how many feel a certain cartridge is more/less accurate than other

It's reasonable to assume that, as with rifle cartridges, there are differences in the inherent accuracy of different handgun cartridges. However, while that is academically interesting, very few shooters can shoot up to the potential of their guns, and still fewer guns can shoot up to the potential of their cartridges. In a typical handgun, excluding the various stockless rifles like the XP-100s and so forth, there are far too many moving parts for real accuracy. But for the things we use handguns to do, it doesn't matter much. You don't need a half MOA pistol to shoot a squirrel or a robber at 10 yards. On the day that I can hold a 1.5" group at 25 yards from standing, I'll worry about it.
 
I think that Mike touched on something not mentioned before. There is a significant loss of natural stability when a projectile goes transonic or travels at a speed around the speed of sound. The shock-wave dynamics of this passage create unstable air as any Aeronautical Engineer can tell you. Therefore subsonic bullets also are more accurate.

It should be said, and I already said it once in this thread, that the differences we are talking about are miniscule in comparrison to gun design, sight radius, uniformity of manufacture, etc. The 40 Auto can be made the virtual duplicate of the 45 Auto if it were loaded to similar tolerances with optimized loads.
 
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