"The .44 Mag is close, but NOT "more powerful". in terms of calculated energy."
44AMP, that depends entirely on what calculation you use.
I am Steve Zihn and I was the head ballistician for Cast Performance Co for a few years, and also a hunter and a guide who has been in on more game kills than I can count (into the thousands) and had an interest in internal ballistics since I was a teenager. I have over 55 years of experience in the field. So I will take a few minutes to explain myself here.
You see, foot-pounds" of energy are a bad way to make any calculations of true power in the field of firearms.
A 22-250 and a 45-70 have the same amount of "foot-pounds" at the muzzle and the 22-250 can show better numbers at 100 yards. Yet a 55 grain soft point .224" bullet is not well thought of as a buffalo round. 45-70s do supper well killing buffalo ----- even at black-powder velocities. In fact the 45-70 will shoot clear through a buffalo LENGTH WISE if the bullet leaves the muzzle at only 1300 FPS and the bullet is hard cast of 450 to 500 grains. That's not a theory. I have done it.
The foot pound formula is a way to calculate energy that is actually theoretical, not factual.
If you want to understand how things work in the real world we need to look at actual momentum and we need to compare bullets to other bullets of the same type of material and construction. True, the 22-250 is a light jacketed varmint bullet and the 45-70 is a cast homogeneous bullet. But if you hard-cast a 22-250 55 grain bullet and papwr patch it so you cna still fire it at 3700 FPS it still will not do the damage or give the penetration of the 45-70. Not even close.
So when facts and theories do not match, it's easy to see which one is wrong.
Bullets can transfer energy and use energy in only 2 ways.
#1 is cavitation and
#2 is penetration.
That's it! That's all there is.
All bullet wounds are calculated in length and diameter. (Square Inches of tissue displaced.) Some will try to argue that shock is part of the argument, but that is also just part of cavitation, listed as #2 above.
So comparing a 30-06 with a 162 grain AP bullet and a 30-06 with a 162 (or 165) grain soft point is an issue to examine. If both bullet have the same weight and the same speed, both have the same energy. But if one dumps it's energy in making a 2" diameter hole 2 feet deep, and the other one dumps all it's energy making a 3/8" hole 12 feet deep we see the AP round is going to be better for reaching the "guts" of a running engine and the SP is going to be better for damaging the guts of a deer. Neither is more powerful and nether has more energy------------ by any calculations. Joules, Ft/Pounds, Free Momentum or any other.
So when comparing the power of hunting rounds we need to look 1st at the performance of the bullet, not the shell and powder charge that fired them.
Energy transfer to a flesh and bone target is a function of penetration and cavitation and ideally the hole should stay straight. To illiterate, if you use 100% of your strength to slap water and 100% of your strength to knife hand the water the knife hand goes through the water easier, but the flat hand makes a bigger splash. Both have the same amount of energy.
So a 44 mag fires a .430" bullet and lets say we fire it at 1650 FPS and the bullet weight 240 grains and lets make it a jacketed soft point . If we calculate the energy transfer we have to look at the cavitation which relates to the diameter of the wound. If all things are equal in both bullets the one that is bigger around makes the bigger diameter hole, but not always the deepest hole.
The calculation that has real-world connections is as follows:
.430 X 240 X 1650 and then we divide by 7000 (because we calculate the bullet in grains, and there are 7000 grains in pound.)
Here is the calculation..430 X 240= 103.2. 103.2 X 1650 FPS = 170.280 and we divide by 7000 = 24.32 so lets just call that "24"
24 is just a comparative number and by itself it means nothing, but you need to view it as being twice 12 and half of 48. It's just a quantitative number for comparison to other sets of wound causing ballistics.
A 30-30 will fire a .308" bullet of 170 grain at about 2100 FPS so we do the same set of calculations and we see .308 X 170 X 2100 = divided by 7000 = 15.3 15.3 is LESS then 24.3. In calculating the actual momentum and energy transfer we see the 44 is quite a ways out in front of the 30-30. Using this formula I have found that if all bullets tested are equal in their construction, this type of calculation actually seems to follow real-world kills on game fairly closely.
30-30 with a 170 gr is about a 15.
30-06 with a 180 is about a 21
338 Win mag with a 250 is about a 32
243 with a 100 gr is about 10.4
And in the real world if you have seen a few hundred animals killed with various cartridges you see those seems to be about the right comparison.
To see the numbers at longer range we simply figure the same way, but enter the speed of the bullet at the range you want to figure it at. Speed at impact, not M.V. So in the above set of figures we would see the 30-30 is inferior in energy transfer by a factor of 9 at the muzzle, but at longer distances the gap get closer because the flight of the rifle bullet is more efficient then the handgun bullet, and so it doesn't shed it's velocity as quickly.
One thing I have seen many many times is the use of the 357 magnum firing our old LBT 187 grain bullet from 18" barreled carbines. I have seen about 65 head of game killed with this combination. It is a LOT better then most folks think a 357 would be---- but when you figure the momentum transfer mathematics above, we see something the equate to the real world very well. Our load chronograph at about 1840 FPS.
.357 X 1840 X 187 = divided by 7000= 17.54. So that number is 2 numbers better then a 30-30 with a 170 grain, and in the field I have seen results on game kills at least as good as the very best 30-30s I have ever used --------or seen used.
Anyway....info for those that are interested.
***** JUST MAKE IN 357 MAGNUM *****