I once had an old 1917 S&W with shortened barrel, tritium bead on a low ramp and rounded butt which seemed a very good balance of size, weight and ballistics. I got rid of it because it had a glitch in the lock-works which sometimes made the trigger pull very heavy on one shot. It was a bug which just cropped up at random and I never did find the cause so got rid of that gun.
I now have a first gen Charter Arms Bulldog .44 but I limit it to 180 and 200 grain bullets at 700 fps because any heavier loads will rip skin off the first knuckle of my trigger finger where the guard scrapes in recoil. I've never had this happen with any other gun, not even other Charters and don't understand why. I've tried wrapping the triggerguard with black electrical tape and that helped but only a bit.
I can attest it is hard to avoid a flinch when you know the shot is going to draw blood, my own, that is!