I've owned and shot many different handguns in almost 40 years of shooting, and have followed many trends & arguments over the years, such as "which bullet/caliber/action is the best," and ".38 vs .45," and "is the .38 good enough?" Although I've shot and read "a lot," it's a whole LOT LESS than many who post here. Also, my thoughts have been altered significantly by trying to teach & motivate my wife and daughters (17 and 12) to shoot the guns & loads that I choose.
In a nutshell, I've simplified my beliefs considerably, and return more to those all-too-brief paragraphs in articles & books that emphasize picking a gun that fits and suiting your choices to what the shooter is comfortable with. . .because bullet placement and shooter confidence are more important than caliber, load, or bullet type.
My .38 Cimarron Lightning 3.5" bbl is now loaded with Mikey's recipe: 200 grain LSWC (Mt. Baldy) over 3.8g Win231 powder. It shoots point of aim or just a bit high at ranges from 7 to 21 yards, and my probe contacted the base of these slugs about 2 3/4 inches deep into month-old pine logs (courtesy of Hurricane Gustav). This penetration depth seemed to apply whether at 7 or 21 yards. Penetration was about an inch less from the 2" Detective Special my wife keeps by the bedside, and POI was clearly higher--perhaps +4" at 7 yards.
This load was very controllable in rapid fire, yet the shivers it sent up my arm in close-range hipshooting matched the shudders often visible when I hit 80-100 pound pine log chunks stacked two high. It often knocked over a lighter log (~30 pounds) that 152g and 158g bullets did not. In short, Mikey's load seems to deliver an authoritative blow on the target end, while having none of the muzzle flash that was clearly visible from 125g Hornady JHP and 110g Winchester Silvertips in the gathering twilight. Muzzle flip seemed less with the 200-grainer, too; it pushed back strongly for a .38, but didn't flip or flash.
In short, I like this 200-grain .38 SPL standard loading. . .a *lot*. My wife is not 6', 185 lbs., and did not spend 24 years in the Army like I did. Her 5'3" stature, very small hand and modest upper-body strength combine with right-hand/left-eye dominance, mediocre visual acuity, and status as a very occasional shooter to provide a different situation for her. She was pleased to easily put the 200-grainers on paper, clearly in the kill zone, and rapidly. It's an important testament to both gun & load that she could do this, and it's one I failed to value appropriately when I was younger and more heavily influenced by ballistics, shooting statistics, and gunwriters' general enthusiasm for the well-made new products they get to test.
Probably like many of your family members, my wife and daughters accept my views on guns and self-defense, but they shoot primarily to share that fun with me occasionally. My wife felt far more comfortable shooting 158g LSWC (Berry's plated) over 3.5g, 3.8g, or 4.2g of Win 231 than she was with the 200-grainers. (Indeed, she felt more of a shudder up her arm shooting 3.1g or 3.5g Win231 with a 152g RNFP from Berry's!) Since the 4.2g 158g LSWC load shoots to point of aim and she delivered hand-sized patterns quickly (6 shots in perhaps 2-3 secs.) at 7 yards, she wanted this load in her gun. . .and that's what we're doing.
You see, I almost ruined shooting for her and my daughters a while back by matching their hand size to S&W .38 airweights, and trying 129g and 130g +P loads as well as 110g standard loads from Federal & Winchester. I got it right on hand size and bullet weight, and of course they loved the light guns, until they shot them. Flash, blast, muzzle flip, felt recoil, etc. The pounding of just a couple dozen rounds apiece made them avoid shooting for over a year and my 17-year-old daughter could hardly bring herself to keep her eyes open and pull the trigger when I recently got her a S&W mod. 30-1 in .32 Long! Painful to watch, and all my fault. She was so surprised when she DID manage a trigger pull that she quickly began to regain some of her earlier accuracy, but my earlier mistakes almost ruined shooting for her. Rest assured, I will experiment with some .32 cast bullet loads to see what we can do to make that gun as effective as she's able to handle. (She can't even pull the DA trigger on the Ruger SP-101 I got in .327 Fed Mag along with the S&W, since the gunshop had no other small-frame .32 available.) She also can shoot cloverleafs at 15 yds with a 9422M and does well with a Super Single-Six--because she trusts the experience, relaxes, and shoots well.
My main house gun will remain a S&W 625-7 in .45LC with Speer GDHP, but I will feel very comfortable with the .38s. Most importantly, so does my wife!
