About silver rounds

Ley Line walkers, Juicers, Coalition Troops, Samas, Tolkeen, & The Federation Of Magic. Come together here to discuss all things Rifts®.

Moderators: Immortals, Supreme Beings, Old Ones

User avatar
Fenris2020
Adventurer
Posts: 518
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2019 10:25 pm
Comment: Go woke, go broke.

About silver rounds

Unread post by Fenris2020 »

A problem I keep seeing in Palladium games is their treatment of silver bullets.
For some reason, range is decreased.
This is inaccurate. Depending on caliber, you'll see a 10% - 25% increase in range, as well as a 5% - 10% increase on penetration. That being the case, you'll need to use hollow points to keep the bullet in the vampire's body, as opposed to a solid round which is more likely to pass through.
You are a truly worthy foe! I shall howl a dirge in your honour and eat your heart with pride!
User avatar
slade the sniper
Hero
Posts: 1518
Joined: Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:46 am
Location: SDF-1, Macross Island

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by slade the sniper »

Just because I am always looking for more info on ballistics and stuff, do you have any source for this?

-STS
My skin is not a sin - Carlos Wallace
A man's rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box - Frederick Douglass
I am a firm believer that men with guns can solve any problem - Inscriptus
Any system in which the most populated areas have the most political power, creates an incentive for areas that want power to increase their population - Killer Cyborg
guardiandashi
Hero
Posts: 1437
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2013 12:21 am

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by guardiandashi »

when I read up on silver bullets you DO actually loose some range, because silver is not as dense as lead bullets
there IS some penetration increase in penetration of "hard" targets because silver bullets don't deform as much when they hit things.
also silver bullets are difficult to cast because the silver doesn't flow to fill the mold as well so they tend to need machining to finish shaping them.

the good news is silver bullets are a lot more likely to survive and be reusable after firing
User avatar
Shorty Lickens
Hero
Posts: 1217
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2005 10:24 pm
Comment: Arrrrgggghhhh!
Location: Praxus

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by Shorty Lickens »

No lead is denser. It will travel farther in air and it will hit harder when it lands. Outside of air silver might go faster, but not a heck of a lot.
GOLD would be superior to lead but of course for normal people its cost prohibitive.
Mercury at almost melting point would probably be the very best as well as adding severe poison damage to normal flesh. But again without magic or something, cost prohibitive.
http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/
Create and print dozens of different graph papers.
User avatar
Fenris2020
Adventurer
Posts: 518
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2019 10:25 pm
Comment: Go woke, go broke.

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by Fenris2020 »

guardiandashi wrote:when I read up on silver bullets you DO actually loose some range, because silver is not as dense as lead bullets
there IS some penetration increase in penetration of "hard" targets because silver bullets don't deform as much when they hit things.
also silver bullets are difficult to cast because the silver doesn't flow to fill the mold as well so they tend to need machining to finish shaping them.

the good news is silver bullets are a lot more likely to survive and be reusable after firing



It's the opposite, as far as range and weight. The lighter bullet gains range.
And no, you don't need to machine your bullets. I cast mine just fine, thank you.
You are a truly worthy foe! I shall howl a dirge in your honour and eat your heart with pride!
User avatar
Fenris2020
Adventurer
Posts: 518
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2019 10:25 pm
Comment: Go woke, go broke.

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by Fenris2020 »

slade the sniper wrote:Just because I am always looking for more info on ballistics and stuff, do you have any source for this?

-STS



I cast 100 bullets for my .30-06 and 50 for my Colt .45 from silver, from an ingot I'd acquired on a job last year.
A couple of friends of mine and I then took the rounds to a range and fired them at targets at various distances, and measured the velocities using a chronograph. We also fired three of each into some ballistic jelly molds.
You are a truly worthy foe! I shall howl a dirge in your honour and eat your heart with pride!
User avatar
drewkitty ~..~
Monk
Posts: 17737
Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2000 1:01 am
Location: Eastvale, calif
Contact:

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by drewkitty ~..~ »

Fenris2020 wrote:A problem I keep seeing in Palladium games is their treatment of silver bullets.
For some reason, range is decreased.
This is inaccurate. Depending on caliber, you'll see a 10% - 25% increase in range, as well as a 5% - 10% increase on penetration. That being the case, you'll need to use hollow points to keep the bullet in the vampire's body, as opposed to a solid round which is more likely to pass through.

