It amazes me that a 10mm Luger bullet (middle) has about 50% MORE energy than the significantly larger .45 colt long (right).

For reference on tbe left is a 9mm parabellum.

@freemo the difference is from technological advances in metallurgy and the change from black powder to modern smokeless powders

Modern ammunition designs just don't need anywhere near the same amount of case capacity to generate the same amount (or more) energy.

The .38 vs 9mm is a good example as they have roughly the same diameter bullet but the 9mm has almost ~30% more energy despite being ~30% shorter overall.

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@drewfer @freemo I'm interested to know what the metallurgy is about here. Do you have a link to something?

@SteelFolk @drewfer

He is probably talking about copper jackets. Back in the cowboy days they were just lead slugs.

@freemo @drewfer Oh, the brass bit? I read that barrels on big ship guns suffered from fatigue to due to hoop stress and didn't last long so I though it might be about something similar.

@SteelFolk @drewfer

There is probably all sorts of crazy mettalurgy at play in the bullets of big guns.

Then there are barrels too. Today the barrel of a gun is much stronger and as such our bullets can produce much higher pressures.

@freemo @drewfer I can see that you'd feel silly if the barrel got wider after a few shots, the gases got past it and the bullet just plopped out onto the floor.

@freemo @SteelFolk

It's more about the casing, chamber, and barrel of the gun itself, not the bullet.

The Army's most recent iteration of the standard issue rifle (SIG Spear) has a specially designed steel & brass case to help handle the overall pressures that the propellant generates. My understanding is that the new bi-metal construction was needed to ramp up the bullet performance but keep it within the pre-existing overall cartridge length requirements.

Info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.277_Fur

@drewfer @freemo Yes, cartridge brass (aka 70/30 or alpha) is great for forming into tubes but isn't very strong.

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