the barrel a couple years later along with the loading dies and a pile of brass. I think I still have a box of factory .400 Corbon ammo somewhere.

 

[GarrettJ]

There were a lot of people bound and determined to spend a thousand on a $400 gun "for reasons." The market was all too happy to offer them ways to spend the dosh.
Which the gun periodicals were all to happy to tout as The Next Big Thing or The New Hotness.

I do agree with this statement. It seems like we get a new whiz-bang cartridge every couple of years. Only these rarely do something that an established cartridge isn’t already doing.

Look at the .350 Legend, .360 Buckhammer, .400 Legend, or .30 Super Carry for just a few recent examples.

 

[Miami_JBT]

Was not the AWB so much as "gaming" the system to "make major" in IPSC, where all manner of expense was spent to gain a hundredth of a second in competition.
There were a lot of people bound and determined to spend a thousand on a $400 gun "for reasons." The market was all too happy to offer them ways to spend the dosh.
Which the gun periodicals were all to ohappy to tout as The Next Big Thing or The New Hotness. Which kept rice in their rice bowls, too.
All manner of things will make all manner of people happy, every so often for inexplicable reasons. After all, there were people who liked Disco.

.356 TSW was designed specifically for gun golf and IPSC got angry and banned the cartridge, thus killing it. On paper, .356 TSW does everything perfect.

.357 SIG ballistics with 9x19mm capacity.