Hello Michelle. Welcome to a very good forum with many knowledgeable and courteous folks.

I read all the posts in the thread prior to posting this message. I an going to cover some of them and make a specific recommendation for reducing recoil of your SW442.

If the Army and Marines trained troops with 22LR it would save millions of dollars, but they don’t. If an when a firearm has to be used to defend yourself the most important factor is skill level with the particular weapon and ammo. One cannot acclimate to a weapon unless they shoot that weapon enough to gather maximum skill handling, aiming, managing trigger and recoil. That is a irrefutable fact based upon the logic that the more use use something the better you get at using it.

So my recommendation is always practice for SD with your EDC and EDC ammo. Let’s assume you agree with that last sentence, and your objective is to reduce recoil. There is only one option for doing that. You have to select ammo that will not be too hot but will still met the characteristics of good SD ammo.

I carry a Remington 380. I practice with it so I shoot it at least twice a month and burn through 50 or more rounds. Most folks look for ammo that will have a heavy bullet and a powerful enough load to get it to maximum velocity. That is a good formula, but it means heavy recoil.

I took a different approach. I researched SD ammo for best pocket pistols. Because of the short barrel of the Remington 380 it is rare that a hollow point will expand, and it is likely that ball ammo will over penetrate. So I looked for a good substitute for both. I found that the relatively new hydraulic ammo does the damage of HPs without expanding. It basically uses lateral hydraulic shock to create a substantial wound cavity. The bullets are specially designed to do that. ballistic gel tests prove that it works.

I decided on Ruger ARX, an ammo that uses a copper composite bullet so it is light and does not require the same powder load as heavy lead or copper bullets. For example, 38 special has a 77 grain bullet and has a velocity of 1116 FPS and 213 foot pounds of force out of the barrel. Now with a short barrel the velocity and energy will be about 10% less than those numbers. Still it is plenty of power and speed to be accurate with good penetration with the 77 grain bullet. A heavier bullet would slow things down and that would deteriorate performance and increase recoil.

I urge you to look into it. The Ammo is made by Polycase (polycaseammo.com). There are quite a few videos of it in use on your tube. It is worth a look. If you want a different option look at Underwood Xtreme Defender and Lehigh Extreme Defender. Both use the hydraulic shock design, but they use an all metal composite bullet so they need more powder and therefore use more powder to drive the bullet. That means more recoil.

Hope my thoughts help you inform yourself to a solution for you.