One of my former colleagues helped a "werewolf book" author make a more realistic novel by casting & testing silver bullets.
http://www.patriciabriggs.com/books/...rbullets.shtml
There are some interesting insights, including the differences in hardness & shrinkage & density. Kevin has since gone back to Canada, which caused me to miss out on his partial differential equation filled interior and exterior ballistics course. Still trying to get a copy of his lecture notes.
With metals prices going as they are, lead may soon catch silver...
I had another colleague, since passed away, who claimed that when he was a boy his father made bullets alloyed with Gold and they all shot in the same hole. His Dad even showed him by one-holing a target at 50yds. I replied, "Conrad, didja ever think that your Dad may have just shot one shot in the middle and put the other nine over the top of the paper?" There was a look of hurt realization after all these decades. His Dad was born about the same time as my Grandad and I recall numerous & similar tall tales by my father, grandfathers, and uncles meant to awe the naive & callow youths of the latest generation then just recently out of diapers... Later on I got a note from Conrad, "...I have never known my father to lie to me even when he was prevaricating..." Sadly the last of the great curmudgeons passed away after a stroke in 2009 just shy of his 90th birthday.
Anyway, I thought the results with the silver bullets would be interesting, if this hasn't been put up on this site before.
Matt