I am not an IT expert by any stretch of the imagination. Still, I am doing OK with this server upgrade. Some of these concepts are new, some not so new. Still, I am doing alright with the upgrades. I spent the day installing some upgrades.
Mounting
I first tried to mount the cabinet, but it was designed for studs that are 16 inches on center, and my walls have 24 inch stud spacing. I cut me two 1×6″ Spruce boards 26 inches long. I drilled them for screws to attach to the studs, and also drilled 5/16 holes 16 inches apart, then I drilled a countersink centered on those holes. Those holes fit a 5/16 bolt and washer. I painted the boards to match the wall, then attached them to the studs with 4 #8x 3″ wood screws at each end of the board.
Now I had two boards spanning the studs with 5/16″ bolts sticking out that matched the mounting holes on the cabinet that allowed me to bolt the cabinet to them.
If you look below the cabinet, you can see the old onQ panel this cabinet is replacing. Once all is done, I will remove it and drywall over the hole. Yeah, the reflections in the glass show the toilet paper and paper town reserves I keep on top of the laundry room cabinets.
Installing Equipment
I put a thermostat in the cabinet that will control the exhaust fan. Then I attached my devices to the racks:
12U Omada SG3218XP-M2 POE managed switch. This is the main switch for my network.
10U Keystone 24 pin patch panel. Ports1-5 are reserved for Infrastructure connections like modem, UPS, Moca, 6-15 are for POE devices like AP’s, 16-18 are for non powered devices, and 19 thru 24 are for cameras
9U is a SG2210XMP, currently an unused switch but I plan on having it be the switch for my future IP security cameras
8U, 7U, 6U are open.
5U is a shelf with a Moca unit, the modem, and a switch that cycles power to the gateway and modem in the event it cannot access the Internet
4U is a power distribution unit
3U and 2U are currently vacant, but will have a Synology RS1221+ as a storage drive and for future cameras
1U is a 500 watt UPS. I know it’s small for what I am powering, but I am only using it to bridge the second or two that it takes my Powerwalls to take over when grid power fails.
I got everything wired and labeled. The network is fully functional and stable, and the entire thing went as smoothly as I could have hoped. It took me longer to mount the cabinet on the wall than it did to get the network up and running. I now no longer have a home level network. This is bordering on prosumer level stuff.
You will note the empty slots for the second switch and the double drive server. Im waiting on parts for those. I will also neaten up the wires a bit.
Setting Up Virtual Networks
The last thing I did today was set up several VLANs:
Management, VLAN 10
VLAN 30 for IOT devices.
Servers, VLAN 40
Guest Network VLAN 50
Security Cameras, VLAN 60
To verify that it works, I logged in to the guest network SSID and was assigned an IP of 192.xx.50.x. I haven’t created rules yet, just wanted to make sure I did it correctly.
Moving Forward
Tomorrow, I will install the disk server, a Synology RS1221+. I don’t have disk drives for it yet, but that’s coming. Once that is installed, I will begin to place devices and clients into the various VLANs. Once that is sorted, I will begin assigning rules. One step at a time.
I am not planning on working on or installing cameras until the weather cools enough for me to get in the attic and run more Ethernet cables, so not until at least October or November.
Records, communication, and security are all important parts of prepping. A robust computer network can work of all of those things. We’ve talked about the other sections of the prepping pyramid, but haven’t spent a lot of time on how we can use information technology to strengthen the other sections of the pyramid.
I wasn’t happy with how crowded and sloppy the onQ panel that contains everything is. It looks like a bowl of spaghetti and even though I have the largest panel made, it’s still crowded.
I am using Ring Cameras for surveillance, but I am not happy with them, for reasons that will be covered in a future post.
I have a Terramaster NAS with four 4TB NvMe SSDs in it, but I can’t get those SSDs any more because they now cost 5 times more than they once did.
There is a second setup in the bedroom I use as an office. It has an Omada switch, and it runs my office equipment. The issue is the UPS there just died, and I want everything consolidated, so I am moving that into the main server.
So I have decided to make a few changes. We are keeping the Omada system, but I am making a few upgrades.
I am mounting a 12U server cabinet on the wall of the utility closet in the house. This will make things cleaner and easier to manage.
I will be putting an 8 bay HDD rack in the cabinet. It will be used as both a NDVR and as a NAS device.
