Someone shot a roast with a .44 mag Glaser in front of Dr. Fackler once and asked him how long someone could survive such a wound. He replied that it would be about four days before infection set it.
There is no free lunch. Humans are like roaches. They are hard to kill and adapt themeselves to any environment. They can limp around with limbs gone, have part of the brain destoryed, lose half their blood... There's a piece of the brain about the size of a dime, the old "lizard core" that you have to destroy to shut someone down instantly. Otherwise you have to wait for them to run out of blood, and that can take a while.
Any bullet that will penetrate deeply enough in a human being to reach and damage vital structures will go through walls.
The closest thing to a "magic" solution in terms of terminal effectiveness (or whatever label one wishes to give it) is a 5.56mm carbine using light JHP ammunition. Essentially varmint loads. That's it. (Or you can use the bayonet I suppose.)
Your local Walmart will happily sell you a Mini14 for around 600 dollars if you can't afford, don't want, or don't like an AR clone. They'll sell you some varmint loads too. But you'll have to order the 20 or 30 rd mags, they don't carry those. Yet.
For a .357 fired indoors I'd opt for the old 158gr LSWCHP +P offerings, preferably the Remington. Less flash, less noise, decent results.
There's a reason behind the 12" min gelatin standard, but what many people forget is that the original IWBA standard was 18" or MORE of penetration, and that 12" in the min number and they forget the "or MORE" part of things.
Me? I was a slumlord. People had every reason to choose my apartment.
Best thing to do is just purchase whatever quality JHP that is reasonably heavy in weight for a given caliber that you can afford to use. Then arrange to go out and kill a hog somewhere, preferably using a knife (hence the term pig sticker). There is a lot of blood and squealing that way and it helps get a person used to it. (When my wife was in field med, they had to work on pigs that had been shot to help prepare for human casualties.) If you can't arrange for a hog, get a rabbit and a claw hammer. It'll taste like chicken afterwards when you fry it up. Now you've learned where meat comes from and not to be squeamish.
