Back from the Dead and Ready to Party

If you’re a fan of the 10mm Auto cartridge, you’ve lived through bleak times in the not-too-distant past. It wasn’t all that long ago that the mighty Ten was only offered by a handful of manufacturers. Glock doggedly kept producing its full-size and compact models, and the chambering flickered in and out of regular stock in the EAA Witness and Smith & Wesson revolver catalogs.

This is something of a shame, because not only is it a versatile chambering with loadings available from mild stuff that’s not too much hotter than .40S&W to atomic anti-grizzly bear loads, but also because you can’t authentically get your ‘80s Miami Vice LARP on without 10mm Auto.

The first ray of hope for the cartridge’s rebirth was Colt’s relaunch of their Delta Elite model a few years back. That set off a ripple effect in the market, and soon more were popping up. There were long slide offerings from STI, Rock Island, and even Glock launched a long slide variant of their existing 10mm full-size.

This year at SHOT Show, you couldn’t swing a Miami Classic shoulder holster without hitting a maker with a 10mm offering in their booth. Ruger had their SR1911 in 10mm Auto displayed front and center among their 1911 offerings. It’s a standard 5” Government Model-size 1911 with adjustable Bomar-esque (Fauxmar?) target style sights.

It's a P220 Legion, but that doesn't say “.45ACP”…

Just across the aisle at the Sig Sauer booth, they were featuring the newest addition to Sig’s expanding 10mm stable, the P220 Legion in 10mm. Boasting all the same features as the regular .45ACP version of the same gun, the 10mm variant also comes with the exclusiveness of the caliber.

Sig Sauer’s embrace of 10mm is of extra importance for the chambering since Sig has their own in-house ammunition division now. The Sig Elite Performance line of ammunition is not some dull, barely better than .40 S&W. Indeed, the Sig offerings are throwing 180gr bullets at almost 1200fps out of duty-size guns (faster out of long slides) and that goes for both the premium V-Crown self-defense loading as well as the cheaper FMJ target ammo.

It looks like a regular TRP Operator…until you look at the chamber hood.

An unexpected entrant into the growing 10mm market this year was Springfield Armory, and not in some hydro-dipped Mossy Oak hunting gun, but rather in their very tactically-oriented TRP line. Springfield was featuring 10mm TRPs in the railed “Operator” configuration in their booth, both in standard 5” and long slide 6” flavors.

So, yeah, if you’re a fan of the beastly 10mm Auto? Well, 2018 is a good year, because it’s back like an ‘80s action movie revival.

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