aluminium or ceramic bullets ???

[BOOTYMONSTER]

forgive me , i was bored and started thinking. or maybe i wasnt , LOL

i was wondering why bullets are always made of lead and/or copper . i understand on game animals why we need the weight of a dense material to provide impact/energy for a humane kill . but for target shooting why couldnt a much lighter material be used to decrease the effect gravity has on a heavier object of the same dimension/shape . both aluminum and ceramics are much lighter than lead , both hold their shape under pressure better than lead . seems like the range of a fire arm could be significantly increased befor hold-over became necessary and then it would be on a greatly reduced scale . the velocity should increase because of the lighter object being expelled and the recoil should be reduced . i think the bullet would have to be much more tightly attached to the shell so that pressure could be be built up because the much lighter bullet wouldnt have the (for lack of a better word) plugging effect the conventional ones have .
 
imagine using a typical 30-06 or 308 shooting with a bullet that only weighed 10 to 30 grains !! im sure snipers would like these !!

am i onto something or am i in really bad need of a hobby ?? LOL !!

[Casull]

Well, you have a few problems with that line of thinking.  First, gravity affects light and heavy objects EXACTLY the same way and at the same speed (32 feet per second per second).  Second, a heavy object is better at retaining its speed when there is a force working against it, such as air resistance (think about how far you can throw a marshmellow and how far you can throw a rock).  And, third, bullets made of aluminum (and certainly ceramic) would be too hard and would wear out barrels too fast.  But, keep on thinking (you never know what you might come up with).   

[Graybeard]

Ceramics are VERY hard and VERY brittle. Totally unsuited for bullets not to mention the cost would be dollars per bullet and barrel life likely less than a hundred rounds before it would need to be replaced.

Aluminum would make more sense but as said it's a bit light and likely too hard to do well. It's also not so easy to work with as copper and lead. You'd sure not cast bullets at home using it and I doubt anyone could set up a very cost effective operation to do it commercially either.

Copper and lead just happened to have worked out as the ideal choices based on their heavy weight per volume, softness and low melting point of lead so casting them is simple and they can be swaged as well. Any metal that can't be swaged easily is not gonna be successful as a bullet alloy.

[mcwoodduck]

I don't want to go against Graybeard but either would work as a material.
The aluminium bullets would be like the Barns X bullets and would be longer for the same weight as lead or copper and would give better SD and may work well for game.  A longer softer bullet could expand more creating a larger wound canal.  An aluminuim alloy will be needed so the bullet does not split and create mulitple wound canals.
As to the ceramic.  I think ceramic would be very hard on the barrels but could be either moulded with a polymer skirt or a sabot.
I think that ceramic bullets could be perfect for varmint hunting where a richochette would be a hazzard.  The same longer bullet would give great sectional density and a brittle bullet would be OK for varmints and vermin.
I do want to agree with Graybeard and say that the bullets made from aluminium woulf be expensive but maybe not so for the ceramic as they could be cold poured and allowed to dry and then heat treated. There also could be a ceramic plastic alloy (if alloy is the right word) that could take the shock of being fired.   
either case the need would have to e very special to go through all the labor and testing to creat the proper alloy, work up the loading data and the need.

[KRP]

Bullets of the same weight and diameter have the same SD regardless of shape.  SD=Mass/diameter squared

The BC on a 30 grain .308 bullet would be horrible, something like .087 using a G1 drag coefficient which probably wouldn't be possible.

[charles p]

If aluminum is good, ping pong balls would be even better.  What twist rate would an aluminum bullet require to stabilize.

[hillbill]

years ago i read a article in a mag i think it was called HANDGUN TESTS about pewter bullets, which i believe but could be wrong is a alloy of silver and lead.from what i gathered the silver content make the bullet significantly lighter but the lead still added enuf softness to engage the rifleing. if memory serves me the lighter bullet raised velocity tremendously but i dont remember the effects on accuracy or pressure.this was a mag dedicated mainly to magnum handguns and i beleive they were testing these in 357 and 44 pistols.anybody else remember such an article?

