Quote Originally Posted by Watchman
Might as well. Unstabilized spherical projectiles, of somewhat questionable shape and bouncing off the walls of the barrel every this way and that before clearing it, are about as ballistically sucky as anything you can fire out of a gun can get. Not only does the shape of the ball give it some serious air-resistance drag, its random spin does nothing to improve its energy retention. Most pistols, for example, actually had muzzle velocities in the supersonic range, comparable to modern 9mm (their typical bore size was in the 13-15mm range). But they could not be counted on to penetrate armour from further than about 5-10 meters away, and were next to useless against anything at ranges over 15 meters or so; that's some serious energy loss there.
http://www.rdg.ac.uk/engin/home/mate.../AW_poster.jpg
Check that out. Supposing they're talking about point-blank shots with each weapon (if they're not, it only aids my arguement), you're suggesting that the ball loses about 30% of its energy during the first 15m of its 400m journey. I know that drag would reduce with velocity, but that seems rather unlikely to me. You can also take into account the fact that a ball that does not have the power to kill will still horribly maim.