Bullet how is made

When most of us think of a bullet, we picture its appearance before it fires out of a gun. However, in reality, a bullet is simply a projectile. It is a small piece of metal that shoots out of the barrel of the gun.

Before being fired, all of the combined parts are called the cartridge or the ammunition. The bullet is a small piece of metal that makes up the tip of the round. It is the piece of the cartridge that fires out of the gun. So, what is a bullet made of? Sometimes in crime TV shows, people policing their brass is discussed. After every shot fired, a gun kicks a casing the brass out the side of the weapon. This casing holds all the components of a cartridge together before firing.

Gun powder is the propellant that provides the energy needed to force the bullet out of the barrel and into the target. Often called black powder, this substance explodes when struck by the primer. Burning powder ignites in an instant, creating a miniature explosion. This explosion pushes against the base of the bullet and shoots it out of the barrel. The force is so powerful most bullets travel faster than the speed of sound. What is the bullet primer?

The primer is a small capsule of specially prepared gun powder attached to the bottom of the casing. When a shooter pulls the trigger, the firing pin hits the primer squarely, causing it to explode.

What is in the bullet primer that makes it so important? All it needs to explode is the right amount of force in the right place. One of the most common questions is what the grain of a bullet is. A grain is a measurement of weight. There are However, these heavier bullets impact their target harder. They see deeper penetration because of their greater kinetic energy. There are numerous bullet shapes. The harder material can be the shank, a section of the tip, a partition of hard metal between the tip and the shank, or even a hard point on the tip that is driven backward on impact to expand the softer tip material.

Another feature that provides expansion is a hollow tip or hollow point , an empty cone in the tip that points toward the rear of the bullet. When the bullet hits the target, the thin sides of the hollow tip expand outward.

Even harder metals can expand, especially if they are scored have grooves cut in them to provide places to split apart. Few bullets have separable parts.

Some bullets have sabots, sleeves that surround the bullet while it is being fired but that fall off after leaving the firearm. Sabots allow smaller bullets to be fired from larger firearms at higher velocities than they would be fired from smaller firearms. Bullets can also contain multiple pellets or other particles that exit the bullet in a spray on impact or on leaving the target.

This provides a higher chance of hitting something from the many particles or can cause many wounds in an easily damaged target. Shotguns often fire shot many small round pellets or solid slugs large, often soft bullets out of an unrifled barrel, though some shotguns have rifled barrels.

Air guns fire solid round or hourglass-shaped pellets. Military bullets have special features, sometimes also used in law enforcement and self-defense. In order to get around the prohibition on expanding bullets, military bullets can be designed with heavier than normal back ends so that they tumble into the target on impact to create a larger wound. They can also be designed to break apart on impact with a similar effect.

Some military bullets have incendiary flammable material in the base of the bullet that leaves a visible trail. This is known as a tracer bullet because it allows the shooter to track the bullet. Incendiary material can also be placed in the tip of the bullet so that it can start a fire on impact. Military bullets are usually made of harder materials or are fully jacketed. They are often designed for penetration.

These bullets are designed to temporarily incapacitate rioters and demonstrators, but they have the ability to kill. Law enforcement and self-defense bullets should incapacitate the target.

Many of these bullets are designed to expand or shatter after hitting the target, causing maximum damage. These bullets can be made of harder material that has greater penetration through materials such as heavy clothing and body armor. Police and self-defense bullets should not over penetrate go through the target and endanger bystanders.

Hunters have different requirements for different types of targets. Fast moving targets require faster, often lighter, bullets. Larger targets with heavy hides and large bones require bullets that can penetrate and inflict enough damage to drop the animal quickly. There are several different designs that address these conflicting demands. Many hunting bullets are designed to expand. Partitioned bullets and partially jacketed bullets are common for larger targets.

There are many types of bullet manufacturers, ranging from large companies and governments to smaller custom ammunition manufacturers to individuals who load and reload ammunition with a few simple tools. There are also many different bullet designs and a lack of consensus about which is most effective. Because of this, there is no uniform method of ammunition manufacture. Large ammunition manufacturers, including the United States government, automate some of the manufacturing steps.

At appropriate points during the manufacturing process, special features may be added. The two most common bullet-forming methods are casting and swaging. Hollow points can be formed by either method. Hard harder than lead solid bullets can be stamped a metal punch cuts a bullet-shaped piece out of a bar or sheet of softer metal and machined from metal stock. Machining includes any process where a machine is used to shape metal by cutting away portions.

A typical machine used for bullets is a lathe. A lathe rotates the bullet metal against steel chisels to gradually cut away material. Many firearm users want consistent performance from their ammunition. The larger ammunition manufacturers responded by instituting quality control programs in the s and s.

SPC involves measuring a manufacturing process and determining statistically how to optimize it so that it produces correct and consistent results. TQM is the application of this kind of quality control to the whole business, not just the manufacturing part of the business. Random testing involves periodically taking a manufactured part and testing it.

Completed bullets are loaded into ammunition and fired to determine if they perform as expected. Unfinished bullets can be examined to determine if they are being produced correctly up to that point in the manufacturing process.

Both finished and unfinished bullets can be weighed, measured for symmetry bullets should be identical along every direction from an imaginary line drawn from the center of the tip to the center of the base , and cut apart to make sure that there are no air spaces and that internal features are correct such as the thickness of a partition or a jacket.

Commercial bullet sizes can vary by thousandths of an inch, but military and high quality bullets are more uniform. Up to 24 toxic materials have been found in ammunition production. Solvents often used to remove oil and grease are dangerous to inhale and can be captured for disposal or purification and reuse, as can any oil. Scrap metal can be reused or disposed. The most dangerous raw material is lead. Production workers and firearm users can be exposed to dangerous levels of lead from bullets, and firing ranges, including military ones, are being shut down because of high The casting of a bullet.

Lead can also leach into groundwater, further contaminating the environment. High levels of lead can lead to government intervention in the clean-up process, needing years of work to reach acceptable levels. Companies continue to improve bullet performance to attract buyers, but social and political considerations are becoming more important. Health, safety, and environmental issues are leading to the replacement of toxic materials such as lead with materials such as tungsten, steel, bismuth, and plastic.

Newer materials do not have the same performance characteristics as older materials, and this leads to newer ammunition designs.

There has been a legal struggle for decades over the lethality of police and self-defense weapons. Public outcry in the United States has been greatest against so-called "cop-killer" bullets designed to penetrate body armor such as that used by police, and against expanding bullets such as the Black Talon, which has a tip that opens into six sharp "claws" on impact. Other innovations may be more radical. For example, tanks can fire shells with fins that pop out for stabilization at velocities that are too high for barrel rifling.

This innovation could be scaled down for personal firearms. Self-propelled, finned rockets can also be shot out of pistol-sized launchers, though this type of projectile may no longer be called a bullet. Barnes, Frank C. Cartridges of the World. Grennell, Dean A. The ABC s of Reloading. Petzal, David E.

Stolinksky, David C. Zutz, Don. Gunnery Network Web Page. December Hasenauer, Heike. November Toggle navigation. Made How Volume 7 Bullet Bullet. The casting of a bullet.