Instead of sticking to simple facts the shooting and hunting industry and a lot of writers would rather delude you with article after article of mystical concepts such as "energy transfer," "neural shock," "Taylor knockdown power," "momentum," et al. Although this stuff makes for interesting and entertaining reading, it's really nothing more than a bunch of sophisticated junk-science they've invented to have something to write and because they truly have no idea what they are talking about.
While I certainly agree with the main message and point of your posts, I can't say that I totally agree with the scientific details you've outlined. While scientific metrics like momentum, kinetic energy, etc, may not be very good comparative tools between bullets, they certainly are important, since without kinetic energy or momentum, it would be absolutely impossible for the bullet to move or penetrate or damage anything.
Bullet mass and bullet striking velocity establish a bullet's potential; they set the limit on the tissue disruption it can produce. Bullet shape and construction determine how much of this potential is actually used to disrupt tissue; they are the major determinants of bullet effect.
This paragraph by Dr. Fackler summarizes the subject perfectly, from a scientific point of view. Bullet mass and velocity are the only things that are used to calculate kinetic energy and momentum, so indirectly he's saying that both of those things are important! They certainly represent the potential that the bullet has to do damage, but as he points out (and you do, as well!), other factors determine how much actual damage and penetration the bullet achieves.
Read them again. Nowhere is "kinetic energy," "hydrostatic shock," "knockdown power," etc discussed as measurements of wounding. In fact, quite the opposite. The discussion of kinetic energy and minimum Ft-Lbs of energy for hunting animals is a myth. Energy doesn't tell us anything about bullet performance.
Again, I agree with you in principle, here, but energy is not meaningless, since it takes bullet mass and velocity into account, both of which are important in determining penetration and wound size. The non-scientific terms are fairly useless, though, like "hydro-static shock" (what is that, anyway?!), "knock-down power", etc.
At the end of the day, I'm with you all the way! The scientist in me just had to mention the trivial details that you had overlooked
