Aluminium BB’s and Pellets: Future of airgunning?

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Hurricane Air Arms
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Fri Oct 27, 2017 8:27 pm

I used to work in an aluminium factory and found the strength and light weight metal nature of the material always impressive.

When you stack it up to stuff like copper, steel and plastic in any airgun scenario (BBMG, Pellet gun, semi auto) it seems to be more and more attractive.

Has anyone here had any experience with aluminium ammo of any kind?
What did you think? Pro’s/con’s?
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Zeus
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Fri Oct 27, 2017 8:56 pm

Copper and steel both have advantages in terms of density. Aluminium BBs are relatively common in airsoft, they weigh 0.31 grams. I believe DYI launched a fair few out of his nightmarish launchers.

What aluminium lacks in a performance scenario is density and hardness. Steel by volume is quite denser and much much harder, copper conforms to rifling more easily and is quite dense also. For comparison, a 6 mm aluminium BB weighs 0.31 grams, a steel BB of the same size is 0.88 grams.
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farcticox1
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Sat Oct 28, 2017 7:27 am

What happens to all the fired BB's on an airsoft field ? Will they only be biodegradable in the future :o
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jackssmirkingrevenge
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Sat Oct 28, 2017 11:01 am

Biodegradable BBs have become virtually standard on outdoor fields, I don't know anyone who still uses styrene BBs outdoors or indeed of any fields that would allow them.

Back to the subject of this thread, aluminum is a poor choice as a projectile as Zeus pointed out for the same reasons that lead is a good one - density. It might come out of the barrel faster but will slow down quicker, giving a limited effective range and penetration in a target medium.

Historically, aluminum alloys have only been used in projectile as a lightweight sheath in order to compensate for the weight of a dense core, like for example in High Velocity Armor Piercing rounds:

Image
hectmarr wrote:You have to make many weapons, because this field is long and short life
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Cthulhu
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Sat Oct 28, 2017 12:43 pm

I actually did a physics experiment 2 years back for school on this.

We tested various cast .177 bb's out of a daisy 426 with a chronograph and an EVA foam target.

We tested steel, copper, aluminum, and lead bbs.
Long story short, lead was preferable but steel had nice qualities as well. The aluminum and copper did not fare so well.

However, one thing I've always wanted to test was to give a lead hollow point pellet an aluminum point so that as it enters, the aluminum aids in penetration initially but quickly expands, pushing the hollow points internals as well.
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jackssmirkingrevenge
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Sat Oct 28, 2017 1:23 pm

However, one thing I've always wanted to test was to give a lead hollow point pellet an aluminum point so that as it enters, the aluminum aids in penetration initially but quickly expands, pushing the hollow points internals as well.
Check out these "Metalmags"

Image

Apparently they work pretty well, harder alloy tip makes for better penetration while also encouraging the lead pellet to expand.
hectmarr wrote:You have to make many weapons, because this field is long and short life
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