I have a good friend who is a handloading, number crunching, ballistic expert type person. I think he liked firing howitzers a little too much in Vietnam. But anyway, he and I recently took wet magazines and tested a multitude of 38's and 357's. Wet magazines are not flesh and bone but you have to have some sort of test medium at times. Nearly every single 357 jacketed hollowpoint we tried plugged up and penetrated at least one foot. Most all were found intact with little mushrooming if any. <br>The big surprise was the old FBI load. (38 special, + P, 158 grain lead semi-wadcutter hollowpoint) It consistently penetrated 4 inches with a perfect mushroom. At that point we realized why the forensics people have been saying this round was so deadly. (Its also a joy in high speed double taps as it has low recoil. It produces a bit too much smoke, but has almost no flash at night)<br>Having that said; dont think Im pushing 36 caliber rounds as the do all end all. Im just stating what our tests showed. My personal experience confirms the overpenetration of 357s. Every animal over 50 lbs that I have shot with a 357 had to be run down because the bullet made a 36 caliber hole completely through them. Thats not very efficient from a self defense standpoint.<br>The pattern that I see is that the really effective handgun defense rounds are usually the heavy, soft bullets moving at 850-900 fps regardless of caliber. <br>I suppose that I will touch on the "other" 36 cals out there since Im on the subject. Given the existence of the 45acp, I have no use for them.