Bullet Energy

[Tradmark]

IMO, you can use these ME and MV #s as standards of comparison, but there simply is no "magic bullet".

An interesting concept I heard of a while back is that if you hit the animal thru or near the vitals
at the "upstroke" of the heartbeat, you overpressure the animal's blood being pumped to the brain,
and cause a blackout. Sometimes as extreme as bursting blood vessels in the animal's brain. Which is
supposed to explain the instances when an animal drops like a bag of rocks, rather than going on
a terminal mad dash for 75 yards. But no caliber will guarantee this, it's just a matter of fortuitous
timing, upon occasion.

Actually this theory is very accurate. We see thisnin trauma surgery of human gunshot wounds to the heart. Theres reasons why it needs it to be in the upstroke but ill save the massive physics and phsyiology lecture

 

[Tradmark]

Energy is useless. Which is not to say that kinetic energy as a concept is not in play but that the calculated quantity is useless in any discussion of terminal ballistics. Until we can determine exactly 'how' that energy is being used, it has no meaning. We do not know how much is absorbed by the fluids and soft tissues of the body, how much is being used to destroy tissue and break bones, how much is being used to deform the bullet, how much is lost through friction/heat, etc., etc.. Without knowing all that, the total quantity of it is a meaningless number and it doesn't take an engineering degree to figure that out.

I'd love to hear an example of where kinetic energy numbers tell us anything useful. Without knowing any other details, is a cartridge/load producing 2000ft-lbs automatically "better" and more effective than 1000ft-lbs? Better for what, deer, varmints, elephant? Can you answer the question without knowing any other details? If you were to push a .357 carbine into elk duty, which would be better, a 125gr JHP at 2100fps or a 180gr WFN at 1600fps? Do you need energy figures to answer that question? Not if you know anything about terminal ballistics. Does it change anything knowing that the 125gr load produces 1200ft-lbs of energy and the 180gr produces 1000ft-lbs of energy? Those are not dissimilar cartridges but two common loads for the same cartridge. Is energy what makes the 125gr a better varmint load? No. It's the lighter construction and higher velocity, ensuring a flatter trajectory and explosive expansion. You can figure all that out without energy. By the same token, if we push that 180gr 400fps faster and thereby increase its calculated energy by 60%, does that make it 60% more effective? Does it make it more effective at all? No. In fact, it could make it less effective by driving the bullet too fast for the material it's made from. Let's make the bullet a monolithic copper solid, does that make it more effective? Perhaps, a little bit but certainly not 60%. So of what use was kinetic energy in figuring all this out?

Let's compare dissimilar cartridges. Is 4700ft-lbs automatically better than 1200ft-lbs when the game is the size of Cape buffalo, hippo or elephant? Is a .375H&H launching a 270gr expanding bullet at 2800fps more capable than the same weight solid out of a .44Mag at a relatively sedate 1450fps? Does having over four times the energy make it capable of taking game four times larger? The answer is a resounding NO. In fact, the .44 will outpenetrate the .375 and break heavy bones without deforming. So tell me again what role energy plays in this scenario? Many have said that 1000ft-lbs is minimum for deer, what about 1200ft-lbs on 2000lb water buffalo?

View attachment 815606

Actually a 375 h/h with proper tough expandables like an aframe or barnes tsx makes the handguns look like pop guns. It penetrates better all the way around and makes much much larger wound cavities. Use crummy bullets get crummy results

 

[Varminterror]

Actually this theory is very accurate. We see thisnin trauma surgery of human gunshot wounds to the heart. Theres reasons why it needs it to be in the upstroke but ill save the massive physics and phsyiology lecture

I’ve had the misfortune of spending some time with cardiologists and ran through this theory in depth, they (along with my own training as pre-med in college, engineering was a back-up) confirm this is wholly lore. The pressure generated by the impact would collapse the heart valves whether the heart is “on the upstroke” or not, expand the arteries, and create the same pressure within the system regardless of the beat timing of the heart. It’s pseudoscience.

