Why not use plastic or ceramic bullets?

Why not use plastic or ceramic bullets?

They are cheaper than metal bullets are travel faster/farther.

John_Rodger_Cornman
Why not use plastic or ceramic bullets?

They are cheaper than metal bullets are travel faster/farther.

Who told you that? They wouldn't travel faster or further than a lead bullet, lead is heavier than both and therefore has more momentum.

reply to post by John_Rodger_Cornman


My first assumption would be mass. Lead is much heavier than the materials you mention. And if you are going to ask the question, why not ice bullets fired from compressed air?

Why use bullets to make a point?

I understand.

We must kill 2 make money.

reply to post by John_Rodger_Cornman


Ceramic would not work, not dense enough. The bullet needs to be of a material dense enough to allow it to deform in a controlled manner (expansion). It's also not strong enough to substain major impact, it would shatter.

John_Rodger_Cornman
Why not use plastic or ceramic bullets?

They are cheaper than metal bullets are travel faster/farther.

C'mon, really?

reply to post by John_Rodger_Cornman


Ceramic bullets would strip the barrel; its the same reason you dont use solid un-jacketed nickle or steel bullets, or if you do, you are going to need to replace your barrel frequently. My friend had an old mauser that shot 8mm solid nickle bullets. Couldnt hit # with the gun because the barrel was destroyed from the bullets that it was designed to shoot.

If you wanted to jacket the ceramic bullet, youd have to have a reason why it would do a better job than either a lead core, or steel core bullet at doing whatever you wanted it to do.

And you wouldnt use ceramics in a hollow point; you want those to expand, so need a soft, ductile substance, like lead, or theoretically other metals.

As for plastic, Hornady makes bullets that are partially plastic. They are definitely NOT cheaper than normal bullets.

Making ceramic or plastic bullets probably is more difficult and costly than just grabbing some lead and melting it and when you need loads like lets say the military in the millions per month you need to have a projectile that will do the required job and is easily manufacturable and having worked at a company that makes ceramics as its job its much harder to get things right as you need to heat up and then cool down in a controlled fashion otherwise you get breakages so probably baking a batch of slugs could take hours and a lot of energy versus melting some lead in a crucible and then pouring it and consider any faulty units cannot just be reused by slapping them back into the crucible you'll have a higher cost to start with along with waste disposal costs

reply to post by John_Rodger_Cornman


Someone missed their physics class

Though I will applaud you for the thought as I am sure plastic bullets would have fewer lasting consequences like the ones that come with depleted uranium.

There exist plastic training rounds. 7.62 NATO Plastic training rounds They are much cheaper and much weaker than normal ammo.

Nylon jacketed ammo is growing in popularity. Moire expensive than normal ammo and just jacketed in plastic.

reply to post by John_Rodger_Cornman



Plastic...! and spoil the environment while we kill people? Never!

plastic is lighter and takes less energy to accelerate it compared to lead,steel,nickel and copper(all heavy and dense metals except copper)

Something that is fast and heavy carries more energy than something that is just fast and not heavy.

But at sufficient speeds a flake of paint or a marsh mellow can destroy a satellite or space shuttle.

Accelerate a plastic projectile to 50,000mph it will explode on contact and that energy will destroy metal plate.

This is a common problem in for satellites in earth's orbit.

www.popsci.com...

This is a metal bullet at just 7000 mph.

John_Rodger_Cornman
plastic is lighter and takes less energy to accelerate it compared to lead,steel,nickel and copper(all heavy and dense metals except copper)

Something that is fast and heavy carries more energy than something that is just fast and not heavy.

You either just contradicted yourself or did a 180 and have changed your original opinion. I know that bullet manufacturers spend a lot of money on R&D, I would think at one time or another they would have tried to shoot just about anything out of a gun. In this day and age of engineering materials to the nano scale, I think that simply changing material type like that is rudimentary.

Despite the velocity issues, at short ranges in small caliburs - I see no reason why a plastic round that is coated wouldn't be just as good.

The only problem you run into is for long distance shots and penetrating power. Thus is why the more powerful the sniper rifle, the large the round, the more powder, the longer the projectile.

In terms of handguns, it could be beneficial in my opinion.

reply to post by TheNewRevolution


I guess, if you want to "sting" someone into submission. Why not stab them with a half inch knife? Just teasing.

But a plastic bullet, even at short range, would not have the knockdown power of a high caliber pistol, unless you made it bigger and shot it out of a bigger gun. Or filled it with lead.

It might penetrate and kill, but so would a lot of things. For that matter, you could make it out of duct tape, dried play dough, or perhaps carrots. Doesn't seem efficient for the purpose of self defense. Perhaps you aren't talking about that, though.

"Officer, we found this man with a carrot sticking out of his head. We will never be able to trace that vegetable back to the weapon!"

Seriously, that's your OP? That's all?

Geez, why not granite bullets, then. Readily available, hard, likely cheaper...

Early on in firearm development, lead projectiles were discovered to be almost perfect.

Many factors must be considered, not just what has been listed here.

Muzzle energy
Energy at specific ranges
Specific Mass

A heavier projectile not only transfers more energy to the target, it is not as effected by external stimuli such as wind as would a plastic or ceramic projectile.

Consider also that when it was discovered that putting a spin on the projectile produces vastly superior accuracy and lead is perfect for forming to the lands and grooves in the barrel that produce projectile spin.

It is also cheap, readily available and easy to work with.

Also in past times prior to modern technology, it was fairly easy to make an almost perfectly symmetrical projectile with lead.

There are many more reasons but these are the highlights

Semper

I would think there are many factors that come into play. We know from physics that force is equal to mass times acceleration, F=ma, therefore a projectile with more mass is going to impact its target with more force, or kinetic energy. Lead has a greater mass than either plastic or ceramics, therefore one would think lead would be a better projectile.

Then there is also the fact that for a projectile, certain properties are wanted. You do not necessarily want a bullet that would easily fragment. Maybe upon impact, but with the forces involved inside the barrel itself, there is no guarantee that either of the substances you mention can withstand these forces. You don't want your projectile to break apart before leaving the barrel. And depending on your target, you usually don't want your bullet to break up inside the target. But sometimes one wants fragmentation.

Another factor having to do with mass is that a heavier bullet is going to be less affected by forces like wind. There are probably many other factors as well. I think that overall, one would usually not gain anything by using such a projectile as you are describing. But there are special types of rounds out there, especially for shotguns, that utilize non-conventional substances.

John_Rodger_Cornman
Why not use plastic or ceramic bullets?

They are cheaper than metal bullets are travel faster/farther.

The physical aspect of your idea has already been handled.

Additonally, I would wager that plastic composites or ceramic of a design and construction to survive a firearm discharge (not to speak of being capable to penetrate flesh and obstructions) could be considerable more complicated and expensive to do than traditional metal bullet casting, whose basic principles have been known and honed for centuries.

reply to post by John_Rodger_Cornman


I'd probably guess that you want bullets to cause the most damage possible, call me silly.