Three rooms in the house are device dense: the living room, the master bedroom, and the office. I am going to clean up the architecture a bit to make things faster and more resilient.
So how are we doing this? Well, in the racks, there will be:
A rackmount UPS. I just need enough storage to ridge the second or two it takes my powerwalls to take over when the power fails.
Power distribution
An Omada controller
An Omada gateway
A 24 port keystone patch panel
An Omada 16 port managed POE switch
an 8 bay rackmount HDD rack.
A shelf where the modem will be, along with my current NAS (until the HDD rack is installed)
There will be 4 remaining U for future additions
Records
Records are important. Having copies of things like financial records, professional licenses, certifications, and other important documents will allow you to rebuild your life in the aftermath of a large disaster. Ask the residents whose lives were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina how important those records were in doing that. Having a robust set of electronic records with copies of every important document, all in a RAID, is a great step towards that goal. I am thinking of at least 12TB of RAID storage space for important files. I need it, because I scan every document, bill, and receipt that comes into this house.
Security
One or two of the HDD bays will be reserved for surveillance hard drives. I am looking at 20TB or more of storage space for the camera system. Once the weather gets cooler, I am planning on running Ethernet cables in the attic for a PTZ camera, two outdoor wide view cameras, a doorbell camera, and one or two covering other areas of the property, all in 4k. So, a total of 5-6 cameras that will record 24/7. That takes up more storage space than my documents and files.
That’s the hardware. I will also have it organized into several VLANs for network security. There will be a VLAN for:
One for infrastructure. This will allow APs to be on their own VLAN, as well as controllers and those sorts of things.
IOT devices, so I can limit how much they will spy on the rest of the house. They will only access each other and the Internet.
Entertainment devices like televisions and SONOS speakers. Internet only
A Guest VLAN that will only have access to a printer and the Internet
Then phones belonging to my wife and I that will have full access.
I will decide more on rules later, but that is the idea in my head for now.
Implementation
First step is to get all of the hardware installed and move the network that already exists into the server cabinet. Then I will setup VLANs. After that, we will install the HDD rack and move the NAS files there. I have another HDD based NAS that I can use as a backup file server.
This is a story of me afro-engineering a solution to some flooding that happened to my rear lanai. Now that there is a pool behind the house, what was our back porch has been closed off by an electric hurricane screen. There is some outdoor furniture and a TV in there, and it now serves as a sort of “Florida Room” and a place to store outdoor items when a hurricane comes. More on that in a different post.
We had a thunderstorm come through on Saturday, and it was a fairly strong one. We got just over 3 inches of rain in less than 45 minutes. That caused a bit of an issue. When we put the pool in, the contractor put a drain in place that lies at the end of the pool deck closest to the house. It looks like this.
That is just a slot in the concrete about 2 inches wide and 4 inches deep. It discharges on both sides of the slab. Right above where that discharges, the downspouts from the gutter discharge. I dug a trench at that point, and ran a 4 inch corrugated pipe that runs about 20 feet back from the house. At the end closest to the house, it looks like this (pictured is not mine, it’s from the Internet):
The discharge was one of these valves.
When the pipe fills with water, the weight of the water causes the valve to open. Well, as near as I can tell, the rain was coming down so hard that the drains were quickly overwhelmed, the area near the inlet to the drain pipes was soon underwater, and this caused a backup that flooded my rear lanai with about an inch of water. The rug out there was saturated, but luckily it’s an outdoor rug, so a couple of hours and a fan soon dried it out, no harm.
While it was raining, I went outside to see what the problem was. It had been so long since we had gotten any real rain, everything was clogged with dead oak leaves: the downspouts, the intake drains, all of it. So I cleared the leaves out, but that didn’t help a lot, and got me bitten on the hand by a rather large, angry spider that had been nesting in the leaves.
I spent Sunday digging up the ends of the drain pipe, and I replaced the intakes with this:
Since it is taller and not flat like the old ones, the hope is that this grate can handle more water AND is not likely to be clogged with leaves. Then I also replaced the discharge valves with these.
I am hoping that this will be large enough to allow more flow through the pipe. According to my math, a 4 inch corrugated pipe that is 20 feet long with a 1 inch drop every ten feet should be able to move about 75 gallons per minute. I have two of them (one on each side of the house) so I should be able to drain about 150 gpm.
