What Other Material Is Suitable For Making Bullets?

28 April 2014, 20:11

RIP

Thread resurrection. Quoting me on brass for FN solids instead of copper.

OK, Gerard, you got me on that one. Your copper FN with flat-nose is shorter and more stable for weight,
and the larger resulting FN after impact imparts more trauma, while penetrating more than enough.
Brass only edges it out on one parameter: By a few inches of extra depth of penetration,
to be expended on trees beyond,
which the GSC FN will usually do anyway, with a wider wound channel in the trees beyond also.
I have verified this using cape buffalo and umbrella thorn trees in Botswana.
That was with .416/380gr GSC FN at +2500 fps MV in .416 Rigby.

Also compared in the IWBB:
.395/340gr GSC FN at just under 2800 fps (copper)
vs.
.395/330gr S&H FN at just over 2800 fps (brass)
both using same powder charge,
about same momentum for each.

100" long IWBB with 10 compartments, each compartment 10" deep, containing 9" of water in thin, flat-sided plastic buckets,
and two half-inch plywood boards.
Gutted carcass of Iron WaterBoard Buffalo,
used for bullet interrogation:

The necropsy details showing depth of penetration:

GSC copper FN:

S&H brass FN:

Recovered solids, GSC copper FN and S&H brass FN:

28 April 2014, 20:27

Gerard

28 April 2014, 20:54

Rapidrob

The first smokeless cartridge in the world, the 8x51MM Lebel in the second configuration, used a lathe turned bullet made of brass "Balle D". They made these by the millions and millions. Each bullet was marked by the maker on it's base. They shot very well.
My test on 5/8" cold rolled steel plate at 500 meters was very impressive.Many went through the plate when fired out of the full length rifle.
While we don't like the French as a people, they did and do make some very interesting and well thought out weapons. They have set many a first in the field of small arms.

28 April 2014, 21:22

Gerard

There are some good photos here.

Balle D

29 August 2014, 02:46

CDD

Zinc is supposed to make nice cast bullets. I have seen several articles about casting Zinc bullets over the years. I won't use it because I do not want to contaminate the Lead supply.

30 August 2014, 05:04

PaulS

Zinc is prone to cracking because it is so brittle and it corrodes quicker than most other metals.

15 September 2014, 22:35

Idaho Sharpshooter

I'm having a bit of crs at the moment, but the gentleman from Denver shot a then cast bullet record group at 200yds that measured about .750" in the 1890's with a Pope breech-muzzleloading rifle. He had a cottonwood (iirc) chunk that was about 4 feet in diameter set up as a backstop with the target(s) attached and cast his bullets out of pure gold. Need;ess to say, they carefully sectioned and burnt that chunk at the conclusion of the shooting.

26 September 2014, 20:24

SR4759

Zinc has to be very pure or it is subject to intergranular corrosion. When it corrodes internally it will literally crumble.

quote:
Originally posted by PaulS:
Zinc is prone to cracking because it is so brittle and it corrodes quicker than most other metals.

01 October 2014, 08:24

RIP

The vanished photo returned to the post above:

Iron WaterBoard Buffalo interrogations of a copper .395-cal/340-gr FN solid by GSC
and a brass .395-cal/330-gr FN solid by S&H:

Both entered torture with same momentum of +/- 2800 fps MV.

06 October 2014, 08:49

Jefffive

quote:
Originally posted by SmokinJ:
Depleted uranium would be very hard to come by. It's also maybe too heavy. There's much criticism of the military using it for armor piercing applications. Might be legal issues being it it considered armor piercing.

Lots of DU in Iraq, somebody just left it laying around everywhere. Just send Walter up with a couple of bushel baskets. Might want to wear a mask while machining it. Bullets would be very heavy for caliber.

28 July 2015, 22:10

Allan DeGroot

Just a bit more thread necromancy to address a few points.

As for silver, aside from it's expense, if you complain of "copper fouling" now wait until you try relatively pure silver,
there are distinct reasons why Brazing alloys contain silver....

as for osmium, palladium and the other "platinum metals"
(Iridium, palladium or rhodium) they are inconveniently hard...in addition to being as expensive, if not more expensive than gold...

Gold would be ideal except for it's expense...

I was once asked the ideal material to make a high temperature gasket in a reactant turbo-pump my instant answer was commercially pure (99.9%) gold as it as soft enough to be formable and had a high enough melting point, and no brittle temperature.. meaning it could tolerate cryogenic temps as well as 1800F

Oh and BTW there is a scientific quibble: while Osmium is generally considered the densest element the difference in density between Osmium and Iridium is less than the margin of error for measurement.

31 July 2015, 23:29

mete

Whatever you have and whatever works !

I read an interesting article about searching a battle zone in Mexico .They found Copper cannon balls !! Spain went into Mexico for the silver. Silver is often found with copper .They removed the copper and looking for a use for copper , they made cannon balls !!

09 December 2017, 02:19

Allan DeGroot

quote:
Originally posted by afro408:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by RIP:
Saeed, Ol' Pal,

Bronze and brass: No difference, except two names for the same thing.]

