I have a S&W 649 revolver on its way. My other revolvers are in .357, and have 4" barrels, so the 2" barrel on the new guy is probably going to give me some interesting results with my existing moderate .357 loads. Not to mention the whole point of a small, compact revolver is for carry and thus defense.
I'm interested in folks' experience with loading .38 Special and .357 Magnum for short barreled revolvers. In particular, I'm interested in both practice-type loads and practical self defense loads.
Yes, I know the "train the way you fight" concept, but I'm also aware that getting used to a new revolver's trigger means firing it a lot, and I don't think every shot out of a carry pistol needs to be full-power or have an expensive bullet for it to be good training.
My favorite practice round uses 148 grain wadcutters over Unique for around 825 fps (per the manual - I haven't chrono'd them). It's comfortable and not annoyingly loud, and lets me concentrate on technique while being quite accurate out of a 4" barrel. I have a butt load of the wadcutters on hand, and some Xtreme plated bullets (158s I think), but I'm not heavily invested in a stock of bullets, so I am open to suggestions for both types of loads.