 

[Tradmark]

Well since i do take care of gunshot victims and close friends that are trauma surgeons in the middle
East for the military and have been in the autopsy room to see the exact micro hemorrhages in the brain that happen i guess ill have to disagree with your cardiologists. Then i regularly disagree with them since that is one of the last bastions of
Medicine that think a low fat diet is somehow gonna make u lose weight and be “heart healthy”

 

[Tradmark]

To start the conversation on this so you understand, why do you supposed that with the same bullet and same load does there sometimes just have a hole in the heart and sometimes does the heart tear and “blow up”. What differentiates the result you see? Its the angle and timing of the strike with how the heart is pumping. It takes just the right impulse to bring a pressure spike to the arterial system outside the heart and within the heart. Sometimes you blow up the heart and the deer or animal runs. Sometimes it drops stone dead and never had a shot hit the CNS. Ask your cardiologist buddies why theres ICH’s from some
Bullet wounds to the heart or aorta and sometimes there isnt!?!? What we do know is the bang flops correlate with the hemorrhages in the brain. We know those are caused by pressure spikes in the cardiovascular system.

 

[Varminterror]

Been there, had the conversations. It’s pseudoscience and observational bias through inductive reasoning. The arteries and heart tissue aren’t strong enough to cause a difference in what happens based on heart position. Hitting while the artery is under systolic pressure vs. on the diastolic plateau is immeasurable, first and foremost, and the tissue of the heart valves is not sufficiently strong to contain the pressure generated by the impact.

Absolutely, impacts can and do increase the hydraulic pressure in the CV system, but the relationship to the relative heartbeat timing as the driver for all of this is pure hokum.

There are a number of real and documentable instances where impacts to the chest, even non-penetrating can and do disrupt heart function, but this is typically an interruption of the electrical signal which “fires” the heartbeat. For example - a line drive baseball to the chest stopping a player’s heart. But like the ICH and arterial damage you’re describing above, it is not really dependent upon whether the heart is in ventricular or atrial contraction or between beats. It’s an impact to the heart, it has opportunity to cause disruption. Period.

 

[cheygriz]

No single factor is the end-all. I believe KE is one of the factors, as is bullet design, bullet construction and etc. The most important factor is placement.

My "beef" with the IPSC crowd is the use of momentum as the be-all, end-all, single determining factor, when in reality, I believe it is actually less of a factor than KE.

 

[Varminterror]

My "beef" with the IPSC crowd is the use of momentum as the be-all, end-all, single determining factor, when in reality, I believe it is actually less of a factor than KE.

I can appreciate the distaste you’ve developed through pistols shooters, but I would contend the physics of inelastic collisions: momentum is conserved even in inelastic collisions, while Energy is only conserved in elastic collisions.

So even though really neither are perfect, momentum is a much better measure than KE.

 

[Tradmark]

Been there, had the conversations. It’s pseudoscience and observational bias through inductive reasoning. The arteries and heart tissue aren’t strong enough to cause a difference in what happens based on heart position. Hitting while the artery is under systolic pressure vs. on the diastolic plateau is immeasurable, first and foremost, and the tissue of the heart valves is not sufficiently strong to contain the pressure generated by the impact.

Absolutely, impacts can and do increase the hydraulic pressure in the CV system, but the relationship to the relative heartbeat timing as the driver for all of this is pure hokum.

There are a number of real and documentable instances where impacts to the chest, even non-penetrating can and do disrupt heart function, but this is typically an interruption of the electrical signal which “fires” the heartbeat. For example - a line drive baseball to the chest stopping a player’s heart. But like the ICH and arterial damage you’re describing above, it is not really dependent upon whether the heart is in ventricular or atrial contraction or between beats. It’s an impact to the heart, it has opportunity to cause disruption. Period.

We can beat a dead horse but thats not at all productive. I think its good you ended at premed. It saved you the beat down from acting like you know the truth cuz you know this doc or this cardiologist. You never got to see how divergent or opinions there are in different areas of medicine. Like infectious disease doesnt agree with urology or genital infections. Lots of
Theories bandied about but very few are made by personal observation and cardiologists dont work in way to ever make those observations though rarely do any cardiologists agree. Heck neurosurgery doesnt always agree with neurology. Touting creds as premed is pretty bold.


With all your medical knowledge you should know it only takes systolic pressure sometimes as low 180-200 to cause an ICH. Interestingly enough we see hemorrhages from elevated pressure without blown out heart valves all the time.

