Howdy folks,
As some others have mentioned, I have no experience with the .40 Super, but do have considerable experience with the 357 Sig round. It is currently my chosen caliber for self-defense.
I possess several 357 Sig barrels that allow me to fire the round in various pistols, and my experience has been totally positive with each pistol fired in this caliber. I personally find the felt recoil of the 357 Sig to be less than what I get when firing a .40 S&W. I have some medical issues which can prevent me from firing the number of rounds in a range session that I once could. I can easily fire twice if not more of the 357 Sig rounds than I can if using the .40 S&W. That fact, coupled with its performance and street rep, are real pluses for me personally.
I have been reloading the 357 Sig now for about 3 years, and have never had the first issue/problem doing so. But in fairness I should state that I have been reloading now for 3.5 decades. I heard all the issues I would experience in reloading the 357 Sig because it was a bottlenecked case, and to date have personally experienced NONE of them. We are human after all, and it is natural for folks to pick their preferred caliber. Someone who simply favors the .40 S&W for example, is quick to find and repeat all the negatives associated with reloading the 357 Sig.
On other forums I belong to, I have sent pms to members who have stated how difficult the 357 Sig is for them to reload. When they answered my offer to provide them with some assistance, more times than not they admit they have never tried to reload it, but everyone said it would be hard, so they avoided even making the effort.
If anyone is trying to load the 357 Sig and having issues, please feel free to pm me if you would like, and I will do my best to help you resolve those issues. I am sure no expert, but I will gladly offer the tricks I use with good success with this caliber.
I think the fact it uses a bottlenecked case may help it function so reliably as well. I have never had a functioning issue of any type with any platform I have personally fired in 357 Sig, and that includes 3 different brands of pistols now. I also will note that Accurate Arms (Western Powder) in their reloading manual state this is the most consistent handgun round they have ever worked with. That is also an impressive statement to me too.
More and more I see where a new law enforcement agency has made the transition over to the 357 Sig as their carry round. Ballistically it was intended to closely duplicate the performance of a 125 grain JHP .357 mag fired from a 4" revolver. To me personally, there is a lot to be said for a pistol round that can do that.
Among federal agencies, I can offer that both the US Secret Service and Air Marshals have selected this caliber as their current duty round. This trend is also growing among various state and local agencies too. As was noted, Texas DPS uses this as their duty round now too, with several other large and small agencies make the switch as well.
From the information I have received from folks I personally know in some of those agencies, the street performance of this round to date has been very impressive. That is another reason that I have chosen to use this caliber now as my self-defense caliber.
My personal choice in duty loads is the 125 grain Speer Gold Dot HP load, which lists a MV of 1350. In doing chrony work with various factory loads (Speer and several others) and with my test reloads using HP projectiles, I have to date found factory stated figures to be extremely accurate, and even low at times. I also have no problems safetly duplicating factory MV with my reloads.
I hope this will answer some of your questions, at least where the 357 Sig caliber is concerned. I am a major fan of this caliber. But that said, I think there is simply no one "magic bullet". Most calibers from 9mm up (in my opinion) will do their job properly if I put the round where it should be. But for those who have held off trying to reload the 357 Sig based on all of the issues/problems you have read exist, I would suggest you give it a try. I think you will be as please with your resulting rounds as I am.
twoguns