who is familair with the subject of mercury
bullets, that tends to explode on impact?
please send only facts, leave all the myths for what it is.

I assume that what you are reffering to are so-called "explosive" bullets containing a small drop of liquid mercury. These were popular among certain illegal types in the 50's & 60's, being a simple way of making a relatively small sub-calibre bullet more effective. I tried it once with some .22 Hornet, which is a centrefire round, significantly more powerful than .22 Rimfire, but still only suitable for small game such as foxes, etc. It is, however, quite quiet, and very few people hearing it used would identify it as a gunshot unless they were very close. Obviously if you are after slightly larger game, such as people, that could be quite an advantage.

To make "exploding" ammunition, first cut the tip of your bullet off, say the first 5mm or so, using something very fine, like a scalpel. Now drill into the lead core of the bullet, down towards its base, using a drill of about 2.5mm diameter - drill a hole about 5 - 6mm deep. Using a syringe, insert a single drop of liquid mercury and then either solder or super-glue the tip of the bullet back on.

On firing, the drop of mercury, due to inertia, will stay at the rear of the little tube you've made in the bullet, held in place by the mass of lead in the base of the bullet. On impact with the target, the bullet will decelerate dramaticaly - the drop of mercury will not, being carried forward by its own momentum, striking the back of the tip of the bullet with some force, as mercury is very dense. This is usually sufficient to blow the tip of the bullet off, causing very satisfactory fragmentation, like a tiny grenade, thereby increasing the amount of tissue damage to the target way above what might normally be expected from a small round.

Two problems. They are extremely hard to make and tend to be unreliable, due to manufacturing errors. And, also, they usually only work for head shots - skin is remarkably resilient and will slow down a bullet quite considerably - so the fragmentation occurs only just after impact - unless this is inside the brain cavity, this usually results in a spectacular and gory flesh-wound, which is not actually life-threatening.

The simple fact is that, these days, far more effective solutions are available. For explosive ammo, it is now possible to get ammo with PTN-type high-explosive cores which detonate on impact - the shock damage from the explosion is a hundred times what you would get from the bullet alone. For penetration, you can get steel-cored ammunition, which will defeat any body armour. Mercury bullets are old hat, I'm afraid.

Remind me never to get into an argument with you JD.

Don't worry about it Ffreak, I enjoy a good argument as much as the next man! And it is a long time since I was in uniform, and even then, I generally only shot at people who shot at me first.... or might have done, if I'd given them the chance!