 

[d2wing]

Then some folks believe that formal study by engineers, including those at the military and ammunition companies is meaningless, that you can just make up ballistics. I have no answer to that.
I surely do not believe that a .44 caliber pistol is superior to a .375 mag rifle on big game especially African game with proper bullets. In many cases solids.
On the other hand as a practical matter, people killed just about everything with black powder and lead bullets. As always, getting the bullet where it needs to go is the important thing. Some folks killed lions with spears. I can see why a person would think only penetration matters.
But we are not talking elephants, deer are thin animals. they are more affected by tissue damage, along with proper placement than just penetration.
For that reason I recommend a high velocity expanding soft point bullet from a .223 or bigger rifle. But nearly any centerfire will do.

 

[Varminterror]

You’re missing the point - on purpose it seems.

Systolic pressure of 120mmHg is only 2.3psi. Heart valves will buckle under twice that. A bullet running into the heart will cause the same conditions you are describing regardless of the .8psi between “upstroke” vs. down.

The hemorrhaging elsewhere in the body DOES happen due to excessive venous pressure during a bullet impact. It does NOT happen because the bullet happened to impact the heart at that exact second of atrial contraction. The result is not a myth, the timing of the cause absolutely is.

Very weak straw man about conflicting opinions in other aspects of medicine...

 

[CraigC]

Then some folks believe that formal study by engineers, including those at the military and ammunition companies is meaningless, that you can just make up ballistics. I have no answer to that. I guess Oprah is right, you can make up your own truth.
I surely do not believe that a .44 caliber pistol is superior to a .375 mag rifle on big game especially African game with proper bullets. In many cases solids.

Who are these engineers you keep referencing and where is their body of work???

I never said the .44 was superior to the .375. I said the comparing the energy generated by either cartridges tells us absolutely NOTHING about their game taking capabilities and used a real example. You have offered nothing but the blind and baseless defense of the Altar of Energy. I will ask what game you think the .375 is suitable for but a handgun is not but we all know your answer to that question will be a canned response that defends "conventional wisdom" about energy (aka nonsense).

 

[jono]

Shot a deer a couple weeks ago with a Savage 10-ml using a 200 gr Hornady .452 XTP over 44 gr of 5744. This load shoots very flat and accurately, and has worked well for me on 100-200 yd shots, This, unfortunately, was at about 20 yds, and the bullet, (designed for a .45 long Colt) was probably still moving at 2300 FPS+ when it it hit a rib and, as far as I can tell, disintegrated. Fortunately, the chunk of dislodged rib punched a big hole on in the right lung and ended up in the right ventricle, but even though I transferred upwards of 2300 foot-pounds of energy, (completely) I could see how this could have gone bad in a hurry if the trajectory had been different.

 

[d2wing]

Sorry craig, I expanded my answer after you responded. To answer your question, There is a professional Society of Ballistic Engineers. They work for the military, colleges, governments, and firearms companies around the world. They do research and publish papers that are peer reviewed. They are been around over 100 years. I have found some doing research on the subject. In part I agree with you but you are so emotional and irrational I don't see much point in discussing it with you.
And yes, you did say the .44 was superior to the .375.

 

[wankerjake]

The Importance of kinetic energy is widely misapplied. It’s next to meaningless if you understand anything about momentum and bullet construction and shot placement.

If you understand what’s good at killing things, you don’t need to care about kinetic energy.

As far as a minimum for deer, it’d be more helpful for the OP to ask what he was thinking about using instead of what the energy “requirement” is. People get hung up on numbers. A lot of people who are real good at killing things have never even considered a kinetic energy “requirement.”

 

[Tradmark]

You’re missing the point - on purpose it seems.

Systolic pressure of 120mmHg is only 2.3psi. Heart valves will buckle under twice that. A bullet running into the heart will cause the same conditions you are describing regardless of the .8psi between “upstroke” vs. down.

The hemorrhaging elsewhere in the body DOES happen due to excessive venous pressure during a bullet impact. It does NOT happen because the bullet happened to impact the heart at that exact second of atrial contraction. The result is not a myth, the timing of the cause absolutely is.

Very weak straw man about conflicting opinions in other aspects of medicine...

