[North East Redneck]

Doyle-

Good call on expansion, the CB short comes in around 32-35 ftl bs. Bullets do penetrate, but dont expand. When using my air gun, the RWS pellets are around 22-24ft lbs, but they mushroom to almost twice their initial size. Thats why they are deadly at short range. They dump all their energy into the animal.
Shooting dry 1 1/2 inch thick boards with .22 CB short and the .22 pellets, both entry holes are the same. The exit holes are not. The CB round exits with the same size hole as the entry. The pellets exit is about a 25% larger and is not a clean hole. Like you stated, the bullets will not have a chance to expand in a thin body animal.