About these brass cleaning recipes, add salt to vinegar (a weak acid) and you get Hydrochloric Acid (a stronger acid). Any acid will leach the zinc out of the brass and weaken it. As a result you will shorten the life of your brass by cleaning it in these solutions. BTW, I don't think that you'll have to worry about handgun cases blowing apart, what normally happens is you'll find the case splits when you press in a bullet and you'll feel that distinct lack of resistance in doing it. Tip here is anytime you feel a bullet went in way too easy look very closely at the finished cartridge.

As for whether handgun brass needs cleaning, to be honest it really doesn't. However most of us like to take pride in what we produce so nice shiny cases are part of that. How you get there can take several paths but most solutions used in ultrasonic cleaners are acid based, so I don't recommend ultrasonic cleaning unless it's done with nothing but soap and water. What I use is a Thumlers Tumbler with soap and water with stainless steel pins, they aren't cheap but they do a great job with deep revolver cases and rifle cases.

Bullets, my revolvers have adjustable sights so I like to load with 125 grain bullets from Extreme because they cost less than 158 grain bullets. For my 357 Magnum loads I'll either load with a 125 grain XTP or a 140 grain XTP because either shoot close to the same POA as my 125 grain 38 special loads. BTW, the 125 grain Magnums print slightly low and the 140 grain loads are a very near match for the 38 specials.

I like plated bullets because they are cleaner to handle and cleaner to shoot. In addition one range I shoot at only allows lead bullets in rimfire ammo because the smoke produced by the lubricant used with lead bullets clogs up their very expensive HEPA filters too quickly. BTW, those filters cost the range owner 10K per month before he banned lead, now the bill is only 5K per month.