Well, my wife is very recoil sensitive. She carries a 649. I have a 340PD, and that singular weapon makes me just as sensitive. So we ran a bunch of factory stuff through them, and the 340PD really highlights recoil making it very useful for this.
158gr. Gold Dots were the worst. Worse than holding a Black Cat firecracker and lighting it (done that as a kid, those Chinese firecrakers had fuses that burned at the speed of light).
140gr. Corbon was pretty stiff too.
125gr. Federal Hydrashok +P were lighter than any of the magnums.
But 125gr. Hornady CD's were somewhere in the middle. Compared to my handloads I brought along to compare, all 125gr. plated bullets on top of N340, the Hornady's were stiffer than the light specials, the max specials, and the light magnums, but lighter than the other factory loads I tested.
I also chrono'd these loads. The mid strength specials clock 614fps, max special loads clock 718 fps. Those were book min and max loads. Min .357 loads clock around 850 I GUESS --I obviously didn't get any data for those or the Corbons (bad weather). The 158GD's, those move along at 851fps, and the Hornady's move along at 1075fps.
So if you want 9mm+P performance in a snub revolver size, get a 9mm in that size. Snubs have a lot of recoil and little performance. When using a snub, forget about the info on those boxes, it doesn't mean anything. You are much better off finding a round that you can handle well. Numerically, magnum loads have very similar performance from a snub regardless of bullet weight.
However, I've read about problems with CD ammo. I haven't had any problems, but other that have report really bad stuff, all kinds of stuff, but most of the complaints were old. I've read the same about Winchester Ranger ammo, but all the stuff I have seems fine. Just inspect each round before you load it, and fire a few boxes of the same lot to make sure it works right. That's my advice.
Also, the lighter bullets will give you closer numbers to 9mm+P. They also have less felt recoil up to a point, more snappy. The heavier bullets, those feel like a hammer hitting your hand, less snappy and more of a shove. With a 340PD anyway. With her 649, all the loads above were fine for me, even the 158GD, which is what I would prefer in a snub.
Now for the kicker. The 158gr. GD has basically the same momentum as the 125gr. CD, but the 125gr. has slightly more kinetic energy. So numerically, the CD wins AND has much less felt recoil. Worth giving a try in your own tests, because that is really what you need to do. Just use us to get ideas on which ones to test, but do your own tests.
