Hawkeye, I am not much help on a technical answer to your quest but on the preference for lighter versus heavier recoiling loads, I have made up my mind to go with the lighter. In my case, I use the Hornady Critical Defense FTX, 110 gr. .38's which produce noticably lighter recoil in my new Smith and Wesson 442 snubbie. Previous, I used standard 158 gr. Winchesters in my old Taurus 85 and it tore me up to the extent that I swore off snubbies for the next two years. This was because I did not believe the "carry it alot but use it little" idea about mouseguns and still do not. If you are going to carry something and depend on it for your life, you have got to get very good with it. And the only way to do that is to practice alot. And the only way to do that is to shoot something that does not punish your hand and,at least subconsciously, influence your confidence. The allure of the graceful pug nose brought me back and luckily I took the advice of Werner at X-Ring and have used lighter grain standard pressure with satisfactory results. I can put 50 rounds down range in one visit with no real discomfort, though 100 rounds pushes it. I have not tried wadcutters yet, but because of their lighter weight, I suspect they would be good as well.
