I’d go with your third option. It’s not about the ability to knock something down, it’s about energy transfer. The more energy you can transfer from barrel to target the more effective that round will be in hunting or self defense. Sure, if it’s enough to knock something down that’s great, but the point of shooting isn’t knocking things down. A good example is that the US military uses a .22 caliber rifle which isn’t going to carry a lot of knockdown power, but the velocity of the round more than makes up for it through the energy transfer.
I think I’d like to try it once. Then again, at $40 a round (minimum) that’s likely all I could afford anyway.
That’d be a good gun for line infantry battles. First rank shoots, the gun flips over their head, second rank catches it, first rank ducks (or falls to the ground clutching severely broken hand), and second rank fires. Repeat ad infinitum.
Nah, I wouldn’t want the pistol. Way too hard to control, and too heavy for any kind of standard pistol-gripping shooting.
Based purely on its name, I’d rather go for the .577 Tyrannosaur. “Elephant guns can kiss my ass! I got a DINOSAUR gun!”
That’s only because the 9mm folks are wrong. If they’d just admit it and go shoot tin cans with their little plinkers instead of pretending they have a real caliber…
The AR vs. AK fights are fun, too.
I believe lower gauge shotguns are also excempted (mostly for not being rifled).