Mondo handgun cartridges versus typical medium caliber rifle cartridges, For the purposes of statistical modeling in RPGs Options

[Wounded Ronin]

So everybody knows that when it's time for battle, for all intents and purposes you want a rifle and not a handgun or submachinegun, for superior ballistics, superior cavitation, superior performance against armor, and (usually) superior magazine size.

Handguns are for checking small closets and cupboards and a contingency for your rifle being destroyed (or as a "better than nothing" when you can't practically carry around a rifle, as in day to day civilian life), and traditional submachineguns firing pistol cartridges are probably obsolete and mostly for police departments concerned with overpenetration that might come from using .223s in dense urban settings.

That being said, in role playing games, characters often run around not with typical handguns, but rather with mondo novelty handguns, loaded with cartridges such as 10mm, .454 casull, and .500 magnum. In real life, these types of handguns would be impractical for logistical reasons, because of overpenetration concerns, because of public image concerns, and because of externalities to the power of these cartridges such as difficult follow up shots and potential hearing damage. (Recall that the FBI actually stopped using 10mm due to agents having trouble with follow up shots.) I understand that today mondo handguns like this are used by collectors and big game hunters only for the most part.

However, just looking at cavitation and performance against armor, I have not been able to find any scientific studies documented on the internet that compare cavitation from, say, .454 casull at close range versus .223 at close range. Therefore, what is not really clear to me is how to assign Power and Damage codes to mondo handguns versus typical medium caliber military pattern rifles. Does anyone know anything about this?

Shadowrun traditionally has gone there a bit by giving heavy pistols a damage code of 9M, which is pretty devastating, so I always imagined that an Ares Predator was firing some comically large hunting cartridge whereas it was the light pistols that were firing stuff like 9x19 parabellum.

But if we wanted to handle this realistically in a role playing game, how exactly would .454 casull stack up against .223 or 7.62x39 WP within 50 feet? Can .454 casull penetrate level IIIA body armor that would stop most typical combat handgun cartridges, and if it does, how would the cavitation compare to a .223? Has anyone seen cavitation profiles in gelatin for giant handgun rounds versus something like .223?

If we were to reconsider shadowrun damage codes, and if we assume that "heavy pistols" are all firing impractically powerful handgun cartridges, might we consider giving them an S damage code instead of M, but adding double uncompensated recoil, and maybe making the Power lower?