plastic bullets

[alphabrace]

If lead gets much more expensive in the future, is there any movement for plastic bullets for target shooting and such?

 

[flyboy84]

Not that I have seen, but I think i read something about composite cases somewhere.

 

[jblomenberg16]

If lead gets much more expensive in the future, is there any movement for plastic bullets for target shooting and such?

I'm not sure plastic bullets would be strong enough to survive the massive acceleration of being fired, and would likely melt going down the barrel due to the heat involved.

 

[spaniel]

Even if the plastic was strong enough to survive the forces and resistant to the heat, the sectional density would be terrible. Not good for anything but short range practice, and all of your handgun sights would need to be swapped out to be able to zero. Bullet weights would be a fraction of what they are now.

 

[BogWalker]

Yeah, they make plastic bullets for CAS and shooting gallery type stuff, but for any real intensive uses they would be impractical.

 

[parson]

I've shot a few hot glue bullets in my S&W snubbie. Primer powered only. The "group" was about 6" at 10'. They can be fired more than once.

But, since I cast, I'd rather use light target loads with lead bullets.

These glue bullets were cast in one of my Lee molds.

 

[45fan]

I'm not sure plastic bullets would be strong enough to survive the massive acceleration of being fired, and would likely melt going down the barrel due to the heat involved.

While it would seem that to be the case, I have a box of plastic training rounds designed for the G3, the work in my CETME just fine, and while extremely low recoil, they are certainly not lacking in the velocity department. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 4k FPS is what I have been told. While not the long range shooters that the 147gr FMJ that typically gets fed through the rifle, they do make some noise, and give reasonable accuracy out to 100 yards or so. They are really spectacular at close range when shooting nuisance piney squirrels and chipmunks in the back yard.