While I've used some of the older lines of Hornady for my pistols and revolvers, and some of their rifle ammo, I've not yet had the opportunity to become familiar with their newer bullet designs offered in their Critical Duty & Defense lines.
Once they start making some inroads into LE use in the way of major procurements or contract placements, and it's been around long enough to have developed a bit of a record in extensive LE testing and usage, I'll take a closer look at it.
In the meantime, the major makers often associated with LE/Gov sales (Winchester, Remington, Federal & Speer) seem to be offering a pretty decent line of defensive loads in .38 S&W Special to meet the needs of a lot of folks.
In recent years I've become much more concerned about dusting off my older DA revolver skills, and running the little 5-shot snubs controllably & accurately with whatever good quality loads I have available at any given time.
I can't always predict what loads will remain consistently available to me due to production & market conditions, and I like to use as much of the carry ammo as possible for training, quals & drills practice. I'll use some standard pressure loads, as may be available, but since I carry +P in all the snubs I have which are suitable for its use, I like to use +P for as much of my range sessions as possible. (I only carry & use standard pressure in a M37-2 I picked up several years ago.)
