Heavy Bullets for Small Calibers (DO NOT TRY THIS!)

[ohland]

Antimony is used today to harden boolits.

Here is a oldie but a goodie that will expose you to mercury vapors. Mercury is a heavy metal that does BAD THINGS to the brain and nervous system. Remember "Mad as a hatter"? Imagine what your local government would think... the amount of mercury in a CFL is pretty small, and they go BAT-Guano crazy if it breaks... Now imagine the storm if liquid mercury in a quantity of at least an ounce is added to lead... I'm guessing the mould would have to be wiped down, the ladle might be sealed and disposed of, ditto for the pot...

This is to show you what was the current thought in the day....

Again, DO NOT USE MERCURY in your alloy. We use antimony for this today...

Heavy Bullets for Small Calibers.—"Devil's Ramrod" in Forest and Stream gives the following method of moulding bullets for sportsmen who use small caliber rifles for large game: 1st, Melt sufficient lead to make nine bullets, and mould them without any special care as to accuracy. 2d, Clean the ladle out, put the nine bullets therein, and place over a moderate fire. 3d, While they are melting fill the mould with quicksilver, and as soon as the bullets are melted pour the quicksilver into the ladle and stir rapidly with a piece of clean iron. 4th, Remove from the fire and mould nine bullets from this alloy.

Pour the remainder into a tin pan or upon a piece of wood. Repeat the process until you have the desired number of bullets, pouring out the residue as above directed, each time; for if it is allowed to remain in the ladle, the proportion of quicksilver will be gradually increased and ununiform shooting will result. When you are through, take this residue, place in the ladle, melt and use. The lead must not be allowed to get too hot. as quicksilver volatilizes rapidly when exposed to red heat.

Folks, since mercury is liquid at room temperature, I'd be of the opinion that it gives off a vapor at the 600-700 or so degrees when you cast. I don't know the melting point of the lead-mercury alloy AND I DON'T WANT TO!!!

The result of these directions will be a bullet of slightly greater weight than one of pure lead, and not lighter, as when alloyed with tin, and besides possessing a fine degree of hardness, will retain its shape better when fired through hard substances, and naturally has better penetration. The following simple algebraic formula will give the weight of a bullet made of the above mixture: Sp. grav. of lead = 11. Sp. grav. of quicksilver .= 14. Let a =. weight in grains of bullet made of pure lead, 6 — weight of the mould full of quicksilver, and c =• weight of resultant bullet. Then: &=x!4, and e=ax»+" -.09x10.

[country gent]

I have seen accounts of lead mercury alloies before not sure what it would contribute to the mix. I thing mercury may vaporize at around 300* and would make for very volatile vapors.

[ohland]

I have seen accounts of lead mercury alloies before not sure what it would contribute to the mix.


The above mix works out to be 9:1, BTW.

I found references by elephant hunters on hardening their lead boolits with mercury. I have no evidence, but the period thought was mercury would harden the boolit, give good fill out, and make the boolit heavier.

If it does increase weight, it would also improve SD, though I would think messing with hot mercury would be a little less dangerous than elephant hunting, BUT it still could be just as deadly...

[LAGS]

I always thought Mercury ate Lead.
I have used mercury from old Mercury thermostat controls to remove the lead from my .357 barrel when I shot too hot of loads with too soft of lead.
I would just plug the end of the barrel with a ball of cotton.
Then I would pour the mercury into the other end of the barrel into the forcing cone.
You dont have to fill up the barrel.
Then push the ball of cotton slowly thru the barrel and catch the mercury as it came out the forcing cone.
I would do that Twice, and the barrel was pristine.
Then I would clean the barrel really good, as Mercury can be corrosive on steel, but my barrel is stainless, but I wanted to remove any mercury to prevent vapors next time I shot the pistol.
A prospector I knew, would use Mercury to purify gold by boiling the gold dust in Mercury till the Mercury boiled off.
Yes, he stayed a good distance away from the mix while it was boiling off.

[303Guy]

Mercury may not be volatile when alloyed with lead in those proportions. I won't consider doing it but I am curious. Mercury forms a hard amalgam with silver, tin, copper and whatever else which we use in our teeth! I'm still alive although I can't make any claims on sanity - I think I'm sane and everyone else is crazy!:veryconfu :bigsmyl2:

[13Echo]

Mercury will form amalgams with various metals with the mercury becoming essentially non-available as in the silver amalgams used in dental fillings. These amalgams are made at room temperature. Heating mercury as the article did will vaporize it! This is exceedingly dangerous as it is then highly bio-available and toxic! There are case reports of children having seizures, and dieing from inhaling such vapors and of long term, severe, neurological injury to adults as well as death. Even at room temperature mercury has a small vapor pressure and can be acquired by inhaling.

[fiberoptik]

My stepdad had a Budweiser beer bottle full of mercury, sure was heavy. Dropped it in the basement, all went into little bb's everywhere. My bedroom was down there too. The fumes never bothered me before, right me? Yup yup!

[fiberoptik]

Oh, boolits with mercury in the hollow point sure do expand nice and at the very least, give blood poisoning to the target!

[popper]

Gal in chem lab (years ago) forgot to turn on the vent hood over her station when doing a heated mercury experiment. She didn't get a good grade. I thought she was kind of dingy anyway. For all the coins I've rubbed with mercury, I should be too. At least I didn't eat the stuff. Main reason they changed liquid in thermometers.

[gunoil]

Yea, rolled it around in palms when young.

Thats a good one fiberoptik!

[RogerDat]

After some Jr. High science experiment in lab that involved mercury we being the last class of the day got the bright idea to use an index card to scrape up all the little balls from nooks and crannies of the lab counters, got a fairly decent size haul.

Standing there talking with the science teacher while this one girl rolled our collection of mercury from one hand to the other like a big round slinky. Science teacher stopped talking and was looking at her and so we did too, she noticed us watching and asked was there something wrong with handling mercury the teacher replied "it's ok as long as you never plan to have children..." both her hands flew in opposite directions and our hard work to collect that ball of mercury went splat on the floor in a million different directions. He chuckled and walked back to his office.

[fiberoptik]

Mad as a hatter? Mercury was the cause.

[brassrat]

My two, little, out-of-state, cousins almost died or close, just a couple yrs ago from mercury brought home by their dad

[fiberoptik]

Sorry to hear that. Its also found in fillings & vaccines. Make sure to get your yearly mercury booster flu shot!