Casting Silver Bullets

[markinalpine]

NOTE: I'm using the spelling for boolits used by the author of this blog:

http://www.hurog.com/books/silver/silverbullets.shtml

They eventually bought a mould from Mountain Molds to cast their boolits using silver. Interesting series of articles. They were researching for a story about a werewolf killer.

Mark

[Dframe]

Very interesting. I enjoyed that series of articles.

[Johnch]

LOL
I had a good laugh

Very good read

John

[MtGun44]

Heck of a lot of trouble, but pretty good at working thru the
problems. Not a lot of real support for the idea of some guy doing this
in his basement in a short time frame, tho.

If you really had to do it, I'd say turn some undersized silver projectiles and
load them into the sabots that they sell to shoot .22 bullets in .30 cal
rifles. I think they were sold as Remington Accelerators for .30 -06 and
.30-30.

Bill

[HWooldridge]

Should have swaged them and then paper patched...

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

interesting read. Thanks for posting!

[docone31]

I am laughing at the article.
Being a silversmith by trade, making silver bullets would be no issue. I wouldn't want to fire them in anything I wanted to keep however. Silver is real hard compared to lead.
It is simple.
Get a mold, cast a lead boolitt. Pack it in rubber to be vulcanized. Cut out the model and you have a cavity to inject wax. Inject a bunch of waxes, then sprue them up. Place in a flask to be invested. Pour in the investment, debubblize, and let cure. Burn out the wax, get the flask to heat, pour molten silver into the cavity. Once the sprue button freezes, remove from the vaccum caster. Wait a minute, then quench to eject the investment from the casting tree. Cut the sprues releasing the finished boolitts. Place in pickle and let sit. This removes any oxides from the exterior of the casting. Tumble polish the boolitts.
Since makeing a model from an existing casting, you have to remember shrinkage! This is where useing lapping compound to open up the cavity comes in handy. Making both a rubber mold, and casting, the castings will be smaller. Part of casting silver and gold.
I really enjoyed that article! A lot of left handed humor with a journey of discovery within.
You can melt silver on a piece of framing lumber with a propane torch. However, pouring it from there is an issue. A crucible is in order here. I use a furnace. I set the dial, go have coffee, and I have molten silver.
You have to have a way to get the metal into the mold. Either spin it, or vaccum it. Either way, the mold has to fill from the bottom, up. The flask has to be at least 50% of the melt heat. Kinda like our molds but on a larger scale. Silver looks good in low light while it is red.
Making silver bullets is sure a way to find out how not to do things. If you powder silver, it will be absorbed by the lead to an extant, if, you keep the lead hot enough, flux constantly, a little tin will help here.
Unless you are making jewelery, it sure is a way to spend a lot of time and money.
They are also lighter than lead, or wheel weight castings. I wouldn't even consider expansion!
It can be done though.

[NoZombies]

I read the article a while ago, I couldn't understand why they didn't just have someone make them a graphite mold...

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I remember reading the article in question when it was first published. I saved some of those GunWorld magizines from the sixties and may still have it They also wrote several very funny articles about little know game animals of the world such as, The Big Hairy Deal and several others that I can't recall. They were very funny. Maby some of you other seasoned citizens remember reading those same articles?I am surprised Jack Lewis is still alive. He was a heavy smoker and must be in his eighties. The two don't usually go together. I wonder if Tommy Bish and Dean Grennell are still around?

[JIMinPHX]

I think that I'd just get some silver rod stock & turn out the boolits on a lathe.

[Nora]

My vote would be for the rod stock. Give it a good cavity, fill it with garlic oil then seal it with paraffin just in case it's not a real werewolf but a vampire dressed as such. PP it to fit the bore and call it good.

[shotman]

You can cast them in a steel mold and work fine. I made 25 to load in 357s in a leather cowboy belt. They shoot ok. They dont size easy so need to make sure you mold is not casting large. I used the spray mold release to make mold smaller. The silver solider is the easiest to work and looks as good. I used the contact points off industral breakers. Its almost 100% pure. They turn/tarnish very fast so I clear coated mine to keep shiney .
I shot 2 at a 6in piece of wood to see what they would do. Was going to split it up to get the slugs back. both went through and I lost them.
Oh one more thing DONT tell anyone what they are. I have a belt with 25 empty loops. Someone wanted them too.

[44man]

My grandson is Bi-polar and thinks he can kill ghosts with silver boolits or a sword.
But it brings up a story. My neighbor has a log cabin with a deck. He doesn't live there and I am allowed to hunt the property. I have a ground blind 50 yards from his driveway and one morning I was getting in it before daylight. I seen a tall white thing walk between two trees on his drive, it never came out the other side of the last tree.
The next week my friend came to hunt and I just put him on the deck because deer walk the edge of the yard and woods. I told him to watch the motion sensor light, deer set it off.
Well the light came on and he snuck over to look but nothing was there. Then something whispered in his ear "Did you see that." He thought it was me but I was up the hill taking my stand down. Talk about spooked! I laughed at him.
He might love a silver boolit!

[JIMinPHX]

I used the contact points off industral breakers. Its almost 100% pure.

Some of those are pure & some of those are Silver Cadmium Oxide alloy. the cadmium bearing stuff is poisons & dangerous to work with for health reasons. You can usually look up the contact alloy by the part number of the breaker/contactor/switch that the contact points came out of. The cadmium bearing stuff is more expensive, but is often used because it will carry more current.

[Gunslinger]

And for those of you who wonder how a geniune anti-warewolf cartridge looks like... here is one

I know a goldsmith who helped me make it. I was given to a very dear lady friend and hunting comrade of mine for her 27 years birthday a few weeks back. Lets just say she was blown away!!

A goldsmith in Denmark charges $70 an hour plus 25% tax so lets just say I was grateful that he found the project exciting and was willing to give a hand.

And I had it stamped 925 just for kicks.....

[jlchucker]

We don't have real werewolves here in the US because the Lone Ranger shot them all many years ago.

[fatnhappy]

NOTE: I'm using the spelling for boolits used by the author of this blog:

http://www.hurog.com/books/silver/silverbullets.shtml

They eventually bought a mould from Mountain Molds to cast their boolits using silver. Interesting series of articles. They were researching for a story about a werewolf killer.

Mark

How many did they bag?