Spending a bit of free time today looking over Lucky Gunners 38 and 357 clear gel test.
It seems to me the wadcutter is actually an amazing round for personal defense.
Sure you dont get expansion but you do get deep penetration and the ability to drill through bones and either not exit the body or be found in close vicinity.
You get low recoil making even scandium titanium weight guns tolerable.
If you are not shooting through intermediate barriers, I could be wrong but Id say for the civilian thats probably even more unlikely than getting in a gunfight.
Its actually got better penetration than some .357 rounds particularly the vaunted short barrels rounds. Actually the performance of those rounds wasnt particularly great with the exception of the 135gn 357 gold dot.
I think I saw it mentioned in a conversation recently that the .38 would be a preferable round to the .357 because of ammo advancements in that caliber.
Im not advocating for or against anything just opening a discussion.
https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/rev...llistics-test/