Also according to my calculations, a rate of 3 inches of rain in 45 minutes is about 30 gallons per minute. This system should be able to keep up now, if I can keep it free of leaves. I guess we will find out next time we get a good rain, which in Florida is about once a week or so.
Keeping water out of the house is important, and no all prepping is sexy. Hope this helps someone else.
Those of you who read here know that I retired from the Fire Department in 2011, after spending nearly 3 decades putting out fires and rescuing damsels. So when I read a story like this one, I can tell you exactly what happened:
The power was out for days. Appliances like stovetops are frequently left on when the power is out. Once power is restored, the stove top comes back on, but there are usually things piled on top of the burners, things like boxes of food, utensils, and other flammable objects. Now you have a fire. If no one is home to detect it, the first hint anyone has is when the fire burns a hole to the outside (called self-venting) and a passer-by notices the flames. By then, it’s too late to do anything but keep the fire from spreading to other, nearby houses.
Generally, once a fire leaves the room of origin, the house is a total loss. When a fire starts, if it isn’t extinguished within 10 minutes (most times even less than that) the house will be a total loss.
For that reason, when the power goes out, best practice is to turn off every circuit breaker in the house, save one that powers a lamp, so when it does come back on, you will know it when the light turns on, but the chances of a fire are minimized.
The goal of any color revolution is twofold: to convince the citizens that the government is powerless or unwilling to protect them, and that the insurgents ARE and WILL protect them. They need to create a failure of basic government services, like the rule of law. When enough people become restless and convinced that the rule of law has failed, that critical mass of people will look for a savior. That is when those who would overthrow the government step forward and offer to do what the people think the government cannot. The government is talking about increasing their security posture, and i recommended this morning that each of us do the same:
The threat landscape appears to look like this:
Political Orgs: The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the primary political arm, with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) close behind. PSL is part of the Neville Roy Singham network and serves as their vehicle for running political candidates.
Militant Anarchists: A growing militant wing trains in weapons and self-defense, including groups such as Antifa, the Socialist Rifle Association, Armed Queers, Behind Enemy Lines, Code Pink, the ANSWER Coalition, The People’s Forum, BT News, and Unity of Fields.
Climate Activism: Billions have flowed into climate-activist organizations, many of which increasingly employ anarchists.
Social & Racial Justice Groups: Since the rise of BLM, billions—public funds included—have supported the social and racial justice groups that regularly advocate for burning down the country.
Civil-Rights & Legal Orgs: Legacy anti-Western activists (“movement lawyers”) staff these groups, suing governments, police, and schools while training allies to push limits without triggering terrorism charges.
Foreign Interest Groups: Beyond the Neville Roy Singham network, other foreign powers, including the CCP, maintain domestic footholds.
Funding: Much of the money for this revolutionary activity comes from the progressive NGO ecosystem—Open Society Foundations, Tides, Ford, Rockefeller Brothers, Arabella Advisors, and the broader dark-money network.
“We cannot be led by those who wish for America to be like it once was; instead, we must assert that America must be no more,” Armed Queers wrote in a Substack post.
Armed Queers is affiliated with La Mecha. I have blogged about those assholes before- in 2007, in fact. I noted then that they had local chapters on many college campuses.
Here is one of the first lines of the group’s manifesto:
Chicano and Chicana students of Aztlan must take upon themselves the responsibilities to promote Chicanismo within the community, politicizing our Raza with an emphasis on indigenous consciousness to continue the struggle for the self-determination of the Chicano people for the purpose of liberating Aztlan.
There won’t just be two sides in the upcoming CW. There will be all sorts of factions fighting it out. That’s why I am opposed to the war that is coming- it will be a bloodbath.
This is the redneck engineering that went into the window covers from earlier in the week. This will help my Gulf Coast readers. I try to improve hurricane preps every August as I get ready for the start of the season peak.
When the National Weather Service sets the classification of a Hurricane, they always list the maximum wind speed. The thing about that is the maximum winds are only found within a very small area- about 10 miles from the center or so. I did a pretty comprehensive post on the NHC and hurricanes, you can read it here. Since I rode out Milton just last year, let’s go over some facts:
Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, which is 20 miles south of the entrance to Tampa Bay, as a category 3 storm with 120 mile per hour winds.
