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I think .40 cal is probably in 4th place for semi-auto handgun calibers by gun sales, behind 9mm, .380, and .45. It would be interesting if someone could dig up some stats on this. I don't see this changing anytime soon.

Is it dead? Define dead. If dead means that you can't find any .40 cal guns or ammo for sale, then definitely not. But that's a pretty low bar. I can find guns and ammo for sale in some pretty obscure calibers. If you instead mean "not a threat to take over the lead for handgun calibers by number of guns sold", then yes. It is dead by that definition. Nails are in the coffin on that one.

Personally, I don't like the .40 because the recoil in the guns I tried was worse than a .45. And the bullets are too easily confused with 9mm for me to keep both in my rotation.