No difference eh.
Brass is an alloy of Copper and Zinc.
Basic Bronze is an alloy of Copper and Tin. It can also contain Nickel, Aluminium, Silver etc, depending on use.

Corinthian bronze contains Silver AND Gold

quote:
Originally posted by mete:
Whatever you have and whatever works !

I read an interesting article about searching a battle zone in Mexico .They found Copper cannon balls !! Spain went into Mexico for the silver. Silver is often found with copper .They removed the copper and looking for a use for copper , they made cannon balls !!

The Spanish actually had problem smelting silver ore from some mines because the silver source they were trying to exploit lacked copper, which their smelting technique requires.
SO they had to actually had to import copper to extract the silver from some mines!

18 December 2017, 09:05

craigster

Jubal Sackett mentioned using silver on occasion. The Lone Ranger used it all the time.

20 December 2017, 02:41

Allan DeGroot

quote:
Originally posted by craigster:
Jubal Sackett mentioned using silver on occasion. The Lone Ranger used it all the time.

BUT, as I pointed out earlier If you think copper fouling is a problem Wait until you try to shoot and modest amount of Silver bullets.

Silver is a more reactive metal and Sticks to nearly Everything, why do you think brazing alloys contain silver?

22 December 2017, 07:37

craigster

quote:
Originally posted by Allan DeGroot:
quote:
Originally posted by craigster:
Jubal Sackett mentioned using silver on occasion. The Lone Ranger used it all the time.

BUT, as I pointed out earlier If you think copper fouling is a problem Wait until you try to shoot and modest amount of Silver bullets.

Silver is a more reactive metal and Sticks to nearly Everything, why do you think brazing alloys contain silver?

I don't think Jubal or the Ranger were too worried about it.

19 June 2018, 08:17

Max503

quote:
Originally posted by Allan DeGroot:
quote:
Originally posted by Alberta Canuck:
Bronze is also suitable sometimes, and for very light plinkers some of the zinc alloys work okay on occasion. (IF you use cast zinc, don't contaminate your lead bullet casting equipment with it.)

I have often wondered about pewter, but have never seen any reports of that specific mix being tried.

I suspect alloys of the precious metals would also work, but I am not at the socio-economic level to be testing that out.

I just LOVE to see this come up...

Lead and Zinc don't mix.

Are you aware that if you ever buy pure lead it has been processed, in it's molten state with molten Zinc?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkes_process

ALL lead is so processed from the mine.

Why? Because Led is almost never found in nature without some "contamination" of SILVER
and frankly out of lead ore the Silver pays the cost of mining and smelting the lead!

Thus the "Lead" often ends up being pure profit.

The way they get the silver out is to use Zinc, because Silver is 3000times more soluble in Zinc than it is in lead.

Lead and zinc are easily seperated by simply letting them stratify and the Zinc turns solid on top of the molten lead.

What often IS found in scrap lead and is often erroneously believed to be zinc is metallic Calcium or Strontium (or other intermetallic compounds containing them) which are common additives in "Low Maintainance" battery plates.

For the record "Brass" is an alloy of copper & Zinc, while "Bronze" is an alloy of Copper and Tin.

Pewter is predominantly Tin and thus almost as expensive as copper.

I recently found a load of scrap that contained what were believed to be "Lead tubes" 1/2" in diameter, several hundred feet of the stuff coiled up that was stripped out of an old tavern that was being renovated... it was commercially pure Tin tubing that was often used for "Beer line" for the old school keg tapping systems.

Basically I got 172lbs of food grade tin
tubing for $0.15/lb. current market price is just shy of $9/lb so that tin is worth considerably more than I paid...

I decided it was not my job to educate a scrap dealer.

If he wants to be "insistantly ignorant" about what things are, domonstrated by his selling me Titanium and Hastelloy as though it was stainless steel I'm gonna let him.

You seem knowledgeable. I have a question:
When folks anneal cartridge cases they heat them up then quench them.
Every other metal that I am aware of, even non-ferrous metals like lead, are HARDENED by quenching.
Why does brass soften with quenching?

19 June 2018, 08:29

Max503

quote:
Originally posted by CDD:
Zinc is supposed to make nice cast bullets. I have seen several articles about casting Zinc bullets over the years. I won't use it because I do not want to contaminate the Lead supply.

I heard it is difficult to fill out the mold. I've found fishing weights cast from zinc and they are always poorly filled-out. People make zinc weights for snagging spoonbills.
I find them at low-water below the dam.

19 July 2018, 12:00

eagle27

quote:
You seem knowledgeable. I have a question:
When folks anneal cartridge cases they heat them up then quench them.
Every other metal that I am aware of, even non-ferrous metals like lead, are HARDENED by quenching.
Why does brass soften with quenching?

It doesn't. Brass softens when brought to just on the point of colour change to dull red. Quenching has no effect whatsoever on the annealing process, it is just used to stop transfer of heat further up the case towards the head. Some don't quench and just let the case naturally cool or stand the case in a stream of cool air.