Personal protection: .357 SIG vs. .40 s/w

[Music] [Music] hi we're out on the rain statistics please bear with gun fire you hear in the background today at long last we're talking about the 357 sig and hopefully this will be the first in a series of presentations on this cartridge and today we're comparing the 357 sig to the 40 Smith & Wesson so before we go any farther let me show you a close-up of these two rounds on your left is a 40 Smith & Wesson and on your right is the 357 sig which essentially is a 40 Smith & Wesson just necked down to a projectile diameter of three five five and yes even though it's called 357 any documentation I have seen reports that projectile diameter is three five five the same as a nine by nineteen now for test guns I've got this Glock model 22 in caliber 40 Smith & Wesson and this Glock model 31 in caliber 357 sig these two handguns are virtually identical in terms of length width height weight trigger pull sights so that'll take the extraneous variable of the firearms out of the equation so let's shoot these two calibers side-by-side and see what we can learn and we'll start with the mundane task of shooting the chronograph now the problem was coming up with an ammunition that would be considered fair and a chronograph test and what I've got is this Hornady custom for 357 sig it's a 147 grain jacketed hollow-point and for 40 Smith and Wesson is 155 grand jacketed hollow-point eight grains of difference in projectile weight I think we can live with that so let's go to the chronograph and see what it tells us and we'll start with the 357 sig 1282 1272 1278 1293 now let's try the 40 11:58 1180 1151 and 1189 now let's go crunch the number it's a hard we do with a 40 Smith & Wesson we got a mean velocity of 1169 without 357 sig it was one thousand two hundred and eighty-one that's a hundred and twelve feet per second more now granted the projectile weight is eight grains less but that's not enough less to account for that increase in velocity so it would seem our 357 sig has significantly more velocity now in these two a munitions I tried to get the bullet weight pretty close but typically the 357 sig will shoot a projectile that's a lot lighter than the 40 Smith & Wesson for example in this Remington green and white box ammunition the 40 Smith & Wesson is a 180 grain Full Metal Jacket as where its equivalent in 357 sig is a hundred and twenty-five grain Full Metal Jacket so let's take these two to the coronagraph and see what kind of difference in velocity you can get and we'll start with the 357 sig [Music] 1390 1380 1395 1398 now let's try the 40 Smith & Wesson 9 71 951 959 & 970 now let's go crunch those no now what did the numbers tell us over there 40 Smith & Wesson we got a mean velocity of 962 with the 357 sig it was one thousand three hundred and ninety that's four hundred and twenty-eight feet per second more okay that's a lot more however it's with a much lighter bullet one hundred and twenty-five grain versus 180 so how does that translate out in terms of energy foot-pounds well if I've done my math right with the 40 Smith & Wesson it was three hundred and sixty-nine and with the 357 sig it was 536 that's 167 energy foot-pounds more so we can say that the 357 sig is more powerful than the 40 Smith & Wesson how much more will depend on the ammunition you buy but do those numbers really translate into more effectiveness well let's shoot some different target mediums and see what we can learn about that energy foot-pounds aside there's a mentality that a heavier slower bullet can do more damage than a lighter faster bullet and that does have merit in some applications but let's see how that stands up to our $2 cinder blocks I'll go back 10 yards and I'll shoot the target on your left with the 357 sig 125 grand 12 Metal Jacket and the target on your right with the 40 Smith & Wesson 180 grain Full Metal Jacket and we'll see what happened so with our 357 sig it took five shots with 40 Smith & Wesson it took six shots so let's put up a couple of new concrete blocks try that again and see if we can confirm that result so with our first iteration we had five and six shots this time we had five and eight shots however did you notice at least one of those shots just nicked the edge of the cinder block so this time the disparity has a little bit to do with shot placement but with the ammunition I'm using our 357 sig had 428 feet per second more velocity and 167 more energy foot-pounds but that didn't really translate into a whole lot more effectiveness at least if you're being attacked by a horde of concrete blocks so we've got our favorite target soda jugs I guess technically they're bottles but I like to say jugs we've got one then one then two then three and then three water jugs and I'll shoot these from seven yards and we'll use our Hornady custom ammunition and we'll start with the 357 sig 147 grain jacketed hollow point well that was pretty impressive now here's the root beer bottle that was in the front and split the jug wide open did a lot of damage to some of our other jugs the projectile did not make it to the water jugs in back so I'll set this up again shoot it with a 357 again and see if we get a similar result well again the projectile did not make it to our water jugs and our initial contact root beer jug this time has a lot of damage to it and the bullet is kicking around in here so we'll set this up again and then try it with our 40 Smith & Wesson and see how it compares well the bullet did some damage to our initial contact root beer jug and again the bullet is kicking around in a bottle of red soda but it doesn't seem to have disrupted our entire target quite as much didn't seem to knock our water bottles quite as far as the 357 did so I'll set this up again shoot it with the 40 Smith & Wesson again and see if we get a result consistent with this one now this time the 40 did a lot of damage to our initial contact root beer jug but overall which did more damage to our target the 357 or the 40 you be the judge now let me show you a close-up of the