.40 Super
| .40 Super | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
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| Type | Pistol | |||||||
| Place of origin | United States | |||||||
| Production history | ||||||||
| Designed | 1996 | |||||||
| Manufacturer | Triton Cartridge | |||||||
| Specifications | ||||||||
| Parent case | .45 Winchester Magnum | |||||||
| Case type | Rimless, bottleneck | |||||||
| Bullet diameter | .400 in (10.2 mm) | |||||||
| Base diameter | .471 in (12.0 mm) | |||||||
| Rim diameter | .475 in (12.1 mm) | |||||||
| Rim thickness | .049 in (1.2 mm) | |||||||
| Case length | .988 in (25.1 mm) | |||||||
| Primer type | small pistol magnum or small rifle magnum | |||||||
| Ballistic performance | ||||||||
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The .40 Super is a powerful automatic pistol cartridge developed in 1996 and introduced to the market by Triton Cartridge. The cartridge was co-developed by Fernando Coelho and Tom Burczynski.
It never attained mainstream success, Triton Cartidge folded, and supplies and support is now very limited.
In 1994 Triton Cartridge, an ammunition company based in upstate NY, released a cartridge called the .45 Super. Essentially, the .45 Super is based on a .451Detonics case trimmed to .45 ACP length. Pioneered by writers Dean Grennell and the late Tom Ferguson, the .45 Super raised the performance level for .45 ACP-chambered autos beyond that of the .45 ACP+P and even the 10mm.
With the availability of the strong .45 Super cartridge case, in January 1996 Fernando Coelho (president and founder of Triton Cartridge) and Tom Burczynski (inventor of Hydra-Shok, Starfire and Quik-Shok bullets) began work on a new, more radical cartridge. Based on a .45 Super necked down to .40 caliber, the new cartridge began to take shape.
Actually, necking a .45 ACP to .40 caliber was nothing new. Before the public debut of the .40 S&W, Charles Petty, a well-known and respected writer, had already ventured into the bottleneck arena. His cartridge, called the “10mm Centaur”, was based on a .45 ACP case necked to .40 caliber using 10mm dies. Prior to that, Dean Grennell took .451Detonics cases and necked them down to 9mm, calling it the .38/45 Hard Head.
Charles Petty and Tony Rumore (Tromix) were major contributors in the initial load development for Triton’s new cartridge. During that time, Triton began closely examining the specific attributes of the cartridge (feed reliability, case strength, down-range ballistic performance, etc.). In order to maximize the performance potential and reliability of the new cartridge, it was decided to lengthen the cartridge case from .45 ACP (.898”) to 10mm (.992”) length. By trimming .45 Winchester Magnum brass to 10mm case length and necking them to .40 caliber, the .40 Super began to take final shape.
Working closely with Starline Brass Company, more testing was conducted on the cartridge case. These tests led to further improvements. A small primer pocket replaced the large primer pocket. This allowed the use of small pistol magnum or small rifle primers and helped control primer flow. The final improvement came with the increased thickness of the cartridge case wall from the web area up to the beginning of the shoulder. This created a cartridge case stronger than the .45 Winchester Magnum cartridge case.
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Wikipedia