Silver-Filled Hollowpoints

Silver Filled Hollowpoints

Silver Bullet Pages
Introduction My Quest Begins Lone Ranger, Go Away There Has To Be a Better Way Physical Properties of Silver First Attempt at Casting A Taste of Success Designing a Custom Mold	Casting The Real McCoy Sprue Plate Insulators Sizing and Lubrication Reloading with Silver Dare I Shoot? History Channel Shoot Guest Post: Another Way

Comment: Since I started the silver bullet thread, I've had numerous people suggest that simply pouring silver in a hollowpoint would be an easy solution. A few weeks ago I got a letter from a gentleman who had done just that. I asked if he would be kind enough to share his experience with our readers here, and he graciously agreed.

By Richard Gandolf Jr.

About 7 years ago I had decided to cast .40 S&W silver bullets for use in a Glock. This was a purely a curiosity motivated experiment as we do not suffer from a burgeoning Werewolf population here. I started by using a .40 caliber mold and an acetylene torch at work on my lunch. I cast four bullets and one of them turned out well enough to be used safely. However when I got home I soon realized that silver shrinks more then lead. After some reading online about silver shrinking I made an educated guess and bought a .41 caliber mold instead. I was fortunate in that the while .41 caliber cartridge is not common the mold is a bit more common thanks to period re-creationists. After several more molding attempts I was able to produce 5, .41 caliber semi-wad cutters which shrank to .40+ after cooling. I went through several ounces of silver in the process and was a little discouraged at how quickly the price per round was escalating.

A quick note here on the .41 caliber. It was first used by Colt as one of that options for the Army Single Action. At that time is was not listed as a magnum and appeared very sporadic until Smith & Wesson introduced it as the .41 magnum in their model 57. Despite the new model designation this was an existing model that was chambered in the .41 rather the the .44 which made it heavier then the .44 caliber model. The .41 magnum has been manufactured sporadically since that time by various manufactures all for revolver applications. Later a .41 Action Express was developed for use in semi auto with the goal to reproduce the performance of the .41 magnum in a semi auto round. This is the mold I wanted to use, however I was not able to find a .41 AE mold at the time so I under filled the .41 magnum mold.

After getting 5 good casts I sanded the bases of the bullets down until they were are flat and an even weight of 180 grains each. .41 AE bullets range from 170 to 210 grains. I went with 180 since it was easiest weight to attain after sanding for all five bullets. Also 180 grains is common bullet weight for a .40 and I was able to use Hornady's reloading data book. I did a mid range powder load and the bullets seemed to seat fairly well in the cases so off to the range I went. I did not have a speed trap at the time and really I just wanted to make sure that they would cycle well. Well they did not, I was able to fire 2 in a row and then the remaining three jammed. These were all smoke stack misfeeds and I think it was caused because the silver was too hard to seat in the lands and groves of the rifling. This would have lessened the bore pressure and effected the slide action of the Glock.

I had spent close to 100 dollars and gotten 5 bullets that could not cycle in a semi auto. While a cool if not cookie conversation piece, I found the pain in the neck factor to be prohibitive at best.

I abandoned the silver bullet idea for about six months and then came up with what turned out to be a much better system; both in production and ballistic function. I started looking at hollow points, the idea was to just cast silver in the hollow tips. After a bit of searching I settled on Speer Gold Dot 180 grain rounds. These were as wide of a hollow point that my gun would reliable cycle. The angle of feed ramp on guns will limit the diameter of the opening on a hollow point before they 'snag' on the lip of the feed ramp.

After more thought I ended up lengthening the depth of the hollow point to accommodate more silver and improve the bond. I did this by drilling them out on a drill press back at work on my lunch again. I did not touch the copper jacket when I did the drill work. Casting the silver for this was much easier then casting full bullets. After drilling the holes I blew them out with canned air since it is moisture free. I then inserted wooden dowel rods in the holes and broke them off at about two inches. I took them all home and gave them a coat of petroleum based lube and set them nose up in a baking sheet. I then poured plaster in the pan to the point so that the plaster level was maybe an 1/8th on an inch higher then the bullets. Once the plaster dried out I carefully removed the dowel rods and took my Dremel and ground back the plaster to form funnel shapes that closely matched what was on my bullet molds. I blew out the holes again with canned air and baked the pan in the oven at 350 F for 3+ hours.

The original and silver-filled rounds side by side.

I poured 10 bullets this time with much less silver, making production much cheaper. I trimmed these up with my Dremel and these scaled at 178-180 grains. I could live with the variance of 2 grains per bullet. Once I was done and got the bullets out of the plaster I reloaded these as per the Speer specs in their reloading manual. The bullets cycled as reliable and were as accurate at 20 feet as standard factory full metal jacket. I do not have any real ballistic data as far as FPS because I did not have access to a speed trap at the time. I was expecting it to be 180 or maybe 181 grains since I filled the channel up completely and there was no hollow point, but the silver is lighter. I reserved 3 rounds for ballistic gelatin, I made my own since buying it online is rather pricey and did not need that much. I used a 12” square storage tub for a mold and fired 3 rounds into the mold. I was disappointed with the results. The silver separated and created another wound channel about 2 inches in. I was hoping for it to stay together for a little longer. While the idea of having the silver come out and create a second wound channel is not so bad. I was afraid that at two inches in gelatin the round would come apart when impacting something like a heavy leather jacket, or a pelt.

I decided to drill the hole the same but use my Dremel to grind out a ring in the base and several small grooves in the hole wall. I poured five more and went back to the range again with more homemade gelatine. These did much better as far as keeping their shape for longer and averaged between 4-5 inches of penetration before separation. These cycled well and I did not have any cycle issues with any of the bullets that were filled in with silver. Unfortunately I do not have any ballistic data as I did not have access to a speed trap at the time. However my goal was to make a semi auto round that was still reliable and used silver as a component. These rounds met that goal and and if a werewolf ever comes to visit I can sleep better at night knowing I wont be left wanting.