Tungsten bullets???

[stardate2010]

Hi, Just read up on the properties of Tungsten.
Anyone ever tried to use this stuff to make bullets out of?
Since it melts at 6000* or so, guess smelting/pouring is kinda out of the question,
so that leaves forging, or turning on a lathe for each bullet.
It seems to weigh twice what lead does, so in theory you could make the same weight bullet as lead but only half as long???
Anyone try any of this?
just curious.

[Ricochet]

It's been discussed in the "Bullet Making" forum on the Accurate Reloading board.

[ANeat]

Its probably a little hard to use directly against the bore but it might work good for a core.

Adam

[wills]

See Corbin

http://ss235.fusionbot.com/cgi-bin/ss_query?keys=tungsten&sitenbr=45822711&ct=0

http://www.corbins.com/tungsten.htm

[Johnch]

I see Barns is making a X bullet with a Tungsten insert in the base .
Probely will cost to much for poor me

Johnch

[jhalcott]

they have some tungsten penetrators for the Abrams tank, velocity around 5000fps @ the muzzle.

[StarMetal]

What happened to the depleted uranium rounds, they are even better then tungsten.

Joe

[wills]

Apparently harder to find than WW or tungsten.

[Hackleback]

Did'nt the Speer Grand Slam Solids have a Tungston core?

[klausg]

Joe-
We still use the DU rounds on both the Abrams 120mm and the Bradley 25mm, both are saboted, so they are real screamers.

Hackleback- Yup, speer uses a tungsten core on their "African Grand Slam", or something like that.

-Klaus; BFV Master Gunner in my 'other' life

[Ricochet]

DU gets the environmentalists and plaintiff attorneys way more revved up than lead does. They're already fired up over their use in the recent Middle Eastern unpleasantries. Hasn't been getting much press lately, though.

[fourarmed]

I remember back in the early seventies sometime, Elmer mentioned in his G&A column a .30 caliber bullet using tungsten that weighed 250 grains or a bit more. He allowed as how it might make the .30-'06 adequate for our smaller deer.

[BAGTIC]

The latest tungsten tank rounds perform about as well as the DU ones.

The original reason for using DU was cost. It is so cheap it was even being used as wheel weights on airliners. There is a surplus of DU and it is much cheaper than tungsten.l

[StarMetal]

There are also other advantages of DU rounds from what I understand. As it pierces that armor it creates a tremendous amount of heat and literally the hole blows through to the inside, of say a tank, with molten metal and DU somewhere's in the neighborhood of over 3000 degrees. I myself doubt that tungsten is as good as DU, it's just that DU is getting a bad world press because it's formerly radiactive uranium. I believe too that DU is denser then tungsten.

Joe

[wills]

http://www.tungsten-heavy-powder.com/Tungsten_Heavy_Powder/Tungsten_Heavy_Powder_Products/tungsten_heavy_powder_products.html#applications

[GooseGestapo]

Another problem with DU, is that it is HIGHLY TOXIC heavy metal, simular to Mercury, ect.

Not a problem if you don't intend to do anything with the "eliminated" enemy ordinance (armor), but, if "YOU" do the EOD, the DU is a real problem.

It requires the wearing of Hazmat suits to keep from inhaling the residual dust from inside the knocked out armor units.

Two aquaintainces who were in Desert Storm (circa 1991), were exposed to DU during EOD op's following the "highway of death" action.

Both have health issues as a result. In fact, most of the "Gulf War Syndrome" symptoms are related to environmental exposures that occured over there. This includes DU exposure.

And BTW, DU usually has "some" residual radiation remaining that adds to the Hazard Cocktail problem.

Much worse than Pb.

Tungsten does not have many of these issues and is approved as a non-toxic shot material by the FWS for domestic waterfowl hunting, which will include non-intentional human ingestion.

As far as impact performance, the Tungsten and DU behave very similarily, in that they are turned into a "plasma" on impact due to the high level of kinetic energy from the anti-tank rounds.

In the 5.56, tungsten was originally used as the penetrator tip in the SS-109 prototype ammunition. The tungsten was abandoned to the use of hardened steel penetrator tips because the tips could be made with "machine screw" manufacturing tools, and hardened to perform "nominally" as the tungsten tips, and were "MUCH" cheaper to manufacture.

Normally, the Tungsten is formed into intended shapes in powder form, and then heated to melt and fuse into intended shapes. The process is intensive, making it expensive. Hence, the high cost of bullets such as the new Barnes MRX, at over $1.00 each!

FWIW; the Military has looked into the use of saboted Tungsten slugs (ala Remington Accelerator's) for the 5.56 at velocities approaching 4,200fps.

I was cautious of the "release" of the info, as it was accompanied by "hoopla" that it would allow the discontinued use of "LEAD" containing bullets.

As we have seen, this dosen't appear to be happening.

Imagine the cost to us, the tax payers, if Uncle Sam's ammo started costing over $2 for each round of 5.56(aka .223) expended?

But then again, perhaps these are some of the reasons it's costing us "billions" to be "over there".

[Tonto]

remember seeing recently some problems with tungsten in projectiles, apparently the stable tungsten was found leeching into subsurface water near a range where it was used...the green label might have come too soon...also recall some refute of the original lead shot studies that led to steel and now non-toxic shot requirements.....big surprize there....makes me think of a saying...just because you can divide it by ten doesn't make it science......you can fund a study to say whatever you want it to say...elemental and alloyed lead is not "available" unless oxidized into soluable compounds.....hard to do in nature.....or so they say....

[wills]

“Our manufacturing process, with its pollution-controlled environment, complies fully with EPA requirements. Moreover, our tungsten powders are extremely kind to the environment, owing in large part to the fact that tungsten is one of the most non-toxic metals next to gold. Our factory environment is equally kind to our trained employees, who utilize stringent safety practices to ensure maximum protection during the manufacturing process.”

http://www.tungsten-heavy-powder.com/Tungsten_Heavy_Powder/About_Tungsten_Heavy_Powder/about_tungsten_heavy_powder.html