Hillsborough County: Peak wind gusts 80 to 100 mph,
Polk County: Peak wind gusts 80 to 90 mph,
Pasco County: Peak wind gusts 65 to 75 mph,
Hernando County: Peak wind gusts 60 to 70 mph,
Citrus County: Peak wind gusts 50 to 60 mph.,
Note that wind speeds drop off dramatically once you begin moving away from the area of the coast where landfall occurs. A CAT 3 storm produces CAT 2 winds once you are 20 miles or so from the landfall, 40 miles from landfall gets you CAT 1 winds, and by the time you are 60 miles out, you are likely to only see Tropical storm force winds.
If you measure Florida’s peninsula, it’s between about 120 to 150 miles across for most of its length. If you live in the center, you are already about 65 miles from the coast. Meaning that, unless the core of the storm hits the coast closest to your house and makes a beeline to pass directly overhead within 6 to 8 hours of the Hurricane making landfall, you are unlikely to see winds that are any higher than 75 miles per hour with a CAT 3 storm, or about 100 miles per hour with a CAT 5. All houses built in Florida since 1998, when the state’s uniform Hurricane building code was adopted, have to withstand winds of up to 115 mph. The building codes have done a good job. Here are the average claims for Hurricane Ian, broken down by the decade each house was built:
With these newer building codes, the most significant weaknesses of homes are 1: flooding from wind driven water (called storm surge); and 2: missiles and flying debris being tossed by the wind breaking a window.
Storm surge isn’t an issue unless you live within a mile or two of a large body of water, so it’s wind driven debris breaking a window that is the primary concern. So we need to defend our homes from wind driven debris, and from the wind pressure itself.
Why is that important?
A wind speed of 120 miles per hour exerts a force of about 37 pounds per square foot, that drops to 26 pounds at 100 miles per hour, 16 pounds at 80 miles per hour, and only 9 pounds at 60 miles per hour. It’s a square function.
My windows are 3 feet by 5 feet, making them 15 square feet. At 120 mph, there is over 550 pounds of force acting on that window, if the wind is hitting it straight on!
The fasteners I am using are 3M Dual Lock 250/250 tape that is 0.5″ x 2.0″, resulting in 1 square inch in area. It takes 2.2 pounds per square inch to separate, and I am placing 20 of these strips around the outside of the panel to hold it to the window frame. It will take 44 pounds of force to remove the panel from the frame. This is equivalent to a 40 mile per hour wind directly pushing the panel away from the window.
I know what you are thinking at this point- how in the world are we going to use a Velcro like product to secure a panel to a window against 500 pounds of wind force, when the product only requires 44 pounds of force to remove? If the panel can be removed by a person, surely it can be removed by wind of this strength? To answer this, look at the directions involved. The wind would be pushing the panel IN to the window, while the fasteners are acting to keep it from falling out.
Is my engineering as good as a professional structural engineer backed by wind tunnel testing? No, I am sure that it isn’t. But my engineering is less than half of the cost, and sometimes good enough is good enough.
My real challenge here is how I am going to attach these panels to the upstairs windows. They are more than 15 feet from ground level, and I can’t reach the top of the frame from inside of the second floor.
As a test, I bought 4 panels and some supplies to attach them. Let’s see how they do.
I measured and cut the first panel, primed the surfaces of the panel and the window frame, then put the tape on the frame. Then I simply pressed the panel into the place where I wanted it. It is firmly in place, but at the same time, you can get a finger between the panel and window frame and remove it with a firm tug. Total time for this first panel was about an hour, but the others should be faster.
Of course, the only real test is another Hurricane, and I am not going to wish for one of those.
These panels aren’t bulletproof. They aren’t going to stop an intruder, nor are they meant to. Prepping is about being ready for the most likely events to happen. In the past 10 years:
In our old house, we had two different burglaries in the summer: one in 2017, and the second in 2018. Turns out it was the same guy both times. The judge approved a plea deal where he got probation and his record was expunged. For armed burglary, but that’s another rant for another day.
We have experienced 5 Hurricanes: Irma 2017, Michael 2018, Ian 2022, Helene 2024, and Milton and Debby hitting us in 2024. We had power failures lasting several days for two of those storms: Milton and Irma.
Our old house was struck by lightning no less than 5 times.
So our preps are centered around the most likely of events:
We are putting away money to guard against illness and job loss.
The new house has lightning protection built in.