projectiles so on your left or the 357 sig projectiles and on your right the 40 Smith & Wesson you can see they're all mushroomed almost perfectly but then the soda jugs are an almost perfect medium for bullet expansion you can also see that the 40 Smith & Wesson's have expanded to be significantly bigger than the 357 s but they were significantly bigger when they started the question comes up whether or not a 357 sig can penetrate three a body armor well here's some three a body armor and if you were wearing it your body would have some give so I've got it attached to this barrel that has some give and I'm going to shoot it with the ammunition I think most likely to penetrate which will be this Remington green and white box 357 sig 125 grain Full Metal Jacket round nose now you may notice our body armor already has some damage done to it it's been shot a couple of times but I don't think it's damaged badly enough to really compromise our results so I'll shoot it from 7 yards and we'll see what happens okay now this piece of three a body armor is pretty well compromised but it did stop all five bullets couple of them bounced out but I did recover three of them that we're stuck in the vest let's take a close-up look at and there's those 125 grand Full Metal Jacket rounds after I dug them out of the three a body armor and now of course it's time for the meet target for those who haven't seen it it's a pork chop pectoral followed by pork ribs watermelon lung tissue more pork ribs on the back leather jacket skin the lining of the leather jacket will act as clothing behind that as always the high tech police bullet stop and we're back to our quantity custom ammunition I'll go back seven yards and I'll shoot with our 357 sig 147 grain jacketed hollow-point and then we'll repeat that with the 40 Smith & Wesson and see how they compare okay bullets went through our pork chop pectoral and into our ribs on the front and remember these are the entrance holes in the ribs on the front lots of damage pulverize the ribs our watermelon lung tissue speaks for itself all four bullets went through the ribs and through the leather jacket skin on the back three of the four were stopped by the first layer of fleece the fourth one went into about the fifth layer let me show you a close-up with the projectiles all four of these are mushroomed very well and very consistently which says something about 357 sig and Hornady custom ammo now let's see how the 40 Smith & Wesson compares and again the Hornady custom 40 Smith & Wesson is 155 grain jacketed hollow-point well we've perforated our porkchop pectoral say that three times fast here's our ribs on the front where the projectiles hit the ribs shattered them doesn't seem to have done quite as much damage since the 357 sig did but still did pretty well our watermelon lung tissue is annihilated and again all of our projectiles were stopped by the first Mounted Police let me show you a close-up huh now one of our projectiles fell out on the ground and I couldn't find it but again we see pretty good expansion one of them not quite so much but overall not bad now we saw that the 357 in the 40 performed very well and unique target at 7 yards but there's one more thing I want to cover hollow-point projectiles are velocity based the faster you propel them the more expansion you'll get the more damage they'll do up to a point if you propel a hollow-point too slowly it will drop below what we call expansion threshold the velocity at which you'll get any kind of expansion a lot of projectiles when they leave the muzzle they are barely above expansion threshold a good example is 45 ACP 230 grand hollow points some of those I've used expand well at 7 yards but when I shoot a deer that's 50 yards away in that distance they've dropped below expansion threshold so the 357 sig with its much higher velocity than the 40 Smith & Wesson will that keep you above that threshold at longer distances well I've got this battery of water jugs backed up by the high-tech police bullet stop and I'll go back 60 yards and shoot this with our Hornady custom ammunition well shoot it with the 357 repeat that with the 40 and see if there's any difference well the concept worked I recovered the bullet and the expansion was quite good however this was not quite as stable as I hoped it would be so I'll put it back together we'll shoot the rest of them off-camera and I'll show you the projectiles when we're done so our water jug target did fall apart a few more times but we eventually got some shots fired and recovered some bullets on your left is the 357 sig projectiles and on your right or the 40s myth and Wesson which you can see are expanded quite well so it would depend on which kind of ammunition you buy but it would appear that at whatever distance the 40 is going to drop below banshan threshold is probably a lot farther than 60 yards well we're losing light what's the take away from all of this well on paper it appears that the 357 sig is more powerful than the 40 Smith & Wesson to what degree will depend on what ammunition you buy and that greater degree of power did seem to give us an edge albeit a slight one in shooting things like the soda jugs the cinder blocks and the meat target and it goes without saying that with a velocity that can be a hundred feet per second or four hundred plus feet per second greater than the forty depending on the annual you buy but at extreme distances like 150 or 200 yards you're gonna have a lot less drop with the 357 sig the downside though is when I go to the store and try to buy 357 sig ammo it is significantly less available than 40 there's less varieties than there are for 40 and the price is almost always significantly higher so a good round I'd say yes the right one for you you be the judge so as always don't try this at home on what you call a professional and thanks for watching the 357 sig versus the 40 Smith & Wesson video [Music]

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Length: 14min 48sec (888 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 19 2017