Hornady offers a 158 grain XTP bullet for 38 special, but I've never seen it locally. You'll probably be lucky to get 800 fps with it out of a snubnose; don't expect much expansion, but if you can find it, it should be a consistent deep penetrator. I like XTPs and have them on hand for reloading in a few calibers, but I push them harder than Hornady does when I'm making my own.

I load Hornady's 125 american gunner for carry. I don't expect it to expand much. But it has shown to penetrate and it's clean ammo and seems OK for me accuracy wise. I did have some 158 XTP's. I think my Farm and Fleet carries them. I'll look for them again sometime soon. That might be the better load. But I think it had more felt recoil. Personally, the 125 american gunners feel like Plus P's to me, but they're not. I think the Remington golden saber 125 +p's have about the same felt recoil. Maybe just a hair more. But pretty close. Gold dots, forget it. Way hot. I just don't like shooting them plus p Gold dots and they don't make standard pressure any longer. And the cor bon's are a handful too.

In an airweight.