If y'all want to spring for the oatmeal, I'll shoot it!
Otherwise, I'll have to stick to water. I realize milk jugs aren't likely to initiate an attack on us, but it provides me with some idea of the relative penetration potential of different calibers & loads.
As far as overpenetration goes, here are a couple of thoughts. First, everybody has his own needs. Someone living in an apt. has to SERIOUSLY consider how to deal with shooting inside one, period. Almost anything will penetrate a couple layers of sheetrock into the neighbor's bedroom.
For my situation, more penetration is better. I'm very rural, have potential 60' indoor shot, and heavy leather furniture in an area where a BG would very likely seek cover. If he does, I want to root him out of there. Layout of my house & family otherwise restricts me very slightly--mostly it's "free fire zone," if necessary. I want my bullet to go thru a leather sofa, then thru a thick, upraised arm wrapped in a winter coat & two hoodies and a t-shirt, followed by shoulder, torso, and thru the vitals--preferably out the other side. More leakage is better.
You may have seen the saying, "Shot placement is king, penetration is queen, nothing else matters." I personally presume an engagement in my home would be against an intruder who is alert, juking & jiving to evade and/or shoot back. Therefore, my shot placement will be aimed center mass at whatever part of the BG is presented, and I'll be darned lucky if it hits there (stress, low light, movement, return fire, etc.) If I can hit him, I want it to go thru everything possible--I do not presuppose a full frontal exposure of a stationary target. If I could guarantee that type of shot, I would feel comfortable with a lightweight, reliably expanding bullet. (But why does Hornady find a market for its new Critical Defense line? Because expansion isn't fully reliable thru clothing & at lower vels.)
One other thought. . .when would you really take a shot with one kind of ammo, that you wouldn't with a different kind of ammo? If the background beyond the target is full of good guys, would you shoot a light JHP? What if you missed altogether?
So, I'm not criticizing the ammo selected by others. I'm just saying that with the low vel cartridge my wife & daughters will be shooting, expansion is ruled out altogether, and the potential for tissue damage & incapacitation of BG limited thereby. Therefore, I want them to have something that will really penetrate, damaging all available tissue--maybe 24"+ if it hits at certain angles--and it's nice to see that I can load .38 S&W to do that. (For my personal HD .45LC, I felt very happy with 250g Speer GDHPs, until this humongous leather behemoth in the living room followed my wife home. Since then, I load a 255g LFP.)
I don't know if Martin Fackler's ideas are the absolute latest & greatest, but until I find something better, I find him extremely persuasive. He doesn't necessarily argue for hyper-penetration, but he shows some of the crucial factors in handgun wounding effects that really make me doubt that a handgun bullet or two, of any sort or size, is likely to *physically* incapacitate an attacker immediately. That only happens when CNS is struck. First task of bullet is therefore to get all the way into the CNS, otherwise you must bleed him out or break him down (pelvis, etc.) I'll take a heavy lead bullet as a very good way to accomplish all of those three. According to Beartooth Bullets "PERMANENT WOUND CHANNEL" info, my .45 will create a hole over .80" wide, and I suspect it will be thru the sofa AND all the way thru the BG--maybe into CNS, maybe causing massive blood loss from long wound channel, maybe breaking down pelvis, or some combination thereof. The GDHP's hole will be over 1" wide, but will it be thru the sofa AND all the way thru the BG into his boiler room? If I carried the .45LC concealed or openly for SD, I'd choose the GDHP. In my home, it's heavy lead bullets.
As some say, you pay your nickel & take your chances. Hopefully we'll never have to try out any of these theories!
