Bullets made from nonstandard metals

Scaramanga would be pleased.

Kinda wonder what load he used.

If I may ask, why do you need electro-conductive ammunition?

Basically, I'm trying to scientifically handwave the Cold Iron trope. (Though I do note that not all electromagnetic substances count—for instance, the calcium in human bones doesn't work. A scientist character spends a while trying to figure out the pattern.)

Also, I can't just use ferromagnetism because that occurs in fewer metals than electromagnetism, and I don't actually know what metals are used to make the metal plates that are used to replace missing portions of skull. Nor do I know what metals might be used in an artificial eye. (I need to have at least one character who has a resistance to mind control, and a metal plate has been used to block such control in at least one other work.)

Also also, I have a feeling that someone who actually knows about soil composition can mention at least one electromagnetic substance that should be common in dirt. The world on which this is set has all copper, silver, etc. collected in giant mounds rather than buried, and these mounds never wear away, for reasons that I won't explain here.

edited 12th Aug '11 11:49:33 PM by feotakahari

I think it'd be either stainless steel(which wouldn't be drawn by weaker magnets IIRC) or titanium. Anyone knows what these things are actually called? That could help with the search.

edited 13th Aug '11 5:28:41 AM by ManInGray

Titanium, because it's relatively strong for its weight and it is biologically inert.

The calcium in bones is bound up as calcium carbonate or something similar; it's not conductive in that form.

^^ So titanium is less conductive than both lead and tin, neither of which I wanted to treat as equivalent to Cold Iron . . .

Looks like I'm going to have to hide my work as much as possible on this one.

When it's said that X metal is less conductive than Y metal, the difference is trivial over short distances (<100 yards) and is not significant for several miles. Why? Most* metals have extremely low electrical resistance.

You have to look at in Ohms ( Ω the measure of resistance, and likely ohms per meter Ωm ), not X is better than Y because often times that gap is very, very small.

For example, the electrical resistance of the human body is around 1,000 ohm/meters, assuming your skin is dry. Obviously, that varies, but that's a good ballpark figure. Copper is 16.38 nΩm. That n is for nano, as in one meter of copper wire has 0.00000001638 Ω resistance per meter. Now, I don't know if you have any electrical knowledge or not, but that's really, really low. Titanium, is 0.420 µΩm, or, 0.000000420 ohms per meter. This is still really low.

So, if you're dealing with things on a small scale where you don't need precision voltages (such as electronics where it may have to be quite precise indeed), then it really doesn't matter what metal you use as they're all really low resistance.

When electricity is acted upon via electrical resistance, it creates heat. This is part of why a room-temperature superconductor would be so desirable. If you're having a long-duration application using a more resistive metal, you need to be mindful of this increased heat. Other than that... have a blast.

Titanium is the metal most commonly used to replace bones. There's experimental plastics that are also used.

Beat ya to the punch, see post #31

Silver is actually a very good bullet material minus the cost as long as its the right alloys.

It seems that this discussion is pretty much over (I could be wrong about this), and I had a different question about bullets made from nonstandard metals, would it be appropriate for me to change the direction of this topic for my question? If no, just say so, and I'll thump this. If yes, the questions are:

Would making a bullet out of a much heavier metal than the lead (?) that is most often used be possible? Would it significantly reduce range/accuracy?

If you were to place the equivalent of a needle onto the tip of a bullet, would that have adverse effects on the aerodynamics/feasibility of the bullet?

Osmiridium cores have been made, twice the weight of lead and one of the hardest materials known to man. Thing to remember is this, recoil is directly proportionate the the muzzle energy of your round. Double the weight and you'll either reduce your velocity and maintain recoil and suffer a slight increase in pressure... or you load to higher pressures and maintain velocity with increasing recoil.

as for needles on a bullet? if it's sticking out far enough you might run into stability issues but as long as it's not longer than half an inch i don't see what problems it would cause.

Alright, thanks.

Coming out of The Man With The Golden Gun (film version), and I have this to ask: If you're using gold or silver for bullet material, do you need traces of nickel?

I read a series of articles on silver bullets regarding if they would be effective as bullets and how easy it would be for a person to make them.

You can read them here if you're interested.

The consensus at the end, iirc, was that they were wildly inaccurate but dangerous at close range- like most chunks of metal moving really quickly would be.

For large caliber rounds, DU rounds have these advantages:

• They are self-sharpening and pyrophoric.
• More dense than tungsten.

Tungsten carbide is for when DU isn't an option politically. It's also cheaper, so a handgun or shotgun slug could be made of tungsten carbide.

For .50 Browning Machine Gun (.50 BMG) or 12.7×99mm NATO, sabot rounds are an option.

There was a variant of the M855 with a tin-bizmuth alloy. It was a flop because the bismuth-tin alloy jacket caused accuracy issues at high temps. I'm sure it's just a matter of chemistry and physics to get a round out of that alloy.

edited 10th Jan '15 6:43:30 PM by TairaMai