Originally Posted by Texas Star

You apparently missed the case where an armed citizen used his .357 to save a cop's life when a thug had him pinned down with a rifle. The civilian shooter hit the crook from a reported 80 yards. Some accounts say the range was greater.

If marijuana growers think a fisherman or hiker has seen their plants, they may open fire at extended range, too. As may smugglers down around the Rio Grande.

Also, you may want the defense gun to double for shooting animals.

Current police thinking is that an agile man with a knife is too close at 21 feet. That's your max. distance of 7 yards. Personally, I'd shoot him at that distance and cite the published info by Ayoob and others. It may take more than one shot to stop such a man. Many shooters do well to hit him once before he has the knife in them. And your felon doesn't have to be a real track star to close that distance that fast, either.

A three-inch barrel extracts easier, shoots easier, and conveys about 80 FPS added velocity. That figure was obtained personally from Lee Jurras. He was citing his own brand, Super Vel, but tests I've read show that's average for other brands, too. When I was still a gun writer, I asked the Federal PR man to see how much difference it made, using his firm's 129 grain Hydra-Shok ammo. The same ratio applied.

He got an engineer to fire several rounds each from S&W M-36's, and the three-inch was indeed about 75-80 FPS faster than the true snub. The ammo was drawn from the current production lot, not specially selected.