Iron Content of Rifle Ammo (SS109/M855, M59, M61, M80, M855A1, etc.)

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

if you can chemically and electrically isolate the iron from the environment, this should work. The main issue is that if you have any hole in the coating you can get an electrical connection and the iron can start donating electrons to other things. This leads to corrosion, which is generally considered bad. The main solution is to pair the iron up with something that is even more happy to donate electrons than the iron is, as a sacrificial electrode. Hence, zinc.

I'm not really sure how the graphene gets around this, just that some laboratory results showed increased corrosion resistance.

Luke

Ah, I see.

Well, what about simply issuing the ammunition in tightly sealed zinc cans?

Would that provide protection during storage?

I'm aware that once the cans were opened and the ammunition loaded, the iron would corrode fast, but perhaps that would be acceptable to the Vatican-backed hunters if it meant that the bullets were totally pure cold-forged iron and that no jacket of other materials interfered with the delivery of iron to their supernatural foes.

[Anaraxes]

You could coat the bullets in something less permanent than zinc -- say oil or cosmoline. That should still do for relatively short-term storage. (The Vatican may not have a requirement to archive millions of rounds for decades.) If necessary, the rounds could be cleaned before action. They won't rust a lot in hours or days.

Or depending on the coating, you might just skip that step. Cosmoline might strip off in the barrel and melt what doesn't strip when a bullet is fired (it has a lot of waxes in it), or a thin coat of the right kind of oil might not prevent the target from absorbing the iron to get poisoned. (That would get into a lot of details about the bioactivity of iron in supernatural creatures.)

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Ah, I see.

Well, what about simply issuing the ammunition in tightly sealed zinc cans?

Would that provide protection during storage?

I'm aware that once the cans were opened and the ammunition loaded, the iron would corrode fast, but perhaps that would be acceptable to the Vatican-backed hunters if it meant that the bullets were totally pure cold-forged iron and that no jacket of other materials interfered with the delivery of iron to their supernatural foes.

Yup, that should work as long as, during storage, the iron has direct electrical contact with the zinc. Even after the case is opened, as long as you put unspent rounds back in the case so that the iron is touching the zinc, or so that the iron is touching a conductor that is touching the zinc (say, the brass case), you should be fine.

In fact, you could galvanize the inside of the brass shell. Although that might lead o weird chemistry where the oxidized zinc chemically reacted with your powder. Maybe put the sacrificial zinc electrode on the back of the shell.

Going by Anaraxes' suggestions, oiling the iron usually helps quite a bit, and storage in oil is an excellent method of preventing corrosion.

Luke

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

You could coat the bullets in something less permanent than zinc -- say oil or cosmoline. That should still do for relatively short-term storage. (The Vatican may not have a requirement to archive millions of rounds for decades.) If necessary, the rounds could be cleaned before action. They won't rust a lot in hours or days.

Or depending on the coating, you might just skip that step. Cosmoline might strip off in the barrel and melt what doesn't strip when a bullet is fired (it has a lot of waxes in it), or a thin coat of the right kind of oil might not prevent the target from absorbing the iron to get poisoned. (That would get into a lot of details about the bioactivity of iron in supernatural creatures.)

Yes, that sounds promising. Given that pure iron is softer than copper (which is often used as jacket material for rifle bullets), it should adequately engage rifling. The only purpose of coating the bullets with anything else would be corrosion resistance during storage.

If that coating was burned up as the bullet was fired and/or came free in flight or on impact, that would be perfect. Of course, it would have to be something that didn't cause damage to barrels or build up inside them.

I imagine that RUAG makes the most advanced pure iron 5.56x45mm rounds, explicitly designed as anti-supernatural weapons according to feedback from Vatican-backed monster hunters. That is, a project manager at RUAG would be aware that he was making ammo for monster hunters, perhaps because he was a former Swiss Guard himself and was a trusted friend of the Vatican-backed hunters.

An earlier incarnation (i.e. before anyone at RUAG became occult-aware) of 5.56x45mm lead-free ammo (with versions made by both Fiocchi and RUAG) could have used whatever mild steel was most economical, jacketed in tombac, which might only contain 30-35 grains of iron instead of the 45 grains of the longer, monolithic pure iron bullets of dedicated monster hunter ammo.

In fact, steel-cored FMJ 55 grain 5.56x45mm ammunition has allegedly been made by the Czech company Sellier & Bellot in the real world, apparently the result of using similar methods as used with former Societ bloc ammo like the 7.62x39mm and 5.45x39mm with the 5.56x45mm rounds rhe Czech Republic adopted for their military rifles. This is particularly interesting in the context of my campaign, as the Brazilian munitions company CBC acquired S&B in 2009.

Even though 9x19mm, .40 S&W and 7.62x51mm ammunition was much more popular with the Brazilian SOF who most often encountered supernatural threats, it seems that after that date, Brazilian hunters who carried a weapon in 5.56x45mm (e.g. machine gunners issued the FN Minimi) had access to quality steel-core ammunition.Various Brazilian hunter teams might then rely on different methods of delivering iron payloads, sintered iron rounds in 9x19mm and .40 S&W, S&B-made steel-core 5.56x45mm for FN Minimis and various 5.56x45mm carbines and one of armorer-improvised hand-pulled Soviet bloc bullets, CBC-made M61 AP rounds or a later purpose-made CBC iron/mild steel core bullet in 7.62x51mm weapons.

