From: bressler@iftccu.ca.boeing.com (Rick Bressler)
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: 10mm information needed
Date: 27 Aug 92 13:22:46 GMT
Organization: Boeing Commercial Airplane Group


/ iftccu:rec.guns / cbl@uihepa.hep.uiuc.edu (Chris Luchini) /  2:20 pm  Aug 25, 1992 /
#inherently less reliable in an auto.

#	Yes, the lack of body taper may have a larger effect on reliability,
#	but the 45acp similarly has very little body taper.

I've seen several responses along these lines to my post on .40 vs 10mm.
I DID try to point out that this was only my opinion.  I should have 
had my head examined for even daring to have an opinion on the such 
matters as cartridge selection and religious preference! :-)

I wasn't trying to bad mouth the 10!  I was just pointing out some of
the reasons, IMHO why the .40 was surpassing it in popularity as a
defense round.  I don't think anything I said can be demonstrated to be
false.   I certainly appreciate getting the other side of the story from
what appears to be some real 10mm fans though.  On the other hand, some
of the replies were pretty strong, so I feel that I should clarify my
comments just a bit.

My opinion on the 10 WAS formed by some rather knowledgeable people.
John Farnum for example quoted a couple of well known 'smiths as well as
his own opinion.  Now I did note he could have had some bias, he was
wearing a S&W .40!  Either that, or he was practicing what he preached.

His point was that shorter cartridges NEED less taper, (and yes, the .45
ACP has about .010 taper) and make for smaller guns, (shorter actions.)
Actually, taper isn't the whole story either.  The way it was explained
to me was getting a reliable feed from the magazine is easier with a
shorter cartridge.  Maybe that is why most machine guns are belt fed :-)
And before we get into another NFA argument, I used machine gun in what
I believe to be the military sense, that is:  non-pistol caliber
automatic weapon :-).  I'll probably burn in hell on sci.military for
that one.  :-)

Farnum's opinion, and mine after listening to several sources is pretty
much what I have stated before.  The fact that the 10 is rapidly fading
in popularity kind of supports them.

To those who claim that you can download the 10 to .40 velocities, I say
then, why not get a .40?  There are some real advantages in doing so.

Now, there are auto's out there that will shoot .357 and .44 mag, rimmed
cartridges in addition to being long and straight sided, so I'm not
saying that it can't be done.  How many police departments do you see
using these for self defense?  (Not that the cops always have the 
last word in self defense, they are just getting away from their .357's.)

Any self defense arm is going to probably wind up being a compromise
between conceilabilty, weight, size, capacity, grip size (determined in
semi auto's largely by magazine and cartridge size) and a host of other
things.

I have no doubt that the 10 will continue to have a loyal following for
some time.  I happen to like .44spl, but that does not change the fact
that advancing technology has pretty much obsoleted it for defense
purposes.  I have no desire to malign anybody choosing to use the 10mm
cartridge.  I was only trying to point out it's short comings as a
defense cartridge, which I believe had something to do with what the
original poster wanted information on.

I stand by my opinion that a newcomer choosing between the .40 and 10mm
would be better served by choosing the .40S&W.

Rick.