as the OP of this thread, if you read through it from the beginning you can see that my thinking about a CCW revolver changed more than a bit. weight became a big issue, as well as an exposed hammer. having run over 500 rounds to date through the smith airweight 642c that i eventually purchased, i can tell all that light loads are pussycats, medium loads are quite doable, +P loads are definitely a handful. i only load medium with w231 under 158 grain wide meplat hi-teks and every weekly range session includes at least 10 rounds of +P loads. i practice/train from 4 to 6 sessions per month at my town's indoor police range. these sessions last from 20 minutes to 40 minutes - fast, easy, and keeps me in constant "snubby ready" shape - snubbies ain't for everyone.
the beauty of the smith airweight is its under one pound unloaded "air weight". this is a true pocket snubby that i will Never be without because it's so dang convenient to carry with almost all manner of seasonal street wear clothing. my smith model 60 weighed near 24ozs, and for me that was just too heavy and so a tad too inconvenient to even think about daily carry in all manner of daily clothing. we fit the gun and the cartridge to the task required, as best we all can.
i think that most will agree that grips are a critically subjective component of any gun, and absolutely an issue for any snub nosed revolver. worse yet for an airweight snubby. i LOVE wood grips, but i'll Never have them on my 642c, that would be stupid of me. it took a bit of doing, but, as you can read in this thread, i found the grip answer i needed for how i load and carry my snubby. a boot grip modified hogue 60020 allows for the hand high web cushioning i needed for rapidly dumping a cylinder of +P rounds into center mass at 5 yards. these modded grips offer absolutely no issues for any manner of true pocket or IWB carry - for me.
a .357mag snubby is a bad joke. +P .38spl is heapin' handful. for the very most part, there is no viable need for a .357mag snubnose revolver. IMHO.
a snubby is not a fun range gun, and was never meant to be one. it's a defensive CCW ECQ uber concealable tool, no more or less. it does require reasonable regular practice/training for actual defensive use with properly loaded ammo. it is what it is, and it is what it ain't, and definitely not a CCW for everyone whence properly defensive loaded, that's for sure.