Daily Caller by Sam Hoober, 7/25/2020
CCW Weekend: Why We Wouldn’t Have 10mm Or .40 S&W If .45 Had Gotten More Attention
It’s possible that 10mm and .40 S&W wouldn’t exist if enough people had bothered with developing .45 ACP to its full potential instead. Not only that, but it would have avoided most of the problems that 10mm and .40 S&W are associated with.
HOW DARE HE?!
Ha ha ha ha!
Let’s seriously consider the idea for a moment.
When .45 ACP was developed, the market generally preferred a flying ashtray for personal defense. Slow, heavy bullets that reliably punched through tissue; the notion of a FAST heavy bullet hadn’t really occurred to anyone yet. The .44 Magnum was still 40 years in the future.
The original factory load of .45 ACP was a 200-grain round nose FMJ with muzzle velocity of around 900 feet per second, but revised at the US government’s request to a 230-grain projectile of the same construction (FMJRN) at 830 to 850 fps. It did more or less what it was intended to do.
By the time that 10mm Auto was invented, people wanted an auto-loading cartridge that had more zing. 9mm (at the time) was considered anemic at best and .45 ACP – while serviceable – lacked the punch of .357 Magnum.
However, given that .45 ACP more or less did what it was invented to do the thought didn’t occur to too many people to just make it more powerful instead of inventing something totally new. The idea DID occur to Dean Grennell of “Guns and Ammo,†who invented the .45 Super. However, by the time he did so (which was in 1988) 10mm was already in production and pretty much nobody cared except for bowling pin shooters and hog hunters.
And herein layeth the point:
More:
https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/25/ccw-weekend-why-we-wouldnt-have-10mm-or-40-sw-if-45-had-gotten-more-attention/
