All this is my speculation, observation, take a look and make your own informed decisions.

In the day most US police departments used .38 Specials, brass was given away or nearly so. Folks loaded .357 loads in .38 brass EVERYDAY because many bulletmakers provided two crimp grooves one for .38 brass, one for .357 brass. So the argument that brass can't handle it is empirically disprovable.

Professionals like Jerry Musilec load competition rounds in new modern .38 Short Colt brass BECAUSE it's short and easy to clear REALKY REALLY FAST. I bet Jerry values his digits as much as you or I.

If you take a walk over to Ruger & Company, they offer thier SP-100 in .38+p, 9mm and .357. SAAMI set pressure for .38+p at 20k (before the +p designation 20k was the .38 S&W Special rating rendering "can my 1957 Chiefs handle +p ammo" moot) 9 and .357 are 35k. Look at the SP-100, it's the same gun. The bores are cut different for the slightly different dimention rounds. Just like in the day PDs had 640s dimentioned for .38 special instead of .357.

On the other hand, we have the LCR. The .38 LCR is NOT the same gun as the .357/9mn (which IS). The .38 (and .22s) have an aluminum frame whereas the .357, 9mm, .327 have Stainless Steel frames. The cylinders are SS so I doubt the .38 would suffer a catastrophic failure, but I am sure repeated .357 pressure would shorten it's life. How much, well that is the $64,000 question.

The USAF had S&W and Colt build all aluminum 'survival' snubby. It was acknoleged they would have a very limited service life. That was an acceptable trade in an aircrew SD weapon.

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Certified Curmudgeon