Not missing the point at all. The heart contracting and the difference bw systolic pressure can be wide or narrowed depending on the subject. The types of vessels hemorrhaging and the type not hemorrhaging give a good indication its a slight increase in pressure. The fact it happens infrequently in studies on goats done by ballisticians years ago and shooting same angle and placement; shows on some shots something different is going on and timing if systole is literally one of the only variables present. Is the point of systole a shot makes contact a necessity, no, but it makes absolute biologic sense and is one of the leading theories. Theres no strawman argument. Its a fact of medicine. Especially when theres no absolute way to prove something. Its not junk science as you put it, but two different theories and i, and many hold this one and its not baseless nor based on a lack of first hand observation.

Fyi, ive had many an overdosed patients on cocaine or meth, or stroke patients at or above the bp you say will rupture heart valves but that happens incredibly rarely. All i can say is that the only people we find more irritating than know it all med students are the know it alls that never got in.

 

[Jessesky]

Energy is a rule of thumb that provides a very general and shallow guideline. Energy is also in favor of faster moving projectiles. While big heavy cartridges will technically have less or the same amount of energy as their smaller bore opponents.

A good example is a .22-250 55gr @3790fps has about 1750lb’ of energy and a 45-70 405gr @1300fps government load has about 1750lb’ of energy. Guess which I’d take an elk with

 

[Tradmark]

So back to momentum vs KE. Interesting subject thats incredibly misunderstood. This year we did a number of tests on whitetails taken in a very specific way. All broadside and taken between 40 and 60 yards. A variety of loads being tested. A 50 cal 325 aframe at 1720 fps. A 440 475 cal hardcast at 1120 fps. A 41 mag 210 aframe at 1675 fps, a 300 gr aframe
From a 460 at 200 fps, and a 140 gr 357 mag at 1500 fps. Several examples of each were taken. No bone, straight broadside shots. Guess which one did the most damage, the second most and which one was last? The 50 cal and 460 were heads and shoulders above the others. The 460 was first, 50 cal was right behind, Interestingly the 41 was next with the 357 next, followed by the 440. It makes sense at the start, then according to either side of this argument falls apart towards the end of the success ladder. Why, bc the 41 beats the 440 by a smidge on energy, but loses out in momentum, the 357 loses out in both but still showed a better wound channel?! How is this despite its expanded diameter being just slightly larger and lagging mightily behind the 440gr 475 cal slug? Its what i have yet to hear anyone bring up this far, momentum impulse which is what ive yet to hear anyone on either side bring up. Its really the key.

 

[Tradmark]

By the way, all killed the deer. Great care was taken not to hit any hearts or geat vessels.

 

[Tradmark]

Who are these engineers you keep referencing and where is their body of work???

I never said the .44 was superior to the .375. I said the comparing the energy generated by either cartridges tells us absolutely NOTHING about their game taking capabilities and used a real example. You have offered nothing but the blind and baseless defense of the Altar of Energy. I will ask what game you think the .375 is suitable for but a handgun is not but we all know your answer to that question will be a canned response that defends "conventional wisdom" about energy (aka nonsense).

So basically what youre saying is that a 44 mag with good bullets is better than a 375hh with crummy ones. Absolutely!

 

[wankerjake]

By the way, all killed the deer. Great care was taken not to hit any hearts or geat vessels.

Said no deer hunter ever

 

[Slamfire]

I think KE was picked because it was easier to sell new cartridges of a greater velocity because KE increased by the square the velocity, which makes a small velocity increase appear to be a huge improvement over a slower bullet of the same diameter. Momentum (ME) is conserved in a collision, KE is not, and Momentum being mass times velocity, it is a lot harder to increase momentum by a significant amount, without the shooter getting beat to heck.

Advertising in print magazines, has been worked, massaged, and evolved , since the American Civil War. The shooting community is not merely been shaped, but has been molded by the pseudo science put out by Industry marketing departments who sponsor the articles we read. The idea that KE is a lethality measure, that you can calculate "stopping power", is one of the things that the shooting community has been taught to believe.