We are now in a more rural area, so crime is mitigated somewhat.
Hurricane Preparedness
To see more on preps I recommend, please read this topic here. Also refer to the Preparedness pyramid.
Hurricanes in Florida are one of the more likely situations that require prepping. In the past decade, we have gone through at least 4 Hurricanes, with 3 of them causing us to spend more than 24 hours without electrical power. Being prepared in Florida means being ready for Hurricanes.
Hurricane Milton last year revealed to me some improvements that need to be made. Let’s take a look at our preparedness map.
One hole in our preps was revealed when we had high winds of 40-70 miles per hour pounding the back of our house for hours. It resulted in me sitting in my house watching my 12 foot wide, 8 foot high sliding glass door bow inwards from the pressure of the wind. Not good. So we needed to upgrade the security and shelter bricks of the prepping pyramid.
I decided to look into window fabric. It was expensive. I looked in to polycarbonate. One company wanted more than $2000 to cover my windows, and another $3200 to protect the sliding glass door. The issue is that the door is just too large for most products to cover.
I decided to find another solution. One came to me. I bought some of these panels from Lowe’s. I am attaching them to the house with 3M commercial fastening tape that’s kind of like Velcro on steroids. Two inch pieces placed 8 inches apart. I got it in white so it blends into the window frame when it isn’t in use. To make sure that it sticks, I am using a primer.
The total bill to cover 10 windows is $850.
Now on to the sliding glass door. It’s a monster at 12′ wide by 8′ high. I decided to turn the back porch into an emergency storage area by putting an electrically operated Kevlar curtain over the opening to the porch. (I did not use the company at the link.) The idea is that I will take everything that’s outside (like pool furniture and the like) place it on the porch, then close the Kevlar curtain. The cost of the curtain was about $4500.
So total cost to hurricane proof the house’s windows was just about $5300.
Sweat, or perspiration, is the primary means that humans use to cool themselves through the use of evaporative cooling. Very few mammals actually use perspiration as a cooling mechanism: in fact, other than a few primates, horses are the only mammals that use perspiration to cool down.
Sweat is 99% water. Dissolved in each liter of this water are the following minerals:
Sodium 900mg
Potassium 200 mg
Calcium 15 mg
Magnesium 1.3 mg
This means that perspiration has a much lower concentration of electrolytes than does blood. Still, as we sweat, we are not only losing water, but a lot of key electrolytes. If you are sweating heavily, you are losing more than just water, and that needs to be replaced. If you aren’t sweating heavily, then you shouldn’t have a lot of these because too many electrolytes is just as bad as not enough of them, especially if you have high blood pressure or heart failure.
There are a ton of electrolyte drinks out there: Gatorade is perhaps the most well known, but there is also Pedialyte, as well as a plethora of others. My biggest issue with many of these drinks is that they also contain an incredible amount of sugar. That’s why I only drink the zero sugar versions of these.
Gatorade has the electrolytes, but also comes with a lot of sugar. It carries 2 grams of sugar, 13.3mg of Sodium and 4.2mg of Potassium per ounce. I only drink these when I am exerting myself, and even then, I only drink the zero sugar versions. Cost is about 65 cents for a 16 ounce serving.
Liquid IV is a powder that is mixed with 16 ounces of water. When mixed, it carries 0.7 grams of sugar, 31mg of Sodium, and 23 mg of Potassium per ounce as mixed. I haven’t tried this one, but I know a lot of people who swear by it. Cost is $1.38 per 16 ounce serving.
LMNT (pronounced “element”) is another powder. It has 0.8g of sugar,16.5 mg of Sodium, and 12.5mg of Potassium per ounce as mixed. Cost is $1.30 per 16 ounce serving. I have never tried it, but I have seen advertising for it.
Pedialyte is a powder that is designed to replace electrolytes in children. It has about 0.675g of sugar, 16.25mg of Sodium, and 11.25mg of Potassium per mixed ounce. Cost is about $2 for a 16 ounce serving. I know that there are some athletes that like this stuff, but I hear that it tastes like armpit sweat.
I drink Gatoraid zero or another drink called Propel. I think they did well for me because my electrolytes were just a tiny bit low when I was in the hospital. Had I been drinking water, they would have been much lower, due to perspiration losses.
