Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Silver Bullets

Anyone ever cast bullets from silver? Worked for the Lone Ranger and might be good on werewolves.

Lead is around 8% heavier than silver.

So a 405 grain slug by mold volume would weigh around 372 grains cast of silver.

Google says silver is going for $24 per ounce "today".

372 grains equals .850286 ounces.

So every bullet would cost around $20.40

Probably still a good deal if the vampires show up.

And no, I've never cast any silver bullets.

He wouldn’t know, he’s just posing that he does know.

I sold a guy a perfectly good RCBS .45 230 RN mold and he turned around and tried to cast silver bullets to make necklaces. In the process of casting at 1700+ degrees he warped the mold blocks. So no, I wouldn't recommend it. Better off turning silver bullets in a lathe, if one should go forward with such an idea. (I originally typed "hairbrained idea" but thought better of it.)

Cost prohibitive, 1000ish degrees hotter than normal lead casting temps, warps molds, and a BHN of 24.5...2.5 points higher than straight linotype.

I don't use silver, so how did I do this?

The right temperature while casting, great job !

Those are some purrdy boolets! What gave them the bronze or brass color?

Those sure are pretty.

Beats my although I’d guess it has lots to do with temp and alloy.

You make some excellent cast bullets!

Depending on the bullet design high temp is at your advantage. Problem arises when tin drosses off and fill in decreases. Solution.... Boric acid. SO WHAT?

Guessing you started by using a simple tin/lead alloy, hit the perfect temperature, and utilized nicely machined molds. (Not to mention years of experience, and employment of sound casting protocols.)

That or Photoshop!

When I used to cast with tertiary alloys resulting from late night skullduggery and alchemy involving unknown scrap/type metal/suspect lead I adopted the expedient of simply running the pot temperature wide open. Good fillout was the primary goal and if they started coming out frosty so be it (frostiness has no impact on utility). Life was good, results on paper satisfactory, and bullet appearance suffered as often as not.

Trouble was that when I stumbled onto a good mix I couldn't exactly duplicate it next time around. Not to mention mysterious bouts of leading or unexplainable drop offs in accuracy. Time spent at the casting bench was viewed as a means to an end. With a little age came a modicum of wisdom and an abiding interest in the whys, wherefores, and how-tos of the art&science of cast bullets. That's when I started actually listening to the old sages of the then new Cast Bullet Association (I was an early member) and got my butt back to the basics and mastered them before taking back off down the experimental rabbit holes.

What's all that got to do with silver bullets? Nothing at all! (Except maybe researching a little bit about the basic metallurgy involved beforehand, something my guy with the silver bullet necklaces didn't do and learned a lesson the hard way.) Walking before running is sage advice here as well as in most things in life.

Pick one:
A) lube
B) lighting
C) gaschecks

I dunno how to shop for photos.

I have made bullets with silver already in some type of alloy.

Silver is supposedly like tin in that it makes the alloy flow and fill better and when combined with tin, antimony and lead, allows for higher heat treating levels but to what ratios I have no idea.

I had got a bunch of the old "foil" bites you used to bite down on for x-rays at the dentist office; also the cups they were dropped into. Those supposedly had some silver in the alloy. A bullet made of this alloy tested 15 but it wasn't as shiny as lino.

With just a few of the foils added to the alloy (wheelweight metal), I got past 30 BHN on heat treated bullets dropped from the mold, where before they would only hit 21-22 or 28 if I oven treated them.

I eventually mixed all I had throughout my main alloy of wheelweights and it seems a little has gone a long ways.
There evidently is enough trace over the years I still have 28-31 BHN registering throughout my alloy after all these years when I heat treat from the mold.

Doesn't work as described for the Lone Ranger. The Lone Ranger had no access to the necessary temperatures. There was a long ago article on the subject in Gun World when westerns were popular and the magazine had a lot of west coast connection. There are later articles and discussion on various boards. Bottom line has to be done as jewelry typically lost wax but sacrificing a mold to the cause leaving the sprue plate off and heating well beyond lead alloys and much else will do for a demonstration of concept.