Most of us who have been shooting for a while know that jacketed hollow point ammunition is vastly preferred for a defensive handgun. Pistols and revolvers do not produce enough velocity for the stretch cavity to contribute to wounding the way it does in many rifles so the size of the wound is dependent on the size of the projectile. The wider the bullet gets, the larger the hole is. JHP ammunition is designed to begin expanding shortly after impact to create a wider wound channel. With a larger frontal area, the bullet also slows quickly and therefore presents less risk to people that might be beyond your attacker. Many of us also choose a small revolver for concealed carry because, although they are difficult to master, a small revolver is simple and light weight making it very convenient to slip in a pocket. Let’s face it; we aren’t likely to need a gun. If we do need a gun, we probably won’t have to fire it. If we do have to fire it, the bad guy probably won’t be farther away than we can smell him and we probably won’t have to shoot more than once or twice. That makes a short barrel .38 Special a very reasonable choice. It’s also perfectly reasonable to just pick a quality JHP from one of the four or five big names and be done with it. Or is it?

We live in a golden age when it comes to defensive ammunition design. There are quite a few very well designed, high performance bullet designs out there. Gone are the days when there was great merit to the respective sides in the ancient 9mm vs. .45 ACP debate. Loaded with modern JHP ammunition, both 9mm and .45 perform very well, as does .40 S&W and .357 Sig. HST, Gold Dot, SXT, Ranger, PDX1, XTP, and Golden Saber all deliver very good accuracy and terminal performance and the difference between the top and bottom performers among that crowd is negligible. So why not just choose any one of them and hit the road? Everybody knows Speer Gold Dot is a top performer so if you’re carrying a 2” .38 spl grab a box of the 135 gr +P short barrel load and put it out of your mind, right? Not quite. As it turns out, .38 spl is right on the edge of the performance envelope. Some of those loads will work okay, but not through denim, or they’ll expand just fine when fired through denim in warm weather but cold weather lowers the velocity just enough to prevent expansion. The ammunition makers aren’t exactly lying to us; it’s just that the test protocol can’t always be robust enough to cover every situation. Take that highly regarded 135 gr Gold Dot load, for example. ATK (the parent company for Speer and Federal) gives test results for all their defensive ammunition on their website: http://le.atk.com/wound_ballistics/ The results listed for that 135 gr load indicate that it fails to meet the 12” minimum when fired into bare gel or through the FBI heavy clothing standard and it barely begins to expand when fired through the IWBA heavy clothing standard. In my own informal testing of the load, I accidentally discovered that cold weather can prevent it from gaining enough velocity to expand. I later confirmed that in a separate test.

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Cheat sheets?

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Where's the food?

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That the classic "snub-nosed .38special" is NOT a guaranteed man stopper is hardly a "secret".

Some loads are better than others under different conditions but in the end, it is what it is...still better than just carrying pocket lint.

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Maybe .357 snubbies aren't the folly many here proclaim them to be.

My M&P 340CT, IMO, is the best snubbie available, hands down. .38/.357, highly corrosion resistant, highly portable, tritium front sight, CT grips, super light weight, no lock, incredibly reliable.

Nobody said it'd be fun to shoot, nor a good range gun....but as far as effective? Hands down the best snubbie out there.

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I still carry 158g +P LSWCHP when I carry my snubby.   *shrug*

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This doesn't surprise me, but then most people aren't ammo nerds so I get who it's aimed at.

I am jelly that you're getting stuff published.

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Maybe .357 snubbies aren't the folly many here proclaim them to be.

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A hard cast SWC "Keith" bullet , heavy for caliber, and moving at lower velocities is going to impress the hell out of whatever it hits.  high velocity is not always where "it's" at.

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I still carry 158g +P LSWCHP when I carry my snubby.   *shrug*

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158grn wad cutters. I like throwing cylinders at people.

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Lighter gr weights in snubbies work better.

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I still carry 158g +P LSWCHP when I carry my snubby.   *shrug*

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Lighter gr weights in snubbies work better.

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5 shot snubs are about one step above a derringer.

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How did these rounds do in the goat test?