On some of the rounds, the photos and videos show the fragment paths - sort of neat to watch even if it does not mean much.Originally Posted by TicTacticalTimmy
The extra energy is irrelevant if it is the case that, for pistol rounds, only the permanent wound channel (i.e. the tissue directly contacted by the bullet) causes damage.
For rifle rounds, we know that the stretching of tissue is so severe that it causes permanent damage even outside of the physical path of the bullet. Or alternatively, the fragments from fragmenting rifle rounds fragment with enough velocity to damage tissue a few inches outside of the main wound channel.
Proponents of the .357's legendary stopping power would say that loads like the 125gr Rem SJHP in a 4" bbl develop enough velocity to cause miniature rifle-like wounds in addition to the main wound channel. From what I've read, all of the ballistics experts disagree with this belief.
One thing I note from comparing the 4" full house .357 results to the 9mm results is that, while the best loads for both cartridges expanded massively and ended in the 12-18" zone, the .357 loads ended much closer to or beyond the 18" mark while the 9mm loads were much closer to the 12" mark. So that extra energy is going somewhere, but that might not result in a bigger wound if the .357 rounds just penetrate out of the target and keep going.
For the "legendary" loads like the Remington SJHP it is interesting that, despite having a ton of energy, there was much less expansion AND less penetration vs the all-copper .357 loads. I would guess this is because the SJHP is partially fragmenting. If these fragments have velocity near a typical .223 round at close range they would definitely produce more severe wounds compared to a 9mm, but if their velocity is low enough that they don't get much farther than the permanent wound channel the energy is just being wasted.
My apologies to any experts reading this for any bad terminology I just used.
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