Was browsing through the USPSA magazine earlier. I noticed an ad for S&W M&P series of pistols. It mentioned the calibers available as 9mm, .357 Auto, .40 S&W, .45 ACP. I was like "357 Auto?? WTF? do they mean .357 Sig?" to myself. Of course that is the case. It seems S&W doesn't want to use "Sig" as part of their nomenclature. It is further confusing on their website where they show ".357Sig" in the title of the pistol, but then list "357 Auto" as the caliber in the specs.

 

Rediculous marketing if you ask me...

 

I like the 357 auto advertising,

 

It is an auto loader...

 

respect for the cartridge one would think call it 357 sig just as someone would call theirs 40 S&W...

 

S&W does not want to give recognition for the cartridge as they have alot of customers and do not want to advertise for sig..

So now Sig will start calling .40S&W... ".40Auto" , we can have a cartridge renaming war!

I took a quick look at Glock.com for the Glock model 22. No mention of S&W. It's just a .40 caliber cartridge. Same thing with .45 ACP. Lots of manufacturers call it 45 Auto.

Smith was the same way when the brought out the Model 25-3 and subsequently 25.5. These were chambered for the .45 Colt cartridge, but Smith refused to rollmark "Colt" on their barrels as part of the cartridge designation. Not 100% sure, but IIRC they just left it the same as the 25-2 and said something like ".45 Caliber"

 

Adios,

 

Pizza Bob

No difference than Colt calling their 357s and 44s just "magnums" instead of the proper name "S&W Magnum" or "44 Remington Magnum" or just 38 special instead of "S&W Special". Just as other gun makers don't want to put their competitor's names on their guns like 45 Auto for 45 ACP, 380 Auto for 380 ACP, 223 for 223 Remington, and so forth and so on.

 

You'll get over it.

I like how in ~100 years, only S&W calls .38 Special ".38 S&W Special".

Renaming cartridges has been going on for a long time, I have an old box of Remington .38 New Police, AKA .38 S&W (not .38 S&W Special)

Maybe 15 years ago it was common to see manufacturers call their ammo 9mm Luger. They'd been doing it for years. Somehow it came up that Stoeger owned the name Luger and everyone started using the original name 9mm Parabellum. 30 Winchester Centerfire became 30-30, 30 US Govt became 30-40 Krag, etc., etc.

Colt was one of the worst offenders years ago, stamping ".32 Colt New Police" on the barrel of their revolvers chambered for the .32 S&W Long.

 

So not only did they rename the cartridge, but it was done in such a way where it appeared they created it.

The M&P .357sig models were discountinued last year. I was trying to buy a .357s M&P compact when I found this out directly from S&W.