In going with the spirit of not having a big heavy handgun as a backup, I think that I'd go for the 45 cal. 1911 stuffed full of the +P equivelent loads over the .38 Super. If it came down to std loads in the .45, I would probably take the Super of it though.

The .357 Mag did come out in 1935, but that was in the big N frame size. Keith was playing with hotted up .44 Spl's at the time on the N frame that might have been worthwhile enough for the extra bulk. Interesting???