KE (and ME) are easy to calculate, therefore, easy to sell as a lethality measure. KE is more of a marketing number and gunwriters use the thing all the time to hype cartridges. All the cartridges we use are more or less bounded by the weight of the firearm, lets say a rifle. Ever carried a 12 lb or 15 lb rifle 1000 yards to the Viale pitts at Camp Perry? The case strap ate up my shoulder. My target rifles have lots of lead weight in them, to cut the recoil, and I cannot imagine carrying them all day. The heaviest service rifles were around 8 to 9 pounds. I know Roy Dunlap claimed he almost died carrying a M1917 in basic. Also, the recoil momentum of 12 to 14 foot pounds used to be the estimated recoil limit for a Soldier. Now, with women in the service, the 223 cartridge is the max, with about 2 or 3 pounds http://www.chuckhawks.com/recoil_table.htm. I wonder what Sargent York would have said. Now, I have fired some 40 foot pound 45/70 loads and have fired two 458 Win Mag loads, which are around 62 foot pound, and I don't want any of the 62 foot pound recoil in a 9 pound rifle. It hurt! Shoot enough forty foot pound recoiling cartridges, and you will feel "like a duck stunned on the head". I have no idea what will happen to a person who shoots 50 plus full power 458 Win Magnum loads. Might develop brain wasting disease.

Firearms corporations have a very difficult time selling a new round based on an increase in momentum. Momentum is conserved in inelastic collisions, momentum is also mass time velocity. It is hard to increase momentum significantly in a hand held weapon without knocking the shooter around like a rag dog. But, if you sell KE as a quality and lethality measure, there is a lot more room for playing around before the shooter develops concussion from the recoil.

Gun writers are guys who get $400 for an article, they go out into the garage, or the hardware store, buy what is cheap and available, and what I have read for decades, is that deer (or humans), are "like" wet newspaper, clay, wood, wood dowels, phone books, duxseal, jugs full of water, soap bars, etc, etc. In print gunwriters have never really run calibrated tests. Their calibration point is that they claim they shot an animal, and the bullet performed similar to bullets shot in whatever medium they found in their garage, or on the shelf of a hardware store. This is pseudo science. I remembered, they used to compare divots in steel plates, the greater the divot, the more lethal the round. So you see, people, animals, are like steel plates. If you read enough in print articles, especially from the 50's and 60's, about “killing power”, you can tell they are physically incoherent and contradict each other.

Weatherby was a huge proponent of kinetic energy, as his cartridges burnt a lot of powder to produce high velocities. Here, you are introduced to the term "Wallop". With a Weatherby rifle, you did not need to place your bullet, as the "wallop" would do the rest. Ads show such amazing intellectual rigor, the in print articles were no less rigorous.



Martin Fackler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Fackler and other lethality testers came to the conclusion that KE was not a measure of lethality. You can read Fackler's papers, he nicely dismisses the knock down theories of in print gunwriters, saying in one article, they are nothing but advertising. A simplified Fackler statement would be, if it lives and breathes, if you make it bleed enough, it will stop breathing. Oxygen deprivation is a 100% kill mechanism, starve the brain of blood, and the animal stops functioning. It is just that simple. Kill the brain, kill the creature. Fackler's papers are very positive about big through holes. But casting ballistic gelatin is work, and measuring the volume of the hole, and the depth of the hole, is also work. So, what we will continue to read in the popular press, is KE. Easy to calculate on a keyboard and requires no real effort to produce. Anyone remember the tables where a certain amount of KE was required to kill certain animals? Anyone remember the rules of thumb that a certain amount of KE was required to kill a deer, but more KE was required for a Moose? That was psuedo science.

I have never ever seen industry data on penetration in ballistic gelatin blocks, at distance. Currently the most accepted test media is ballistic gelatin. Where are the penetration in ballistic gelatin, and where are the wound channel measurements, and where are the tests at various distances? I would like to see wound channel and penetration at 200 yards, 300 yards, 400 yards, 500 yards, 600 yards, 700 yards, 800 yards, 1000 yards. There are many posters claiming long distance shots, I would like to see bullets tested for penetration and expansion at all those distances. Where is it?

Something else, where is the research into lethality that Industry funded? I don't think Industry funds lethality research, and they don't need to. All they have to do is commission some in print gunwriter to write an article, (about $400) give the guy some psuedo science talking points, the guy goes nut case in print, and they make profits. What I have noticed, was that the real lethality research was funded by the Navy. Martin Fackler was a Navy Doctor.