[BOOTYMONSTER]

thanks for the interesting replys so far .
as far as ceramics geing too hard they could be made with a copper covering like most bullets already are .
if all bullets fall at the same rate why does a 22-250 shoot so much flatter than a 45-70 ? velocity . wouldnt the much increased velocity of a much lighter bullet also extend its usable range ?

as far as cost , this is just hypothetical thinking . but , there some very expensive ammo out there folks that are willing to pay for it . you can almost always find somebody to buy anything , the problem lies in finding enough of them to make a produce viable .

[jasonprox700]

Actually, there is somebody who makes an aluminum bullet.  I don't remember what the website is, but they make a 85 gr Hollow point for .458 diameter bullets.  I think they were designed for the .458 SOCOM.  Basically, I think they were getting 3,000+ fps with them! 

[KRP]

Muzzle velocity isn't everything, what about retained velocity and wind drift?  I don't see the point of driving a bullet to 6000FPS if a slight breeze pushes it 8" off target and it's only traveling half it's initial velocity at 100 yards.

[LONGTOM]

As we speak there is an aluminum bullet or rather a projectile and a platform to fire it under developmen now.
I meet the man early last year while visiting some relations down in DAHLGREN, Va.
He is working on the project at the DAHLGREN naval base.
I saw a video on it and he explains how it works.
It works like the bullet trains.
A three pound round cylinder of aluminum is propelled by means of electric magnets at a speed just over 5000fps with virtually no noise.
It punched a hole completely through a concrete wall with no problem at all.
The main draw back to it is the electric generator needed to supply the amount of current.
The prototype has already gone through testing and all that remains it final construction of the carrage and guidance system.
It is suppose to be mounted on a MODIFIED BRADLEY or ABRAMS platform.
It's purpose is as a antitank killer.
I know this really isn't what you are talking about but I thought you might be interested.


LONGTOM

[Casull]

if all bullets fall at the same rate why does a 22-250 shoot so much flatter than a 45-70 ? velocity .

All bullets DO fall at the same rate.  If you fire a 22-250 and a 45-70 at the same angle to the ground, they will hit the ground at the same time.  The only difference is how far away they will each hit the ground.  Basic science.

[KRP]

if all bullets fall at the same rate why does a 22-250 shoot so much flatter than a 45-70 ? velocity .

All bullets DO fall at the same rate.  If you fire a 22-250 and a 45-70 at the same angle to the ground, they will hit the ground at the same time.  The only difference is how far away they will each hit the ground.  Basic science.

Fired perpendicular to the pull of gravity, not at any angle.

[Don Fischer]

Imagine how long a 156gr ULD match bullet in 6.5 would be if it were made of aluminum. How would you stabilize it?

[jhalcott]

  IF we KNEW what Uncle Sam was doing with our tax $$ we wouldn't even ask about the possibilities of aluminum or other bullet materials. There is a sub .50 munitions in the works that is a "guided" missile. Capable of 3MOA accuracy at nearly 3 miles. It targets on a new lazer beam. They have tried ceramics with copper/bronze rings to hold the rifling and also fin stabilized for smooth bores. There is a tank killer round for the Abrams that is a tungsten penetrator with an aluminum sabot The sabot falls off the round within a few yards of the muzzle. MV is "supposed" to be over 5000 (thousand) fps. They showed the electric "rail" gun on tv a while ago. The said miniaturization was well under way for a portable unit.

[LaOtto222]

I could be wrong on this, but I think the Barnes varmint grenade is a copper jacket with a tin alloy center. I suppose you could have copper jackets with an aluminum core or a ceramic core. Aluminum on steel may scrape the steel or fill it up with aluminum fouling after only a few shots, I do not know for sure. As as been pointed out, ceramic is very brittle and hard, it would have to be coated in some thing. It would have to be thick too, because ceramic will not conform to the rifling with out breaking up, so the coating would have to do this. It could be cost prohibitive too.

[Mikey]

Somebody made an aluminum jacketed bullet for defensive purposes for handguns - it may have been the Winchester Silvertip bullet but I'm not sure.

