Hollow points expand over time so your calculations are incorrect. For much of the distance along the wound track the bullet has not expanded at all.
Which of my calculations are incorrect? Please be specific.
Most of JHP expansion occurs during the earliest part of the wound channel, when bullet velocity is highest and, thus, the forces to cause expansion are the greatest. I think it's reasonable to assume that nearly complete expansion occurs before vital organs are reached in most human shot angles.
Also, the elasticity of flesh causes the diameter of the wound track to be smaller than the projectile that passes through it. So, even your unexpanded calculations are incorrect.
Please explain how human tissue magically parts allowing a bullet of any size to pass through without leaving a wound channel, or likely more representative of your position, leaving a wound channel of a given size, regardless of the size of the projectile.
Are you actually saying if you had a choice of having a sewing needle or knitting needle pushed through your body (along the same path, of course), that it wouldn't matter which one was chosen?
Tissue elasticity does not shrink wound channels or make tissue magically dodge bullets (or needles); it makes it more difficult to quantitatively compare otherwise equivalent wound channels formed by projectiles of modestly different diameters, because the elasticity causes most tissues to contract after the damage is done.
Observing any actual wound proves this to be the case. That is why differentiating between bullets of such similar diameter, velocity, and shape is so difficult for medical professionals even though they probably don't try to tell the difference while they are treating a patient.
The difficulty of differentiation is primarily twofold: (1) the observing is done after the fact, not during the actual wounding event, and the elastic nature of tissue after an injury causes the tissue to fall back and occlude the channel; and, (2) the physician typically does not have the responsibility (thus, not the interest) in determining bullet caliber or type (that is the job of the police, crime scene investigator, and forensics analyst; even in an autopsy, where the ME has no interest in treating the wound, it is generally not the ME who determines bullet caliber and type).
The FBI needed a discussion point in their May 2014 memo justifying their move away from the .40 S&W to the 9 Luger to counter the "big holes are better" crowd they knew would vociferously object. To give the agency credit, they didn't try to foist the pseudoscientific argument you are espousing herein, but I'm sure, like the good bureaucrats they are, that they are in no way upset that their mostly irrelevant talking point has been turned into a pseudoscientific claim by others.
The FBI's pamphlet on handgun wounding factors in 1989 specifically says, as it must, that, everything else equal (it never is), big holes are better. While the '89 pamphlet says that reliable expansion is a plus, it acknowledges that JHP expansion was often unreliable at the time, so advised that one should not rely on expansion to produce the big hole. The pamphlet was written by a .45 Auto (big hole) advocate, and his digs at his opponents, high capacity (9 Luger) advocates were subtle. In the near term, the bureaucracy compromised by settling on the 10 Auto, which turned into a LE affinity for the .40 S&W, the mindset last year's memo was written to overturn.
Furthermore, more tissue damage, especially such a small difference, does not necessarily mean greater effect on target. If someone's leg is completely blown off they often can still survive. That is far more tissue damage than an entire magazine of .45 can ever do. The small amount of tissue damage handguns inflict isn't what kills people. Handgun wounds cause death or incapacitation via blood loss or by damaging critical parts of the CNS. Blood loss is a really slow way to try to stop someone while they are shooting at you. You have to hope for a psychological stop, hit the heart which will cause them to lose consciousness very rapidly due to the lack of blood flow, or hit their upper spine or brain. Otherwise they will keep shooting at you even if they have 8 .358 in^2 * 12 in holes in (relatively) inconsequential parts of their body. Shot placement is all that matters once your cartridge of choice is able to penetrate to the vital organs.
You are way off topic and raising irrelevancies. The point of using a handgun for LE or civilian SD purposes is not to kill, but to stop illegal behavior. The vast majority of DGUs in both arenas don't involve pulling a trigger, so even an empty pistol will be effective most of the time. However, the point of choosing a caliber, bullet, and pistol is to stop illegal activity when faced with a determined bad guy. Thus, psychological stops are irrelevant to this discussion about the effect of caliber on wounding potential. It's a nice trick of pseudoscience, however, if you wish to cloud the issue at hand.
Shot placement is important, and it was refreshing to see the FBI for the first time that recoil degrades accuracy and precision. But, that is a seperate issue, although this time related. My point is and has been, all other factors equal, a bigger caliber bullet causes a bigger wound. The FBI knows this, which is why they focus on the irrelevancy of physicians not identifying bullet caliber from wound paths.
It would be one thing if we were hunting deer, boar, and other animals that are physically tougher than humans and would therefore require a bullet with more momentum and sectional density to penetrate their thicker hide or bones. But, that isn't the case when it comes to people.
I've said nothing about momentum and sectional density. Another nice strawman to obfuscate the discussion. Modern handgun terminal ballistics testing uses penetration in a standard tissue simulant in lieu of questionable calculations based on momentum and sectional density.
So, yes, there is much doubt that .45 ACP is more effective than 9mm on a human target.
No there is not, if everything else is held equal. Bigger holes cause more damage, all else equal -- period. The FBI has never been foolish enough to say otherwise; in fact, I believe their May 2014 memo stands behind the agency's 1989 pamphlet that explicitly says bigger holes are better.
The accuracy degradation due to recoil isn't offset because it is better to put the first shot in the lung and the second in the heart than it is to put the first shot in the lung and the second in the collar bone. However, people who are practiced enough to have proper recoil control shouldn't have this issue. But, I don't know what skill-level of shooter we are talking about because you brought up the FBI. I assume the OP is not an FBI agent and the 9mm will serve him better unless he has his recoil control down.
Wow, just wow. Whether the greater recoil of the .45 offsets the larger wounding area of its bullet depends on the degree of accuracy and precision degradation the .45 produces relative to the 9. In the hands of a skilled combat shooter, I suspect the difference in accuracy and precision between the two platforms may be small.
.45 ACP would be a great choice for the sake of variety or if the OP is concerned about penetrating barriers, but not because of any kind of advantage in terminal ballistics.
The FBI's 2014 memo documents the results and reasoning of a multicriteria decision analysis they conducted. I happen to agree with their decision to deem the 9 Luger as optimal. But, I object to anyone abusing the agency's memo by claiming that the .45 Auto, on a per-round basis, has more wounding potential. When other important factors are taken into account, most notably capacity, the 9 Luger's wounding potential becomes greater than the .45 Auto's. The .45 may have 60% greater wounding potential per inch of vital tissue traversed, but the 9 has a 100% greater capacity.