Of course, easily the cheapest way to get steel-core ammo is to use a weapon chambered in 7.62x39mm and fire steel-core M43 rounds. Probably the next cheapest is to load 7.62x51mm ammo with steel-core bullets manufactured for 7.62x39mm and 7.62x54R ammo. The Pakistanis, who also have a Vile Vortex to contend with inside their national borders, probably started doing that in the 2000s.

POF might make purpose-designed steel-core ammo by now in more than one caliber, though, given that some Pakistani SOF who are likely to face supernatural threats rely on 5.56x45mm weapons and, in any case, the licensed Type 56 (AKM-clone) rifles that POF makes are not ideal for mounting various tactical accesories.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Yup, that should work as long as, during storage, the iron has direct electrical contact with the zinc. Even after the case is opened, as long as you put unspent rounds back in the case so that the iron is touching the zinc, or so that the iron is touching a conductor that is touching the zinc (say, the brass case), you should be fine.

Interesting.

Thematically, I suppose that steel casings would be more interesting than copper casings*, but, of course, that would have a negative impact on storage. Of course, given how much Soviet/Russian ammo has used steel casings and that surplus Soviet ammunition is still being shot today, the storage issues must somehow be solvable.

Sealed zinc or zinc-coated cans sound like a good solution for storage.

*The more iron monster hunters carry, the better their chances of being protected from fey glamour, for example.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

In fact, you could galvanize the inside of the brass shell. Although that might lead o weird chemistry where the oxidized zinc chemically reacted with your powder. Maybe put the sacrificial zinc electrode on the back of the shell.

Interestingly, real RUAG-made GP90 ammunition has a plug on the bottom to prevent the lead from being exposed. The fictional monolithic iron round could do the same thing, with a small zinc plug.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Going by Anaraxes' suggestions, oiling the iron usually helps quite a bit, and storage in oil is an excellent method of preventing corrosion.

Having the purest monolithic iron ammo be babied, stored in oil and requiring fussy treatment from irate armourers sounds dramatically interesting. The Vatican-backed hunters will be much less like a military orgaization than the Brazilian hunters, as well as having a much lighter operational tempo. It makes sense that the Vatican hunters prefer a more elegant engineering solution that was a few percentage points more effective, over the more pragmatic, cheaper and less maintenance-intensive mild steel-core ammo that might be slightly less pure, in a mystical sense.

[Anthony]

It looks like if we want a coating for rifle bullets that doesn't react poorly with water, hexagonal boron nitride is currently the choice. Not sure if it functions as a sealant, however, its mostly used as a lubricant.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It looks like if we want a coating for rifle bullets that doesn't react poorly with water, hexagonal boron nitride is currently the choice. Not sure if it functions as a sealant, however, its mostly used as a lubricant.

From what Googling tells me, hexagonal boron nitride is used as a sealant in electronics, photography, printers and various sensor applications. Of course, such applications may involve subtly different mixes or compounds than when h-BN is used as barrel and bore lubricant.

In any case, a monolithic pure iron bullet with an advanced coating that functions as lubricant even in vacuum sounds perfectly cromulent for the Swiss RUAG-made anti-monster round used by the Vatican hunters. The comparatively few Vatican-backed hunters should definitely be less paramilitary and more elegant than the embattled security forces of Brazil and Pakistan, two countries where Vile Vortices pose a direct threat to their existence and 'ordinary' crime, ethnic or religious tensions, political instability and terrorism are made much more dangerous due to supernatural influences.

When the Holy See must carry out direct action against supernatural threats in Latin America, I imagine they use their excellent relationship with local intelligence services, such as the Brazilian ABIN, or the quasi-private, but still seemingly patriotic, Argentine occult intelligence network (the remains of SIDE's occult faction, now apparently operating without state sanction, but obviously still connected into the highest levels of Argentine intelligence), to arrange for supernaturally-savvy muscle.

The Pope may lack battalions, but that isn't as much of a hindrance as it seems when he wields influence over hundreds of devout Colonels and the chiefs of secretive Secretariats.

[dcarson]

Gun oil seems to be usually mineral oil or synthetics. If olive oil would be OK to store the ammo in blessed anointing oil is mainly olive oil. So you can store them in blessed oil.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Gun oil seems to be usually mineral oil or synthetics. If olive oil.

Olive oil is not mineral oil or synthetic, and like other biological oils, prone to breaking down in undesirable ways. The low tech solution is probably wax.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Gun oil seems to be usually mineral oil or synthetics. If olive oil would be OK to store the ammo in blessed anointing oil is mainly olive oil. So you can store them in blessed oil.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Olive oil is not mineral oil or synthetic, and like other biological oils, prone to breaking down in undesirable ways. The low tech solution is probably wax.

Oh, that's a neat idea!

Does anyone happen to know if blessing oil is restricted to olive oil, or if it would be permissable to bless the kind of oil that could be used to store ammunition in?

I'm not Catholic and while one of my players is, I highly doubt his theological credentials. Also, he's not in this campaign.