LIQUID METAL BULLETS in Slow Motion!
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Published 2016-05-04
I melted the soft lead from .45 caliber hollow point bullets and replaced it with super soft sodium and potassium metal. When you combine sodium and potassium they form a liquid metal! I tested these bullets in a acrylic test chamber filled with water, and recorded the results on a high speed camera.
I chose .45 bullets because they could hold the most metal. Once I melt out the lead, the empty copper jackets can hold around 1 cubic centimeter of material. Lead has a density of around 11g/cm3, and sodium & potassium have a density of only ~1g/cm3. They bullets are much lighter, so they don't have as much kinetic energy. Even though they carry less energy, they expand way faster because of the soft metals. The energy is transferred instantly! A lead bullet takes around 2 feet to stop in water, but these bullets stop in 6 inches!
This was my most expensive video ever, I spent $1300 on sodium, potassium, and a gun!
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All Comments (21)
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Imagine being shot and looking down and suddenly poisonous smoke starts erupting from the wound. Lord almighty.
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I can confidently say you've made anti-personnel rounds. Not really effective against any armour, but way more damage if it hits flesh.
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"it didn't even make it 6 inches in"
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Would be very interesting to see the results of firing into ballistic jelly or a pig carcass
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Pretty cool huh?! What else should I try to fit in these hollow bullets?
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Should I make a sodium joke? Na...
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If the 4.1 on the scale is in grams means your bullet is 61.5 grains
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"It didn't even make it 6 inches in" Story of my life...
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Good that you survived that dangerous propane tank. It could attack at any moment!
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The liquid alloy bullets could be fairly effective against very soft targets but for better penetration it might be worth leaving some lead in them before adding the NaK.
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Years ago in the 1970's I loaded mercury into the end of the hollow point Supervel bullet in a 380 ACP and I worked pretty well. The bullet expanded in wet telephone books but I didn't find the Mercury.
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Energy=mass x velocity. Lead density 11.29g/cc Sodium 0.971g/cc Potassium 0.862 g/cc The copper jacket is a fixed weight. Changing to sodium and potassium very significantly reduces mass of the bullet, yielding less penetration into the water mass. FWIW, a true liquid such as mercury will negatively impact the bullet’s accuracy. Very interesting stuff, really appreciated it!
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Redo the experiment but use ballistic gel. That should give you a better idea of how they would perform.
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'It didn't even make it 6 inches in' story of my life
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"Hey guys were making liquid bullets" FBI:We will watch your career with great interest
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I thought of this in high school! An entire line of alkali metal bullets- even cesium. A cesium bullet would be tough to engineer, but extremely effective.
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It seems you beat me to this. Dang school taking up all my time! haha good work!
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Hey brother, I would absolutely love to work with you on future firearms related projects. I have access to all kinds of crazy guns and ammo as well as testing materials like Ballistic Gel and I'm a total nerd for this kind of stuff. I will come to you or whatever needs to happen to work with your schedule.
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I'd be curious about the ballistic coefficient of the bullets you made, so far as I've seen I'd still pick lead. Definitely cool to see though man, keep it up!!
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Since liquids resist compression, perhaps filling the hollow point cavity with liquid metal might cause more dramatic expansion of the copper clad lead bullet. The larger the expansion, the greater the cavitation and more dramatic the effect on the water. Just a thought.
