I Tested 10mm, .45 ACP & .357 Magnum — The Biggest Lie In The Gun Industry

📖 Get The Old Gun Hand, fifty years at the gunsmith's bench, written down: https://ivansjournal.com Go and pull a box of 10mm out of your safe and turn it over. Read the velocity on the side. If it says somewhere around 1,030 feet per second, you are not shooting the magnum you paid for. You are shooting a .40 S&W in a longer case. I did exactly that for the better part of two years. Same pistol, same holster, same proud little speech at the range about how much power I was carrying. And the whole time the box on my bench was telling a different story. So nobody writes in about it, here is where I stand. I have owned the .45 ACP, the .357 Magnum and the 10mm Auto long enough to stop believing the gun counter. I have shot them side by side, carried them in the woods, and paid for every round out of my own pocket. There is a clear winner. It just is not won the way most people think. The .45 taught me the first lesson. I used to call it the old, slow one. Then I looked at the pressure. Standard .45 ACP runs at 21,000 PSI, against about 35,000 for 9mm and .40. That low pressure is not a flaw anybody forgot to fix. It is the whole personality of the cartridge. It pushes instead of snapping, and it was built to last. What we go through: The .45 ACP, 230 grain ball at about 850 feet per second, and why third place on paper is not the whole story The strange life of the 10mm Auto, from Jeff Cooper and the Bren Ten to the Colt Delta Elite The FBI reduced load, the recoil story most people tell wrong, and how it became the .40 S&W The box that embarrassed me, 1,030 fps against Underwood's 180 grain Gold Dot at about 1,300 The Glock 20 Gen 5 MOS, fifteen rounds in a pistol around thirty ounces Why practice 10mm and practice .45 now cost about the same, and the catch hiding in that The two numbers to read on every box before it goes in the range bag The .357 Magnum, the 1935 Registered Magnum, and a $60 revolver in the middle of the Depression Shooting .38 Special in a .357, and why it only ever goes one way The lever gun that nearly doubles the energy of the same round What 200 plus documented bear defense cases really prove, and what they do not Why the round you can hit with fast beats the round that looks better on paper Magazine limits, state rules, and why the best gun changes depending on where you live The verdict, with the asterisk nobody prints Said plainly on safety: .38 Special in a .357 Magnum is fine. Never the other way around, and always match the ammunition to what is stamped on the barrel. If you carry full-power 10mm, shoot enough of it to know how it feels, because cheap range ammo often recoils like a warm .40. If you walk big-bear country, a handgun is not a rifle or a shotgun, and bear spray belongs in the conversation. Check your own state and local laws before you build a plan around any of these. There is no trick in any of this. The velocity is printed right there on the box. It is only that nobody at the gun counter tells you to turn it over and read it. I have kept notebooks for thirty years, every load, every gun, every mistake I would rather not repeat. The lessons worth keeping are in my book at ivansjournal.com Tonight, go to your safe, pull out every box of 10mm you own, and look at the bullet weight and the velocity. A 180 grain bullet down near 1,000 is practice ammo. Up near 1,200 or better is a different animal. Tell me in the comments what your box says. And if you own a .357 lever gun, tell me if I am overselling it. #10mm #357Magnum #45ACP #Glock20 #10mmAuto #LeverAction #1911 #Revolver #BearDefense #HandgunAmmo #40SW #GunHistory #ConcealedCarry #Ballistics