I'm pretty sure it is a game mechanics balance issue artifact.
Though I remember the Lone Ranger show where he used silver bullets because they flew straiter.
May you be blessed with the ability to change course when you are off the mark.
Each question should be give the canon answer 1st, then you can proclaim your house rules.
Reading and writing (literacy) is how people on BBS interact.
User avatar
glitterboy2098
Rifts® Trivia Master
Posts: 13319
Joined: Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:37 pm
Location: Missouri
Contact:

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

https://www.patriciabriggs.com/articles ... et13.shtml
it goes only slightly slower than lead, with a little less recoil. they lose quote a bit of accuracy at range though, because the harder metal does not expand to engage the rifling properly. this means that you'd either need to make them Sabot's or make them oversized (with the side effect of wearing down your barrel faster)

given that the listed RPG ranges are the 'effective' ranges at which you can hit a target, reducing the range to represent the reduced accuracy fits.

https://www.patriciabriggs.com/articles ... et14.shtml
with the harder metal, they don't mushroom much at all when hitting soft targets like flesh. they don't even deform much after hitting harder materials either.
so while they'd have better armor piercing, they'd do less damage.



honestly the site is amazing, read the whole thing, it'll answer a lot of questions, especially about the difficulty of making them. i got the good luck to attend a talk by her about this subject at a convention a few years back, which had a lot more about the historical origins of the werewolf myth too.
https://www.patriciabriggs.com/articles ... lets.shtml


my own take on the silver weapons of palladium is that most of it isn't pure silver but rather silver plated. we know that works with melee weapons (A pure silver sword would suck as a sword after all) so it should work find with bullets and projectiles. silver plating over lead would solve a fair bit of the rifling and mushrooming issues, since the silver plate would be too thin to stop the lead from acting normally, and it would certainly simplify things like railguns rounds where their ferrous nature is important. and since most silver plated things tend to be electroplated in post-industrial settings, that also bypasses a lot of the concerns about purity.. electroplating works from suspended metal ions in a solution, so as long as you keep your solution sufficiently clean and started with sufficiently pure silver, you won't have much purity issue with the plated silver.
Author of Rifts: Deep Frontier (Rifter 70)
Author of Rifts:Scandinavia (current project)
Image
* All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.
* Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.

-Max Beerbohm
Visit my Website
User avatar
Shorty Lickens
Hero
Posts: 1217
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2005 10:24 pm
Comment: Arrrrgggghhhh!
Location: Praxus

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by Shorty Lickens »

Fenris2020 wrote:
guardiandashi wrote:when I read up on silver bullets you DO actually loose some range, because silver is not as dense as lead bullets
there IS some penetration increase in penetration of "hard" targets because silver bullets don't deform as much when they hit things.
also silver bullets are difficult to cast because the silver doesn't flow to fill the mold as well so they tend to need machining to finish shaping them.

the good news is silver bullets are a lot more likely to survive and be reusable after firing



It's the opposite, as far as range and weight. The lighter bullet gains range.

Then why dont we use cork in bullets?
Cuz it would travel 2 feet and then drop straight down.
http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/
Create and print dozens of different graph papers.
User avatar
Fenris2020
Adventurer
Posts: 518
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2019 10:25 pm
Comment: Go woke, go broke.

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by Fenris2020 »

Shorty Lickens wrote:
Fenris2020 wrote:
guardiandashi wrote:when I read up on silver bullets you DO actually loose some range, because silver is not as dense as lead bullets
there IS some penetration increase in penetration of "hard" targets because silver bullets don't deform as much when they hit things.
also silver bullets are difficult to cast because the silver doesn't flow to fill the mold as well so they tend to need machining to finish shaping them.

the good news is silver bullets are a lot more likely to survive and be reusable after firing



It's the opposite, as far as range and weight. The lighter bullet gains range.

Then why dont we use cork in bullets?
Cuz it would travel 2 feet and then drop straight down.



Funny.
You go from a logical argument to the absurd.
You are a truly worthy foe! I shall howl a dirge in your honour and eat your heart with pride!
User avatar
Fenris2020
Adventurer
Posts: 518
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2019 10:25 pm
Comment: Go woke, go broke.

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by Fenris2020 »

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:
Fenris2020 wrote:A problem I keep seeing in Palladium games is their treatment of silver bullets.
For some reason, range is decreased.
This is inaccurate. Depending on caliber, you'll see a 10% - 25% increase in range, as well as a 5% - 10% increase on penetration. That being the case, you'll need to use hollow points to keep the bullet in the vampire's body, as opposed to a solid round which is more likely to pass through.

