[Jiman]

I think it first depends on if the gun is built around the 40 caliber or originally a 9mm bored out and modded to shoot 40. IME, most 40cal guns are designed around the 180gr round. Shooting something hotter like a 165gr round can definitely stress and break parts more frequently. At one point I broke practically every part on my issued G22 shooting Speer 165 GD, except the barrel. It was sent back to Austria at their request and they came back with….stop shooting the Speer, it was designed to shoot 180gr.

 

[Jiman]

Interesting. I didn't know most .40 guns were designed around the 180gr bullet.

I never heard of a manufacturer telling a gun owner to avoid certain grain bullets except for very light bullets through a .357 magnum revolver. What generation was your G22?

The original FBI 40 S&W that Winchester helped develop ended up being a 180gr round. As for bored out 9mms, that probably doesn’t happen anymore, but in the late 90’s/early 2000’s it was pretty common. Now, I think they make dedicated 40 cal guns from the start because it’s part of the reason you can do a caliber conversion from 40 to 9mm but not the other way around. I did that with an M&P40 I bought.

I don’t remember what Gen my G22 was. It was @1997 - 1998 IIRC. I was on a specialty unit and we shot a lot. Ammo was for all practical purposes, limitless. It was up to us to stay proficient, so not everyone shot the same amount of ammo. It was common for me to shoot a case every time we went out. At the time I easily had the most rounds through our Glocks. I just liked to shoot and there was always ammo…those were the days.

Pins broke regularly, but I was always impressed that most of the time the gun would keep shooting until you took it apart. I broke the trigger bar, locking block, cracked slide/frame, extractor, etc…

I don’t think it’s something most will ever experience. At the time I didn’t know the difference between 180gr or 165gr until Glock mentioned it. For us it wasn’t an option. Our agency was locked into a multi-year ammo contract, so 165 was it. I shot what I was told to shoot. We didn’t even have “training“ ammo. We shot cases worth of Speer GD. Eventually frangible ammo started to become available, but our MP5s (40cal) didn’t like them unless we used a ”low impulse” locking lug.…so most of the time we still just shot GD.

My SWAG is if you shot a constant diet of NATO 9mm +p+ and 40, the failure rates would be similar because you’re basically shooting two rounds that are loaded to max SAAMI specs/pressures.