Knock down power, read enough accounts of Soldiers in combat, guys who had to be told, they were missing their feet. Knock down power is one of those created for advertising terms. Knock down power from small arms is the person's or animal's reaction to pain if the central nervous system is not turned off. You know, Hornets have incredible knock down power: get bit by one. You will jump and kick like a jackass. You will run as fast as you can, and flap your arms like a bird, trying to get away. You might roll around on the ground. Did anyone measure the KE of a Hornet sting?

 

[mcb]

Rambling thoughts:

If you know bullet mass and velocity then you know the momentum and kinetic energy. They are inseparably tied together. P=m*v & E= 1/2 m*v^2, Assuming your not shedding or gaining mass in flight to the target E=1/2 P* v they inexorably tied together.

That said Kinetic Energy is the ONLY energy source the bullet has to do any work when it reach the target (assuming your not lobbing HE rounds or other projectiles with their own energetics on board), that is a simple fundamental of physics. What that work looks like or turns into (damaged material target or bullet, heat, noise, material phase change, and imparted velocity) can vary a lot depending on bullet's construction and target's construction, but the total work done in the collision is limited by the kinetic energy the bullet arrives with. The ability to perforate or damage tissue is a result of exchanging kinetic energy for tissue damage. The ability to cause the bullet to expand or fragment is the result of exchanging kinetic energy for deformation to the bullet. Whatever the bullet does at the target is powered by the only energy source the bullet has and that is kinetic energy.

The problem is there is no strong link between the raw amount of work done at the target and lethality. You can have massive tissue damage in non-critical areas that may be horribly cruel and crippling but the critter still survives the hit or lingers for days or weeks before dying of secondary issues related to the damage. You can have relatively tiny amount of tissue damage that results in DRT if its a CNS hit. And outside of a CNS hit you can never completely discount the nearly intractable "will-to-live" that seems to be non-existent in one critter and nearly indomitable in another of the same species.

I am far from an energy junkie having killed as many deer with cartridges under the mythical 1000 ft-lbs as above that arbitrary energy number. IMHO shot placement is priority number one, with penetration a very close number two, everything else is a distant third or worst. That said more energy is rarely a bad thing as it potentially increases penetration and damage volume and that give you a small increase in the margin for error in priority 1 and 2. The caveat to that is if that energy is so excessive as to effect priority number one (shot placement) through abusing the shooter, giving them false confidence, etc and/or to cause bullet failure effecting priory number two (penetration). When you compare the damage a marginal cartridge like a 410 slug does to the damage an "overkill" cartridge like 7mm RUM does when both placed properly on a deer it is hard to say Kinetic Energy does not matter at all.

 

[CraigC]

Sorry craig, I expanded my answer after you responded. To answer your question, There is a professional Society of Ballistic Engineers. They work for the military, colleges, governments, and firearms companies around the world. They do research and publish papers that are peer reviewed. They are been around over 100 years. I have found some doing research on the subject. In part I agree with you but you are so emotional and irrational I don't see much point in discussing it with you.
And yes, you did say the .44 was superior to the .375.

Emotional and irrational??? Exactly what I'm trying to introduce into this subject is logic and reason but what we run into every single time is the EMOTIONAL clinging to dogma, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I see that you have not addressed any of the examples I've provided. Where is your logic and reasoning?

If any body determines that kinetic energy is the one and only proper gauge of a cartridge's terminal effectiveness, then it is fundamentally flawed.

No, I did NOT say that the .44 was superior to the .375. If I had, I would defend it....but I didn't. I said that the energy figures might suggest that the .375 was four times better, or capable of taking game four times heavier but we know this is not true. At least those of us who hunt with handguns do. What I did say, was that the .44Mag with a 270gr monolithic solid will outpenetrate a .375 firing a traditional 270gr expanding bullet.

The caveat to that is if that energy is so excessive as to effect priority number one (shot placement) through abusing the shooter, giving them false confidence, etc and/or to cause bullet failure effecting priory number two (penetration). When you compare the damage a marginal cartridge like a 410 slug does to the damage an "overkill" cartridge like 7mm RUM does when both placed properly on a deer it is hard to say Kinetic Energy does not matter at all.