The disclaimer: I don’t advertise, and receive nothing for my reviews or articles. I don’t think that I ever will. I have no relationship with any products, companies, or vendors that I review here, other than being a customer. If I ever *DO* have a financial interest, I will disclose it. Otherwise, I pay what you would pay. No discounts or other incentives here. I only post these things because I think that my readers would be interested.
I saw this story in the New York Times and was amazed that there was a prepper movement that I hadn’t heard of, that it appears to be centered on Central Florida, and also that a branch of the MSM would do a positive story about prepping.
I wonder how many Feds are associated with the two groups in the story. Remember, the Fed is the one urging you to do something illegal.
In my continuing research of 10mm defense loads: Let me start this post by pointing out that pistols are a compromise, in that they all suck for self defense. We carry them because it is easier and gets you fewer sideways looks than does carrying a long gun. Better the handgun on your hip than the firearm at home in the safe.
The current 10mm that I have is a full sized M&P10mm and I am unlikely to carry it. I find that I don’t even carry any of my full sized handguns on a regular basis. What I find myself carrying most often is a J frame .38 or a Shield Plus in 9mm. Still, buying and shooting guns is fun, so what the hell?
Even though I won’t carry it much, I always keep plenty of magazines and ammo on hand for every firearm. Five magazines for every pistol is the minimum I am comfortable with. For ammo, the minimum is 500 rounds for semi auto handguns, 100 rounds for revolvers, and 1000 rounds for semi-auto rifles of “war shots” that I like to keep on hand. That doesn’t count whatever range ammo that I have.
Of course I am going to research this, because it’s what I do. See the months of research I did before going with solar as a backup power system.
In looking at defensive ammo, the most important criteria is that it functions well in my firearm. It needs to go bang every time I intend it to. I will accept no more than one failure for every 500 rounds. (That’s why I no longer carry and have sold most of my 1911’s. They jam far too often. See this post here about the suckage that was my experiment with that platform.) Going along with that, the ammo must also be somewhat accurate for my handgun. That means passing a 5×5 test- I have to be able to put 5 rounds into a 5 inch circle at 5 yards in 5 seconds or less while drawing from a holster. I would rather hit with a .22 than miss with a .44.
The next criteria is that it has solid performance. There is no point in reinventing the wheel- I use the FBI criteria that states a bullet should penetrate between 12 and 18 inches of ballistic gelatin and a bullet that expands to at least 1.5 times its diameter. With handguns being poor performers, I want to maximize what performance I *do* get, so I try to only buy and stock ammo that meets this standard. I expected that my research will find more full power 10mm that goes beyond the 18 inches than falls short.
In 1983, Whit Collins, John Adams, Irving Stone, and Jeff Cooper worked with Norma AB to design the 10mm Automatic cartridge. Their goal was to create the a handgun cartridge that fired a heavier and larger caliber bullet than the 9mm Luger at a higher velocity and magazine capacity than the .45 ACP. This would create a handgun cartridge that combined the best of both platforms.
They did this by cutting a .30 Remington case down and loading it with .40 caliber bullets from the .38-40 Winchester. they not only achieved that objective but exceeded it by a healthy margin. The original 10mm Auto load shot a 200 grain projectile at 1,200 feet per second for 640 ft-lbs of muzzle energy, which was a significant step up in performance compared to the 9mm Luger and the .45 ACP. The new round nearly doubled the energy of the 9mm Parabellum and off the shelf .45 ACP ammunition.
Dornaus & Dixon Enterprises worked in parallel with Jeff Cooper and the rest of the 10mm Auto team to build a handgun designed specifically to shoot the new cartridge: the Bren Ten pistol. Similar in appearance to the CZ-75, Sonny Crockett in the television show Miami Vice helped make the Bren Ten famous. For this reason, demand for the pistol and the cartridge exploded in the mid-1980s. Unfortunately, the Bren Ten was rushed into production and the pistol’s reputation suffered due to early issues with reliability, quality control, and a shortage of magazines. The company was never quite able to regain its footing after those initial missteps and declared bankruptcy in 1986 after only making 1500 of the pistols. Shortly after the passing of the Bren Ten, Colt rolled out a Model 1911 modified to use the cartridge that they named the Delta Elite.
Then came a fateful day in US law enforcement. The 10mm Auto piqued the interest of the FBI during their search for a more powerful service round in the aftermath of the disastrous 1986 shootout with two bank robbers in Miami.