I also remember the artilce about the bullets made from Pewter.  I think someone melted down a Pewter Mug and tried the slugs as there was both a high lead and silver content.  I think they may have cast out pretty hard and would have had some utility, unless the wife caught you melting down her great-great grandmother's Revolutionary War era heirloom and then your utility would have been, ummmm, shot............ Just a thought.  Mikey.

[LONGTOM]

jhalcott

Thanks for the rest of the story!
I had forgotten about the tungsten inner core.


LONGTOM

[Casull]

I also remember the artilce about the bullets made from Pewter.  I think someone melted down a Pewter Mug and tried the slugs as there was both a high lead and silver content.

Pewter is tin, not lead and silver.  Way back when, they did mix some lead with the tin, but stopped doing that a long time ago when people started dying from drinking or eating from it.

if all bullets fall at the same rate why does a 22-250 shoot so much flatter than a 45-70 ? velocity .

All bullets DO fall at the same rate.  If you fire a 22-250 and a 45-70 at the same angle to the ground, they will hit the ground at the same time.  The only difference is how far away they will each hit the ground.  Basic science.


Fired perpendicular to the pull of gravity, not at any angle.

I stand corrected.  They would have to be fired perpendicular to the pull of gravity.

[jasonprox700]

I found the website for the aluminum bullets. 

http://www.lehighbullets.com/products.asp?cat=19

[Lloyd Smale]

Problem would be that to get enough sectional density to get any kind of penetration theyd have to be about 3 times as long as a lead or brass bullet. Even brass bullets need to be quite a bit longer then lead and it gets to the point that theres not enough room for powder in the case. A guy could cut the chamber long and seat them way out but then id think youd run into a point where there was so much bullet that friction would come into to play. Then how would you get any expansion out of those alloys? Even barns copper bullets need special cuts in them to get expansion and the ones ive tested are pretty limited in the velocity range they will expand at. Like was said theres no getting around the fact that you need weight in a bullet. To get any kind of decent sectional density you need a material that is heavy per volume. Copper, brass, lead and tin are about the only materials that have enough. Ive even fooled with casting zinc bullets and they are just to light. Weight ends up less then half of what the same bullet cast out of lead would be. When lead goes away so will cheap shooting. If there was a way around this with current technology it would be on the market.

[dakotashooter2]

Isn't there also an issue with oxidation of aluminum. I don't think one would want to run aluminum oxide (abrasive) through your barrel.

Ceramic with proper jacketing would seem more suitable for frangible type bullets.

While we have some sabot technology out there it is nowhere near the stage that would be required to obtain both high velocity and extreme accuracy. They work pretty well in shotguns and muzzle loaders  but the veliocities are not that high nor range that long. Sabots were tried in .22 and .30 cartridges and obtaining consistent accuracy was prety tough.

In the case of large caliber bullets (.40 & up) it has been demonstrated that bullet or metpat size alone is often sufficient that expansion is not needed on game. That may open the door to harder core materials for for use in those bullets.

I've often wondered about a soft, core material. Something with reasonable weight but the consistency of modeling clay encapsulated in a copper jacket.

[mcwoodduck]

Would ceramic or modeling clay work in the back end of say an A frame, fail safe, or a nosler partition?  Just to be used as weight or ballest and then use a non lead material in the nose of the H frame designs.

[yooper77]

Not a very new concept.

I have used lead free range bullets in a M-16.

If you used the tip of this ammo to adjust the front site, the tip would break off and fall in dust pieces.

yooper77

[BOOTYMONSTER]

a sabot could be used like on the 30-06 Springfield, Accelerator . but ive never read any shining comments on their accuracy .
since i was thinking in a target type situation penetration wouldnt be necessary .
i was watching a show on tv the other nite and they said when you double the speed of a projectile that its energy impact is multiplied by 4 .

thanks guys for your insite on my question .

[Cheesehead]

The .458 aluminum bullet shown in the link look interesting, just not sure of its use. Maybe close range self defence?

Cheese