Pistol ballistics and wounding?

We've all read the Self Defense Ammo Post and a lot of similar stuff that shows popular handguns wound pretty similarly.We all know shot placement is key, and that you need a solid hit on the CNS for a near-instant stop.But here is my question: what does significantly increasing the kinetic energy of a pistol bullet actually do to the target all else being equal? Or in other words, what does say an extra 300ft/lbs of energy actually do to a body if the expanded bullet diameter and penetration depth are identical between two rounds?Let me give an example. So here you have Federal .357 mag 130gr ammo rounds traveling at ~1400fps giving us 566ft/lbs of energy. They penetrate 13.5in and expand to .66in. Then here we have Barnes Tac-XPD 9mm +p 115gr at ~1050fps giving us 281ft/lbs of energy. They penetrate to ~13.5in and expand to ~.69in. So they have extremely similar penetration depth and bullet expansion. The wound tracks also look very similar in the photos (.357 might have dumped more energy earlier, but also had a slightly longer neck). So the .357 has almost 200ft/lbs additional energy over the 9mm (over 40% more energy, and the recoil to match). WTF is it all that energy actually doing in terms of wounding?Since both rounds penetrate the same depth and expanded the same amount, both seem like they'd do very similar damage and you'd have the same chance to hit something vital with either. Or am I missing something? Does the very large increase in KE actually yield significantly more wounding in real world situations? Am I misreading the blocks?What do you think r/ccw, what do more KE actually give us in pistol rounds (all else being equal)? via /r/CCW http://ift.tt/2z7gXQ2