The FBI liked the 10mm and originally wanted to switch to that platform, but the fact that they had a lot of limp wristed agents who were recoil sensitive, they wanted something with less recoil. The FBI test report on the cartridge was apparently labeled:
CAUTION: Velocities, pressures and recoil are extreme, vary greatly, and damage weapons with extended use. Control for multiple shots extremely difficult.
They downloaded the 10mm to reduce power by about 30% and issued a request for handgun makers to bid on a new cartridge/handgun combination for FBI use. This loading became known as the “10mm FBI load.” This load was several hundred feet per second slower than the original 10mm Auto, but the FBI was still satisfied with its penetration and terminal performance. The winner of this competition would get a lucrative contract to supply most of US law enforcement.
Enter Smith and Wesson. They developed a cartridge that was shorter than the 10mm and met the FBI standard, and the .40 S&W was born. Derisively, it is said that S&W in this case stands for “Short and Weak.” Many of the advantages of the powerful 10mm cartridge disappeared with this downloaded cartridge. Instead of getting all of the combined advantages of the 9mm and .45ACP, you got none of them. That’s why the .40S&W has largely fallen out of favor- there is no advantage of having it.
To be completely honest, I own several .40S&W pistols, but I can’t remember the last time I carried or even shot one of them. Less capacity and slower bullets than a 9mm, lighter bullets than a .45ACP. What’s nice is that I can swap a barrel and change my S&W40 to .357Sig or 9mm.
I don’t want to simply buy 10mm ammo that is loaded to 40 caliber specs. If I wanted to do that, I would just carry one of my 40 calibers. I was looking for an ammo manufacturer that was loading ammo that really took advantage of the 10mm cartridge. After some searching, I like Underwood ammo as well as Fenix ammunition. Both of them are loading to the full 10mm capabilities. Buffalo Bore does as well, but their bullets are overpenetrating and seem better for large animals than for self defense.
Fenix makes one self defense loading for 10mm, and that is a 180 grain JHP moving along at 1250 feet per second, giving us a muzzle energy of 624 foot pounds. They are currently out of stock, so let’s look at our next contestant.
Underwood has quite a few loadings for 10mm. I selected the Tools & Targets YouTube channel because the guy clearly loves his 10mm and does a decent job in testing the bullets he looks at. The loadings that I am most interested in:
200 grain XTP moving along at 1250 feet per second with 694 ft/lb of energy. This round got 1100 fps out of that 4.6 inch barrel, delivering 537 ft/lb. The bullet penetrated 24 inches. That velocity isn’t great, but it’s the overpenetration that concerns me. Any energy that the bullet has when it leaves the backside of your target is wasted energy.
180 grain XTP at 1300 feet per second and 676 ft/lb. This channel saw the ammo come in right at 1242 fps for 616 ft/lb from a 4.6 inch barrel. He got a full 16 inches of penetration with the bullets retaining 150-179 grains of their mass, even though they expanded to more than .640 inches in diameter. Impressive performance.
155 grain XTP at 1500 feet per second and 775 ft/lb. The guy in this video found that it hit 1500 fps from a 4.6 inch barrel, just like the box claimed. That means it was right about 800 foot pounds of energy. The bullet gave 12.5″ to 13″ of penetration, with or without the clothing barrier.
135 grain JHP at 1600 feet per second and 768 ft/lb. The guy here got an average of about 1450 feet per second out of a 4.6 inch barrel. The wound cavity looks great, but it is only penetrating to 12.25″ and I just don’t see me wanting to use this one. I think the combination of slower than advertised speed along with the Nosler hollow point means suboptimal performance.
Overall, it looks like I will be selecting the Underwood 180 grain XTP for our initial reliability testing. I will order some, and once the reflex sight comes in, we will take a couple of hundred rounds to the range and see how it works. At $1.25 a round, it is actually cheaper than Gold Dots ($1.75) or Hornady Critical Duty ammo ($1.50). I just ordered 500 rounds for testing. If that round doesn’t work out, I will try the 155gr loading.
The disclaimer: I don’t advertise, and receive nothing for my reviews or articles. I have no relationship with any products, companies, or vendors that I review here, other than being a customer. If I ever *DO* have a financial interest, I will disclose it. Otherwise, I pay what you would pay. No discounts or other incentives here. I only post these things because I think that my readers would be interested.
