I just saw a GIF of a lead bullet hitting a steel plate and of course the copper jacket of the bullet flowers open and the lead just kind of smushes against the plate and doesn’t do anything, why don’t we make bullets out of a stronger metal?
In: Engineering
Two things:
– Stronger metal will wear out barrel much faster than softer metal. And there are legal issues for bullets made of harder metal inside softer jacket/sabot, as those combinations are used for armour piercing bullets.
– The denser bullet material is, the better its performance, and lead is cheapest high density material.
Bullet made from other high density metals (like solid copper) are more expensive.
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