Re: Need help with some silver bullets
Way back in the 50 or 60s Guns and Ammo did a story and a cover on this subject. As I recall they did not shoot well, but I tried to dig up on the internet, below is what I found.
The movies and lore tell us that silver bullets may be successfully used against all kinds of supernatual beings.
Well, here's my own experience in making these bullets. It's not easy and they are not accurate.
I reload my own ammunition as a hobby. I also cast my own bullets of molten lead and lead alloys of lead, tin and antimony. I've been reloading ammo and casting bullets for more than 35 years.
Years ago, I tried to cast a silver bullet for my Colt .45-caliber pistol as an experiment.
I bought some old silver coins at a local coin dealer. They were so worn that the date was no longer visible, so I was able to buy them at little cost.
Lead melts at 625 degrees Fahrenheit. Silver melts at considerably higher temperature.
The first problem to overcome was getting the cast-iron pot hot enough to melt silver. Once melted, I had to use a blowtorch played slowly over the iron mould blocks, to heat them to a dull cherry red.
If the mould is not hot, the liquid alloy will not flow into all corners of the mould, leaving a wrinkled, imperfect bullet.
So, after numerous tries my buddy and I finally got a nice, shiny, well-filled bullet.
Then I lubricated it with vegetable shortening, which is a very good bullet lubricant for black powder uses. I loaded the silver bullet into a primed case over about 35 grains of FFFG-grade black powder.
This was fired from my Ruger .45-caliber revolver.
We pinned a target to a cardboard apple box and I carefully lined up the sights.
From 20 feet, I missed the apple box entirely!
We saw the bullet strike in the dirt bluff, about four feet to the left of the box. We were able to dig out and recover the bullet.
Examination showed that it had very shallow rifling marks on it. Almost nonexistent.
Rifling is the spiral grooves cut into a gun's barrel, to dig into the bullet and make it spin point-on. This greatly enhances accuracy. Think of a bullet as a toy top, spinning at high speed, and you'll picture what it does.
Well, silver is considerably harder than lead, so the rifling didn't get much of a chance to dig into it and spin it. Consequently, accuracy was terrible. Incidentally, this same revolver is accurate with standard lead bullets loaded over black powder, so it was not the revolver's fault. Nor was it the shooter's inaccuracy, as I used a stump to rest my hands upon before firing the pistol, to ensure a steady hold.
We didn't repeat the experiment. I was satisfied that, as far as guns with rifled bores go, silver bullets are not the way to go.
However, a shotgun loaded with silver balls might be good werewolf and vampire medicine, as shotguns typically have smooth bores and no rifling. Yes, some shotgun barrels are rifled, but I'm speaking in generalities here.
One company offers commercially cast lead bullets with a trace of silver in them. This is meant to harden the bullet for use in loads more powerful than the norm. But these bullets have only a trace amount of silver in them and are mostly lead and tin alloy.
Anyway, the movies falsely portray casting silver bullets as relatively simple and quick. This is clearly not the case.
This leads me to suspect that the Lone Ranger was a terrible shot. He probably got credit for shots that Tonto made with regular lead bullets.
And where did he find the time to cast silver bullets for enough cartridges to fill his gunbelt? It must have taken days, perhaps weeks!
“Actually, not many people ever made silver bullets. It’s a difficult process, and their efficacy against werewolves has never been scientifically proven. I suppose their renown came from the perception that silver was a distinguished metal, often spoken of in connection with its higher-class cousin, gold. But today silver is far more common, and it tarnishes over time, primarily because of sulfur pollution from power plants. (By and large, it didn’t tarnish before the Industrial Age.)
“I couldn’t find any references describing real historical silver-bullet-crafting techniques. At 1,764°F, molten silver would ruin traditional and modern bullet molds. They could have been fashioned using jewelers’ methods, but that would require a new plaster mold for every bullet. Frankly, I think people spent a lot more time talking about silver bullets than they did turning them out. I don’t like legends that are all talk, so I decided to see what it takes to produce a real silver bullet: not plated, not sterling—pure silver.
“To create the mold, I first had to construct a bit. I used a lathe to turn a steel rod into a bulletlike shape, then used a milling machine to cut away a quarter-circle wedge of the rod, leaving a sharp cutting edge. Basically I had built a router bit shaped like a bullet. (I’ve fabricated bits like this freehand with a file; which works fine, it just takes longer. Much longer.) After using the bit to machine the graphite bullet mold, I used an electrically heated graphite crucible to pour in 0.999 fine liquid silver at about 2,000°F, which is 230°F above its melting point. The mold must be preheated with a blowtorch to keep the silver from solidifying before it fills the whole cavity. One of the benefits of using graphite is that it keeps the silver from oxidizing, so bullets come out bright and shiny.” Source: Popular Science
Read the Complete How-To Here
Read more:
http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/1487#ixzz0VMSvGIkH
