I’d wager that one or more of the pictured blown up guns, only one of which is a 38 and the other two “Magnums”, were the result of a double charge of fast powder and not an intentional “hot” load.

In fact I’d bet there have been more revolvers blown up throughout history from accidental double charges than from intentionally overloading in search of more performance.

Skelton, Keith, and others wrote of using 38 cases for magnum or near magnum performance back when magnum cases were hard to obtain. Ray Thompson even designed a cast bullet to be used in this capacity. The excellent 358156 dual crimp groove Lyman design has been a standard for taking advantage of the “short” cylinders of N frame 357s for decades.

The “Treasury” loads of the 1980’s and 1990’s were marked +P+ because they were over +P pressures. There is no SAAMI spec for +P+. I don’t know how much over +P they were but I doubt they were into 357 territory, I’ve never heard of a gun being blown up with them.

Nobody is forcing anyone to load any way other than what they are comfortable with. But if you are knowledgeable, use the tools available to you, and some caution it can be done safely.

Handloading requires concentration and some deductive reasoning, even when strictly following the manual. Back when many manuals didn’t have pressure tested data, and I’m not just talking about the infamous Speer manual.

I’ve shot thousands of 158-173gr SWCs over 6.0gr of Unique. Old Lyman manuals listed higher loads than it, while modern manuals list 5.0 to 5.4gr as maximum.

Lately I’ve moved to using Alliant Power Pistol for my heavy 38 loads. 6.0gr is in spec for +P and gives 1050fps, just about the the same performance as 6.0gr of Unique.