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Originally Posted by Webstral
I have a tangential question: when the law enforcement types of the world started the switch away from the 9mm, why was the switch made to .40 caliber instead of the M1911? Time and time again I read that people in the know think the M1911 is the best all-around handgun available. Is there a rationale beyond politics and magazine capacity?
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A little with trying to stay out the politics part too much. The FBI was involved in a shootout that did not go well for them. They were looking and found a pair of bank robbers, who they then got in a shootout with. In the about five minute shootout about 150 rounds were fired. In the end both robbers were killed and two agents. The agents were packing a combination of .357 Mags (shooting .38+P), some 9mm, and a pair of shotguns (with buckshot). The robbers one used a shotgun but he was taken out early so not really in the fight. The other used a Mini-14 rifle and he fired about 40 rounds. In the post investigation it was found that of the about 100 rounds fire by the agents they did not have the take down needed. This is were the FBI came up with there testing that is used today, they also made the 10mm as the "perfect" round. However it had to much recoil for most of their agents, was too large for there smaller stature agents. Smith and Wesson took the 10mm and made the .40 S&W. This started the trend in law enforcement to switch over to the .40. here is a link to the wickipedia page about the shootout.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout
As for the M1911 this was almost all politics, when law enforcement started switching over from the revolver they wanted to stick with the same basic size round (the .38 special and 9mm are basically the same). Some interesting things that I have read from actual shootings, those who have low capacity magazines ran out in the middle of gunfights less then those who had large capacity, as they keep better track of how many rounds they had.