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Wowie wow-wow (and etcetera).

Not only do you get an A+, but you have now risen to the post of Dean of Muttly University!

I am astounded that you did not get lost in all the technicalities and wishful tinkering around, and picked up the salient point...penetration is almost everything, and is all that can be relied upon. I have collected the real practical "using" experiences from soldiers, hunters, and police for all of my life, and added my own experiences, with reading too...and of late, the statements of pathologist Fackler loom large.....without penetration, even your 12ga. may not stop a determined attacker. Knowing something about the tenacity of people and animals, it becomes less surprising to read that a 12ga. charge of birdshot to the abdomen may cause a ghastly wound, but may not STOP in time. Causing the death of your adversary is not the mission....preventing bodily harm to YOU is. He has literally seen it all. When you see what actually happened...one gains practical wisdom. Writers tout the XTP or whatever expanding JHP in .25acp. It never arrives at a necessary structure then. FMJ "ball" may, at least it has the best chance at doing so, therefore perhaps doing some damage beyond shallow wounding....from which your killer may succumb several days later, from infection.

Do we need extreme velocity to penetrate, even expand? NO. Weight. Does less velocity lessen effectiveness at longer ranges? No, providing the projectile has enough weight, delivered foot-pounds increase over lighter projectiles'. What is the most popular-selling weight range of current ammunition, including what the all-wise military are using? Light bullets going fast. What is the result? Often, Failure to Stop. Remember, the military equipment world changed with the revolutionary Vietnam era doctrine of the ballistic free lunch, casting away thousands of years of human, martial and hunting history. "This here plastic (original stocks made by Mattel Toy Company) machinegun can spray mass quantities of squirrel-huntin' bullets into the bushes where the enemy probably is, and almost any weak and reluctant draftee (cannon fodder) can endure its easy recoil, carry tons of ammunition (which goes BANG loud, in a hollow plastic gun) and not even have to aim it well, because the tiny bullets are so unstable that as soon as they hit virtually anything, including a paper target (see for yourself!) they flop over and rip a sideways wound while breaking apart...which could really hurt...so when the enemy hears the screams of pain, they will all run away, or to the aid if their fallen sufferer....where we will drop a net on them, and win the war. Shame on us. We even use the pistol cartridge our fallen foe lost two world wars to us while using...the 9mm Luger, FMJ.

America found out what works, first with round balls and flintlock rifles, .44/.45 (and up) caliber handguns and rifles, then higher velocity jacketed rifle rounds, and that's where our success stopped. The .45acp works so well because it is heavy, slow, and big...does not need expansion to make a big hole, probably deep enough too, at 230 grains weight, and at pistol velocities. It is only a pistol, but a hell of a pistol. It worked, too...not only in theory. But it is Daddy's Gun, and one has to stand up to it. It is not a .38 plinker. Our rifles were .30 caliber and powerful. They didn't need pin-like depleted uranium cores to get through a car door and bust up a Nazi. The ammunition was heavy, and kicked ass every time. It killed. It stopped. It didn't usually take multiple hits to the torso to eventually put the enemy down, as our M16 carbines have in the desert recently. That's why we're developing a .270 caliber war fighting cartridge now....something like the AK round, only better. The .270 is our famous Western hunting bullet, second only to our pre-WWI vintage .30'06, adopted into our military by Theodore Roosevelt (who knew something about wilderness survival and war fighting)and later the similar .308 Win. Our new proposed round is closer to the 7x57 Mauser of the 1890s, which did a pretty good job on us at San Juan and Kettle Hill, when our Rough Riders, cowboys and the sons of slaves, stormed the hilltop cannons and rifles.

As in car crash survival, big and heavy wins the race.

You may now pull the lanyard and fire the Official Muttly University cannon, starting the semester.

(T.R. let his children do this every evening at sundown at his home, while they lowered the flag.)

Let Freedom RING.