I am not a man armed withdetailedballistics tables but I have developed some experience over a lifetime that includes all the typical CF rifle cartridges like .30-30's, .30-06's, .35Rem's, .264 Win/Mag, etc, and have taken a lot of deer with them over 40 years. I've then taken them with handguns, shotguns, muzzy broadheads,nowmuzzleloaders...inlines, then sidelock percussions, toFlintlocks which are all I now hunt with, using Hornadysoft lead patched round balls.

There is a factorthat comes into play with the lead ball that does not easily fit well within traditional ballistics formulas and charts which try to plot various velocities and energy levels...and that factor is frontal area...the sheer size of the ball when it arrives on target is already large, and begins a large wound channel from the moment it breaks the skin.

Every deer I've shot with a PRB has been inside 100yds, and it's always a heart shot, or low double lung shot,or under very rare conditions even the neck vertebrate shot...in that order, or I don't take the shot.

The neck vertebrate shots drop in their tracks of course, but even the heart & low double lung shots only sprint 25-35 yards and collapse...bycontrast, I've madedouble lung shots on many deer with a slim pointy .30-06 bullet zipping along at 2500fps and trailed them 100 yards todrag them out.

I believe there are many cases where a lot of slim streamlined bullets slip right through soft tissue like lungs and don'treally open up very muchbefore they're throughand out the other side...a hole through the lungs for sure...but not a massive, torn, traumatic one...yet ballistically, the CF cartridge would appear vastly superior.

The soft lead round ball factor...the size of the frontalareawhen it arrives at the target and theimmediate expansion that beginshappening to the soft lead and onthrough the vitals is very underrated,probably misunderstood, or at least not yet easily quantified.

It does not "plot" well inballistics programs, but the round ball'sability to put down big game right now within 100yds is incredible...noting your reference to a .45cal ball...I shot a six pointer at 60yds with a .45cal ball...hit/broke a rib going in and flattened to the size of a dime, turned the heart to jelly, and lodged under the hide of the far shoulder, splitting the hide...I squeezed the hide around it and it fell out in my hand...would have easily taken a deer with a double lung shot at 100yds...but the "energy" according to ballistics programs would have been around 200-300 ft/lbs.

Sofrom what I've experienced,the simple round ball is incredibly effective butreally does not fit conventional ballistics thinking...it is not of course,a 300 yard player...it's basically a 100 yards woods rifle like a .30-30.