Addendum to ‘More on the AR-24′

Posted on March 19th, 2007 in Guns by Justin

In my last post on the AR-24 I said that it would be a mistake to use the future .45ACP frame for the .40S&W version and I guess I need to explain that one a little bit.

Bad idea? Again, like I said last time, no, provided that they keep the grip size down.

Good idea? Sure — it’d be an interesting change in the marketplace.

Necessary idea? Fuck no. The Armalite is supposed to be of a higher grade steel than the actual CZs and they’ve already made .40S&W pistols on their model 75 platform with alloy frames that function just fine. I’ve gone one, actually, the CZ-RAMI, their sub-compact version.

If there were any design flaws in bumping their 9mm platform up to .40S&W then this one would be it. It’s tiny and the frame has got to be taking a good hammering because of this. I’m no gunsmith, so I can’t tell you why the CZ pistols should hold up to .40S&W, but I haven’t heard as much as a spattering about the RAMI being too fragile to handle .40S&W and given the amount of time I spend reading up on these things one would think that I’d have heard by now if it was an issue.

In fact I’ve never heard anything bad about bumping a 9mm up to .40S&W aside from Glock. The issue there isn’t the strength of the frame, it’s the chamber support provided by the barrel. They leave a significant portion of the cartride hanging out the back on their .40S&W versions, which, given the pressures of the cartridge and the weak brass has lead to a number of ka-BOOMs.

Or, so internet legend has it.

I’m not trying to bad-mouth Glock here, either. I realize it’s a design flaw, which I think may have been corrected, but I still consider my Glock 23 in .40S&W a great pistol and I have no fears what-so-ever firing it. What I’m getting at is that the worst transition ever from a 9mm platform to the .40S&W platform (Glock) is still really fucking good.

That’s why I think Armalite’s desire to chamber a .45ACP version of the CZ-75 in .40S&W is a silly idea. There’s just no reason to make such a move. If people wanted a .40S&W pistol built on a frame that can take .45ACP (and 10mm) then you’d see a bunch of 1911 clones out there that did, but you don’t. Nobody wants the extra beef that comes with the larger frame to support the compromise cartridge of .40S&W.

Again, build the .40S&W on the 9mm frame and give us a 10mm on the .45ACP frame. That we know the market supports.