4 ms·

As a former goldsmith by trade, I agree. We mostly use vacuum casters or centrifugal casters and vestment casting. I've often wondered if there were a market

As a former goldsmith by trade, I agree. We mostly use vacuum casters or centrifugal casters and vestment casting. I've often wondered if there were a market for silver bullets on say Etsy. Minus the gun powder and primer of course.

throwaway81523 5y ago
Yeah I was surprised by the article. I had thought silver bullets were fairly common, at least as novelty items for shooters, rather than for actual werewolf hunting. I guess not, though: the ones I see now all seem to be replicas unsuitable for actual shooting. I also don't understand the casting headaches: I've seen some videos of Alec Steele making gold rings by lost wax casting and not having such trouble. Is the difference that he was willing to do a lot of hand finishing of the cast rings? Here is one of Alec Steele's videos showing him making a ring. It's a very romantic vid for the right kind of nerd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb2ZCoiOe3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb2ZCoiOe3k
- cryptonector 5y ago
  https://www.google.com/search?&q=buy+silver+bullets https://www.google.com/search?&q=buy+silver+bullets https://www.google.com/search?q=buy+gold+bullets https://www.google.com/search?q=buy+gold+bullets Evidently there are people who know how to make them. And they look pretty good, too.
  - throwaway81523 5y ago
    Yeah I tried some searches like that, and couldn't find any silver bullets that were actually be made to be fired from a gun. What I saw was many chunks of silver shaped to look like cartridges, nice for display or as conversational novelties, but not usable as projectiles. I didn't look at every single search hit, so if you have a link to any silver bullet being sold as usable in ammo, I'd certainly look at it.
    - cryptonector 5y ago
      Oh, hmm, sure, I didn't really look far. But I figure anyone who can cast whole "cartridges" in silver, with such precision and detail, and so pretty, can probably cast just bullets in silver too. If no one does, I bet it's because reloaders don't care to load cartridges with silver bullets -- it's just too expensive!
derekp7 5y ago
Could they be made the same way coins are, by stamping them?
- nanomonkey 5y ago
  Yes, but then the metal would be work hardened. Ideally, if it were to act as a bullet and deform to the shape of your rifling you'd want the silver to be in an annealed state.
- Blackthorn 5y ago
  For bullets, you'd probably want to swage them, but I've never worked with silver so I'm not sure how troublesome that would be. The OP actually mentions this in part 5, though not by name (it's under the section "elastic modulus"). They want specifically to cast instead of swage and while I think swaging is technically superior, it's understandable because you have to be a confident enough machinist to make dies and other swaging paraphernalia vs just a bullet mold and what's more likely to be available in a werewolf novel, really?

throwaway81523 5y ago

Yeah I was surprised by the article. I had thought silver bullets were fairly common, at least as novelty items for shooters, rather than for actual werewolf hunting. I guess not, though: the ones I see now all seem to be replicas unsuitable for actual shooting. I also don't understand the casting headaches: I've seen some videos of Alec Steele making gold rings by lost wax casting and not having such trouble. Is the difference that he was willing to do a lot of hand finishing of the cast rings? Here is one of Alec Steele's videos showing him making a ring. It's a very romantic vid for the right kind of nerd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb2ZCoiOe3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb2ZCoiOe3k

cryptonector 5y ago
https://www.google.com/search?&q=buy+silver+bullets https://www.google.com/search?&q=buy+silver+bullets https://www.google.com/search?q=buy+gold+bullets https://www.google.com/search?q=buy+gold+bullets Evidently there are people who know how to make them. And they look pretty good, too.
- throwaway81523 5y ago
  Yeah I tried some searches like that, and couldn't find any silver bullets that were actually be made to be fired from a gun. What I saw was many chunks of silver shaped to look like cartridges, nice for display or as conversational novelties, but not usable as projectiles. I didn't look at every single search hit, so if you have a link to any silver bullet being sold as usable in ammo, I'd certainly look at it.
  - cryptonector 5y ago
    Oh, hmm, sure, I didn't really look far. But I figure anyone who can cast whole "cartridges" in silver, with such precision and detail, and so pretty, can probably cast just bullets in silver too. If no one does, I bet it's because reloaders don't care to load cartridges with silver bullets -- it's just too expensive!

derekp7 5y ago

Could they be made the same way coins are, by stamping them?

nanomonkey 5y ago
Yes, but then the metal would be work hardened. Ideally, if it were to act as a bullet and deform to the shape of your rifling you'd want the silver to be in an annealed state.
Blackthorn 5y ago
For bullets, you'd probably want to swage them, but I've never worked with silver so I'm not sure how troublesome that would be. The OP actually mentions this in part 5, though not by name (it's under the section "elastic modulus"). They want specifically to cast instead of swage and while I think swaging is technically superior, it's understandable because you have to be a confident enough machinist to make dies and other swaging paraphernalia vs just a bullet mold and what's more likely to be available in a werewolf novel, really?