Question of the Day: Where Does Dirty Harry Miss the Target on Handgun Reality?

I watched ‘Dirty Harry’ for the first time when it debuted in the early 70s. These days the rogue cop movie genre is little more than a cartoon. Should it die in a hail of movie-goer apathy? It should. No one kept it party real like Clint. That said, the gunplay in ‘Dirty Harry’ movie is a little suspect (and I don’t mean Joe Pesci). The first gun battle where Inspector Callahan pops the driver of the robbery vehicle strikes me as a realistic possibility. In my unstudied opinion, a skilled marksman would be able to send the driver to the great bank job in the sky. But I wonder about the net result of the shootout at Kezar Stadium in which Harry blew a hole in the lowlife . . .

Harry was a principled guy, so the audience knew that he wouldn’t back-shoot the scumbag. Plus he needed to grind out a little missing person information. But this leads me to my question: would a leg wound produced by Harry’s trusty weapon pulverize the mass murderer/rapist’s leg to an arterial bleeding-out point of no return? Would the guy’s leg be obliterated by a .44 mag round and would ‘Dirty Harry’ consequently be a much shorter movie?

Another question concerns the famous final scene in which Harry finally gets a spectacular kill shot on the misfit. I assume that the impact of the slug would not back the guy into a stylish half-gainer into the water. Am I right in assuming that Harry would have dropped him right on the spot where the bullet hit the guy?

Are there other examples of cinematic license? Anyhow, I love the movie no matter what. it’s just that I ask more questions about reality the older I get. At least until senility enters the picture. (As Harry might say, getting older’s not for pussies.) Set me straight.