Kinetic energy is very much like horsepower. Engines used to be rated for gross horsepower, that is the engine with nothing attached to it that it does not require to simply run. The problem is that the gross horsepower rating is not what reaches the rear wheels. All sorts of things happen from the crankshaft to the tires that sap power from the engine. Engine driven accessories like power steering pumps, A/C compressors, alternators, cooling fan, etc., are the first to suck power from the engine. Then comes the transmission with its friction and rotating mass. Then the driveshaft, then the rear axle gears, then the axle shafts, hubs and brakes. Then the rear wheels and tires. All those things, anything that contributes rotating mass, takes power to turn. Which is why rear wheel horsepower is at least 20% or more less than what was at the crankshaft. Same thing happens with bullets once they leave the bore. The things that affect it in flight can be measured. The difference here is that with the engine of a car, we can isolate and measure all those losses. We can't do that with a bullet that reaches its target. All we can do is calculate the gross quantity of kinetic energy. Even if you could measure its velocity once it exits the target, you only know the total energy loss, not what quantities were used for what purposes.

 

[Slamfire]

Rambling thoughts:
The problem is there is no strong link between the raw amount of work done at the target and lethality. You can have massive tissue damage in non-critical areas that may be horribly cruel and crippling but the critter still survives the hit or lingers for days or weeks before dying of secondary issues related to the damage. You can have relatively tiny amount of tissue damage that results in DRT if its a CNS hit. And outside of a CNS hit you can never completely discount the nearly intractable "will-to-live" that seems to be non-existent in one critter and nearly indomitable in another of the same species.

Last week I was at the range shooting a 30-30 Win. Col D was there too. Col D is missing one leg. The relations between the Army Ordnance Bureau and its artillery shell manufactures were so congenial that during the Vietnam war, that a lot of duds were fired down range. The Ordnance Bureau learned long ago not to anger the industrial base by insisting that their products work. However, the clever VC managed to add in the QC that American manufacturer's took out, and set up a bobby trap with a once fired 105mm American shell, which took off Col D's leg. I did not go into the details of the rescue, but it is obvious had not medical attention been on the spot, to stop the bleeding, Col D would have bled out in seconds, well before the Huey medevac arrived. Blood loss is 100% fatal, even small leaky wounds kill if the bleeding is not stopped. For a human, a Class 3 hemorrhage is about 3 to 4 pints of blood. From the description, if someone hits class 3 and does not receive a blood transfusion real quick, the next step is a class 4 hemorrhage, which is terminal. Animals don't get a Huey medevac, so depending on where they are hit, they can run off and bleed to death later, and that may take hours. A good solid hit ensures lots of immediate blood loss. The first thing is good shot placement, and the second thing, which I believe more than KE or ME, is a big through hole. The advantages of a big hole ought to be obvious. I recall reading in pre WW2 literature praise for the 30-40 Krag round. The cartridge pushed a 220 grain bullet at 2200 fps, a piker by Weatherby standards, and yet, the long bullet predictably upset and had excellent penetration in game. I found it interesting, in LaGarde's book about wounds, that he considered American Civil War weapons created worse wounds than the small arms of WW1. Those Civil War weapons fired huge, massive, soft lead projectiles that upset. I have talked to bud's who have hunted with Minie balls, and the things hammer game. I was told, that if the Minie hit bone, the animal tumbled.

I am far from an energy junkie having killed as many deer with cartridges under the mythical 1000 ft-lbs as above that arbitrary energy number. IMHO shot placement is priority number one, with penetration a very close number two, everything else is a distant third or worst. That said more energy is rarely a bad thing as it potentially increases penetration and damage volume and that give you a small increase in the margin for error in priority 1 and 2. The caveat to that is if that energy is so excessive as to effect priority number one (shot placement) through abusing the shooter, giving them false confidence, etc and/or to cause bullet failure effecting priory number two (penetration). When you compare the damage a marginal cartridge like a 410 slug does to the damage an "overkill" cartridge like 7mm RUM does when both placed properly on a deer it is hard to say Kinetic Energy does not matter at all.

KE, ME, all related, but inadequate by themselves as models of lethality. I agree with your analysis, but if you notice, marksmanship skills, which lead to better shot placement, are not promoted in the press. Instead what is published promotes the concept that expensive equipment compensates for a fundamental lack of marksmanship skills. Shooting is a skill based activity, not some deterministic game where the end point is based on what you spend.