Strange item in my range lead.

[Sasquatch-1]

I was sorting out some range lead I picked up this week and ran across something I thought was a bullet. It had already been in the pot once so I placed it on the anvil of the vice and gave it a wack with a hammer thinking it was a full jacket. The bullet crumbled. I looked at the pieces and the material almost looked like clay.

The diameter was somewhere in the 40 to 45 area. Has anyone ever heard of making bullets from clay and baking them for shooting? I would think it would be very hard to get a good diameter and that it would play havock with the barrel. If I can find the pieces I will take a picture later.

[Jim]

First thing that comes to mind is powdered or sintered metal used to make frangible bullets, maybe bronze.

[Sasquatch-1]

First thing that comes to mind is powdered or sintered metal used to make frangible bullets, maybe bronze.

It kind of powder when I hit it. Broke into three distinct pieces. It almost look like brick material.

[Mud Eagle]

I've seen those also, bubbling up out of the smelt pot. No idea what they are, though.

[R.M.]

Bismuth?????

[Lizard333]

I'm going with Jim on this one. Fragile bullet. Why it didn't break into a thousand pieces when it hit the burm is besides me.

[2wheelDuke]

I doubt it's bismuth, that should easy melt and would probably alloy into lead.

I have seen these in 9mm and 40-45 size. I was figuring that they're sintered copper or something. They survived melting with the tmj, but shattered when I hit them with a hammer looking to crush jackets.

We shoot sintered copper at work, they turn to dust against the plate steel backstop, then fans blow the dust (supposedly) through a filter then outside.

[Sasquatch-1]

Ok, here's a couple of Pics. Don't know if they will do any good.:

[Ola]

Does this look like it? (Zoom in to the picture)

http://www.ruag.com/Ammotec/Defence_and_Law_Enforcement/Further_information/Frangible_Ammunition

Or this one?

http://www.precisioncartridge.com/frangible.html

[I'll Make Mine]

Those photos certainly look like sintered copper. Best bet why they didn't break up on the berm is that the berm is too soft to breach the jacket; an earth berm will tend to be very well broken up by impacts and act "soft" to a bullet -- we often see cast bullets with very little deformation in range lead. The jacket on a frangible will protect even from that, unless it hits something harder than the pulverized earth.

[SlippShodd]

I get some of these frangibles from time to time out of our berms... sometimes they powder when I hit them with a hammer, sometimes they just bust into a few pieces as yours did. I toss the chunks in the bucket with the smelted jackets and sell them to the recycler.

mike

[Sasquatch-1]

OK, this is the same consensous I came up with from members of the club I belong to.
Now, is sintered copper basically a copper powder that has been forced together under high pressure?

[Jim]

That's about the size of it.

I bought a couple hunnerd .308 X 105 gr. MG training bullets from HI-TECH AMMO to play with and they're the same thing. I tried 'em in my 1917 Enfield before I sold it and they didn't shoot worth a toot. They turned sideways in less than 50 ft.

I did find a use for 'em, though. I used 'em to make fireforming loads when I needed to blow out the shoulders and necks of .30-30 brass to make .375 WIN brass for my '94 Big Bore.

[I'll Make Mine]

Yep, sintering is a combination of compression and heating; the idea is that, under pressure, the powder particles will weld together at temperatures well below the melting point of the metal. With copper, instead of needing red heat to melt the metal, sintering can be done at the upper end of lead casting temperatures -- 750º F or so.

[Defcon-One]

Yeah, and they do not have jackets. It is similar to swaging only with a metallic powder instead of a lead plug!

They must have hit soft dirt or mud. If they hit anything hard, they instantly turn to dust.

[billyb]

I ordered a sample from a bullet manufacturer. The bullets they made were powdered tin and copper formed under presure then heated to fuse them together. They stated the temp and time of heating was a trade seceret. To much heat and they were making armour percing bullets.

[WILCO]

I'm going with Jim on this one.

Me too!