It is hard to fault Beagle's premise, especially in the light of all the money these gunmakers and ammomakers plow into R&D.
A few of the offerings leave me scratching my head--Fiver's mention of the 44/40 twist in Marlin' 44 Mag leverguns is one such faux pas. 357 and 44 Mag calibers in Win 1873 repros and 357 Magnum in a J-frame S&W are heresies--and I am a HUGE fan of heresy, I'll cop to that before retaining counsel. Yeah, yeah--metallurgy has advanced over the last 150 years.
As long as we consider the boiler room supporting the caliber as well as the caliber diameter Beagle's handgun premise holds water. E.g., 32s--for the 32 S&W Long, 7.62 x 38R, and 32 H&R Mag, 100 grains is a DEFINITE sweet spot. Start playing with the 30 Carbine Blackhawk--32/20 WCF--and 327 Federal, 115-120 grains shoots just a click better, though the 100 grain class still does a fine job.
Moving in other directions--shorter cases and self-loading--the 32 ACP and 7.65 MAS both do their best work with bullets in the 70-85 grain weight range. Bottom line--boiler rooms matter, too.
The 38s--S&W, Special, and 357 Magnum--in all of these, the factories and home loaders have been from pillar to post as far as bullet weights go. That continues to this day. The 'Standard' has been 140-160 grains in weight, and there is nothing wrong with that rubric--especially for the 357, because there are no 'Bad' bullet weights for the 357 Mag if ballistic social engineering is the venue--and dissatisfaction with the 38 Special in that role has prompted a whole lot of this bullet weight experimentation. Most of this monkey-wrenching ignored with enthusiasm that Elephant In The Room that started at the same time this bullet weight hocus-pocus got traction--that cops and citizens were no longer engaging bad guys in flight--with the laws in flux about firing upon fleeing suspected felons the self-defender was now only firing upon goblins up-close & personal coming at you & exchanging finality. Those classic 38 Special 158 grain LRN loads kinda showed their a-- in such circumstances.
FBI always gets a vote, and after 40+ years of Super-Vel light-bullet/enhanced velocity consciousness-raising the Lab Coat Cadre In Propeller Hats arrive at......the lead 158 grain SWC/HP in +P flavor as Coin Of The Realm. FBI's succinct grasp of the patently obvious can be breath-taking at times.
The 40/41/44/45 calibers excel at fight-stopping. The End.
Speaking of 'Patently obvious', my biases are in full flower today--handguns in my world are largely for repelling boarders, but find their way into hunting roles from time to time. Long guns are the primary hunting tools, but my Mini-14 caused a potential carjacker (my guess) to re-weigh his options about my brand-new Dodge 1500 4X4 in March 2007. Funny how that works.