In thunk some recall from a Kieth book stated something agin to the fact Kieth assessed the pure lead round ball as the best killer of man or beast there was.
The Civil War vets Kieth talked with gave the assessment that a chamber of FFg blackpowder and the round ball took the fight out of the enemy Cavarly better than the conicals they used back then.
It's commonly known that the wound channel made by a lead ball is a different animal than the one made by a conical. The nastiest wound channel comes behind a lead ball.
A person,wounded or killed more easily then most animals, getting hit at close range with a lead ball of 80gr. weight traveling around 900 feet per second would surely feel a little ill afterwards.
Personnally I'd prefer the wadcutter type flat metplat bullet over the round ball in a self defense type scenario. It would fly slower but slow down slower when it hit flesh and bone. The "round nose" conicals is what gives conicals a bad rap. The bigger and the flatter the metplat of a bullet is the more "WHAP" it makes. I've shot ground hogs on the old farm using the Lee conicals to good effect. What you say? Aren't they round noses that slip thru flesh and bone? Well......they are flat nosed if you load they "backwards".
The semi-wadcutter came from that type "thunkin" The bigger and wide the metplat of the bullet the more damage it does to game and people.
Aywhoooooo.......round lead balls do some damage. I've shot plenty of deer with the balls and the balls work well. I did well shooting a lead conical round nose also until.....I had to track well shot deer all day to recover them a coupla times. I went to putting a flat on the end of the same bullet and never had a problem again.
Anywhoooo....I figure if a person peped up a 36cal cap&baller with some of the new powders like 777 ,that's HOT, or maybe used FFFFg black to fill the chambers and compressed the charge some the effects of a ball or flat nose wadcutter type bullet would surfice at close range defense. If that's all ya got to use.