Thanks again for the knowledgeable input. Right now, I am using Hornady Critical Defense 110 grain FTX rounds for the .38, which seem to have better expansion at the lower velocity they produce. I also use Hornadys and also Federal Premium HS for my .45ACP, but that's a whole other discussion. ^-^
@andy58-in-nh Well,there are two schools of thought about bullets. There is the crowd that swears by hyper-velocity,and the crowd that swears by big,heavy,slow bullets.
I am firmly in the big-heavy,slow camp. Big,slow,heavy bullets hit harder and don't over penetrate. It does you no good at all to have a million foot pounds of energy if all of it is wasted on the building behind your target,and all it takes to become convinced of how lethal big,slow,heavy soft bullets can be is to look at a few photos of Civil War wounds,and consider the bullet weighs and velocities of rounds used for big,dangerous game.
High velocity is a HUGE advantage for shooting at long distances because the bullets obviously have a flatter trajectory,but for self-defense against humans at close range,it's hard to beat the old 44 Special and 45 Long Colt rounds at blackpowder velocities. Especially when you consider the bullet designs available to today and look at how effective they were for over 100 years shooting round nosed lead bullets.
Since anything chambered for a 45 LC round is obviously too big to be a pocket gun,my favorite "go to town" gun is a 3 inch 44 Special DAO Rossi with no hammer spur,no rear sight,and a fixed front sight. I used to carry Charter Arms,but back then they were obviously being made to carry instead of shoot. A couple of boxes of moderate loads would loosen one up. Not the case with the stainless Rossi.
BTW,I have ZERO knowledge as to the quality of the current Charter Arms Bulldog revolvers. They might be as well-built and strong as any gun on the market today for all I know.
BTW,Taurus bought out Rossi several years ago and killed the Rossi 44 because it competed with their own 44 Special,which was more expensive and too large to ever be a pocket pistol. If you ever spot a new or like-new Rossi 44 Special at a gun show,buy it! I paid around 210 bucks for mine new,and literally wouldn't sell it for 1,000 bucks unless I knew where there was another one I could buy right away.
