I am looking for some great ammo for my carry gun, a 2.25 inch .357 mag. I don't know much about reloading or ammo so I'm looking for some thoughts on this. I got to thinking and it wouldn't make sense to use a real high power .357 or .38+p's since I don't have enough barrel length to use up the powder. I was trying to think of a snubby optimized load. I came up with this:

-Large bullet: 180 grain or higher. I have seen some 215-230 floating around out there. Something that expands well.
-light(ish) powder charge: I would only use as much as could be burned in my short little barrel to minimize flash and recoil.

I realize the potential flaws with the round having low velocity, but this would almost be like a 45 acp in that it has a big slow bullet. Seems optimal for a snubby. I'm asking your advice here because my ballistics knowledge is pretty limited. Does anyone know any factory rounds like this? If the idea sucks, please tell me more about what makes quality snubby ammo.

The Brits used a variation of your idea.  They used a .38 S&W with a heavy bullet, at low velocity.

Their bullet didn't expand, Hague Accords and such, but it supposedly yawed.

It is hard to get a bullet to expand at low velocity.  When it does, it doesn't penetrate well.

Sadly, no one is doing much research into .357 loads.

Are you looking at loading it to .38 or .357 specs? In .38, I suspect you'd have extremely low velocity; on the order of 600fps or so, most likely. Basically, you may be turning your gun into a .38 Webley, which imo would be a huge step down compared to most any decent factory ammunition.

When you say "great carry ammo", what specific aspect (energy, penetration, expansion, recoil, etc) are you trying to optimize? The answer to that might be a good starting point for your quest.

Fwiw, even though I reload a ton of .38 spl, with the factory-available options out there today I think there is almost certain to be a readily-available load that can do what you want, as long as you define the wants well enough.

There is factory ammo (at least in 38) which is optimized for snubbies.

Don't ignore 357 ammo in short barrels.  The Remington 125 SJHP runs 1250 fps in my 2" guns.  That's a 9mm +P.  It has plenty of recoil, but it hits hard, and terminal performance matters.

Thanks for the info. I guess after rethinking it I'd really like to utilize the velocity of .357. Buffalo bore sells a snubby ammo with low flash powder and supposed reduced recoil along with some noise reduction I guess... Not sure about all of that but the ballistics are impressive. 158 grain at ~1100 fps out of a 2.25 inch barrel. Pretty damn good.

That load has a horrible reputation.

Use a relatively heavy bullet made from straight lead.

Just enough tin top get it to fill out.

If you want to purchase them look for a 'swaged' bullet.

Yep.  Speer or Hornady 158 gr LSWC-HP swaged bullet.

180gr or higher? Low velocity?

Talk about excessive and extremely dangerous penetration!

You want a good SD .357Mag load try Corbon DPX or similar all-copper HP.

Great ammo for your carry gun already exists. You can find the list in the Ammo FAQ on this site.
Big companies with deep pockets hired really smart engineer types and spent zillions of dollars designing ammo that optimizes bullet penetration and expansion, has low flash, and tolerable blast and recoil (within the limits of the cartridge).

Unless you are an honest-to-God ballistic engineer with a couple hundred million bucks of equipment and the skill to use it all, you will not match, let alone improve upon, what already exists for carry gun ammo.

Can you control recoil of .357 magnum load in 2.25" barrel? Why not get Speer 135gr +P 38 spl rounds instead? I have L frame 686 with a 6" barrel but for HD I use these 38 spl rounds. They are on the ammo FAQ as well.