I'm pretty sure it is a game mechanics balance issue artifact.
Though I remember the Lone Ranger show where he used silver bullets because they flew straiter.



Any time someone says it's a game balance thing in Rifts, I laugh even harder than I do when someone uses the term for other games.
You are a truly worthy foe! I shall howl a dirge in your honour and eat your heart with pride!
User avatar
Daniel Stoker
Knight
Posts: 4833
Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2000 1:01 am
Comment: Non Impediti Ratione Cogitationis
Location: Jewdica

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by Daniel Stoker »

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:Though I remember the Lone Ranger show where he used silver bullets because they flew straiter.


From what I remember it was more because the high cost in firing a gun and the potential for killing someone with a gun.

As to the original topic, wouldn't it be harder for the silver bullet to take advantage of the rifling as it's a hard not soft metal and how much spin would a silver bullet be able to get?


Daniel Stoker
Judaism - More Old School than either Christianity or Islam.
User avatar
Aermas
Explorer
Posts: 136
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2022 9:31 pm
Comment: There are two kinds of people in this world, those who quote people, & those who people quote

-Aermas
Location: Dwemer

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by Aermas »

Silver bullets are less dense so they don't go as far
Silver bullets are harder so they don't work with rifling as well
Silver bullets are harder so they don't deform so much on impact, causing them to punch through a target
Silver bullets are expensive & have a high melting temp which can make it difficult to cast
The Lone Ranger used silver bullets for a number of reasons. First, because it's a "pure" metal that represents purity, truth, holiness, etc. It's similar to a paladin, also, Silver bullets are expensive so it represents the cost of taking a life & the weight of having to use it.

Any discrepancies in the handling of RIFTS silver bullets could come down to the material acting differently in an MDC/high PPE environment
Grazzik
Adventurer
Posts: 524
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2022 11:05 pm

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by Grazzik »



Silly but fun video recently posted showing silver bullets in action against a "werewolf". Definitely will help frame up the imagery for my games involving silver ammo. This channel also has videos for bone, horn, and wood bullets for those interested in exotic ordinance.

Happy Halloween!
User avatar
slade the sniper
Hero
Posts: 1518
Joined: Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:46 am
Location: SDF-1, Macross Island

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by slade the sniper »

Thanks!

From 23:30 there is still more data as trying to smash a werewolf with big hammer is way less effective than the .50 BMG.
Anyway, great find. I like a lot of KY/Scott's stuff.
Not the most scientific, but the video allows for decent extrapolation of terminal effects.

-STS
My skin is not a sin - Carlos Wallace
A man's rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box - Frederick Douglass
I am a firm believer that men with guns can solve any problem - Inscriptus
Any system in which the most populated areas have the most political power, creates an incentive for areas that want power to increase their population - Killer Cyborg
User avatar
Fenris2020
Adventurer
Posts: 518
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2019 10:25 pm
Comment: Go woke, go broke.

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by Fenris2020 »

Daniel Stoker wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 4:25 pm
drewkitty ~..~ wrote: Though I remember the Lone Ranger show where he used silver bullets because they flew straiter.
From what I remember it was more because the high cost in firing a gun and the potential for killing someone with a gun.

As to the original topic, wouldn't it be harder for the silver bullet to take advantage of the rifling as it's a hard not soft metal and how much spin would a silver bullet be able to get?


Daniel Stoker

From the experiments my friends and I did, we didn't see that much of a decrease in accuracy, not that much difference in range, and more penetration.
The video below does an alright job, but he needed a chronograph.
See my original post on our findings, compare with the findings in the video.

edit: The ranges we used the .30-06 rounds on were 25, 50, 75, and 100 meters. For the .45, it was 25, 50 and 75 meters. So nothing very long range. Our results might have been different at the 250 to 500 meter ranges for the rifle.
You are a truly worthy foe! I shall howl a dirge in your honour and eat your heart with pride!
Grazzik
Adventurer
Posts: 524
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2022 11:05 pm

Re: About silver rounds

Unread post by Grazzik »

slade the sniper wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2023 7:47 pm From 23:30 there is still more data as trying to smash a werewolf with big hammer
THAT was the best bit... just kept bouncing... must be SDC weapon vs MDC beastie...
Post Reply

Return to “Rifts®”