Bassoneer, that was a thought provoking post. Water testing will cause bullets to expand more aggressively than 10% gel, or living tissue. The value of water tests, IMO, is that if a bullet doesn't expand in water, it's very unlikely to do so if used for social purposes.

I went to www.brassfetcher.com (click on the "old website" link, then go to .38 special) and found gel tests of BB's std. pressure and +P FBI loads. The std. pressure version seemed to have issues such as you describe while the +P didn't.

I think Buffalo Bore would do well to take a bullet like the Remington 125 gr. SJHP, Speer 135 gr. Gold Dot, Sierra 140 gr. JHP, of the right 158 gr. JHP/SJHP and apply their ballistic magic to it. My hunch is that those bullets would actually make a better .38+P load than the one they are using. BB is still making a decent load though.