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Tungsten: The Perfect Metal for Bullets and Missiles

Tungsten, in Military applications, is used in bullets, as a hardening agent to produce armor penetrating rounds.It is mainly used for manufacturing armor piercing bullet in weapon industry.

Through powder pre-treatment technology and large deformation technology help to refine the grain, in order to improve the obdurability and penetration power of tungsten alloy.

The armor-piercing bullet that in China’s main battle tank 125 Ⅱ type is made of W-Ni-Fe, with variable density of sintering press, the average performance can achieve tensile strength 1200 MPa, elongation of more than 15%, tactical and technical index of 2000 meters homogeneous from the breakdown of 600 mm thick steel armor. Presently, tungsten alloys are widely used in large ratio armor-piercing in main battle tank, small and medium-caliber anti-aircraft penetrators and high-speed anti-piercing material, which makes this kind armor-piercing with more powerful breakdown.

Depleted Uranium

Depleted uranium is very dense; at 19,050 kg/m³, it is 1.67 times as dense as lead, only slightly less dense than tungsten and gold, and 84% as dense as osmium or iridium.,A DU projectile of given mass has a smaller diameter than an equivalent lead projectile, with less aerodynamic drag and deeper penetration due to a higher pressure at point of impact. DU projectile ordnance is often inherently incendiary because uranium is flammable.

Most military use of depleted uranium has been as 30 mm caliber ordnance, primarily the 30 mm PGU-14/B armour-piercing incendiary round from the GAU-8 Avenger cannon of the A-10 Thunderbolt II used by the United States Air Force. 25 mm DU rounds have been used in the M242 gun mounted on the U.S. Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the Marine Corps's LAV-25.

The U.S. Marine Corps uses DU in the 25 mm PGU-20 round fired by the GAU-12 Equalizer cannon of the AV-8B Harrier, and also in the 20 mm M197 gun mounted on AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunships. Another use of depleted uranium is in kinetic energy penetrators, Kinetic energy penetrator rounds consist of a long, relatively thin penetrator surrounded by a discarding sabot. Staballoys are metal alloys of depleted uranium with a very small proportion of other metals, usually titanium or molybdenum. One formulation has a composition of 99.25% by mass of depleted uranium and 0.75% by mass of titanium.

 

DU is always a toxic hazard, and it will kill you from kidney and liver failure long before the radiation does anything, but you've got to ingest the dust for this to happen. Of course that lead ammo everyone has been firing around for 500 years is also pretty toxic stuff too so its not like this is anything very new or it makes any sense at all for use of DU weapons to have caused any sudden surge in war related deaths and birth defects.

Chinatungsten could offer tungsten alloy bullet and missile with the following proerpties:

High hardness 40HRC min. (Regular tungsten material only about 28HRC)
Excellent ultimate tensile strength 1050MPa min. (Regular tungsten material only about 900Mpa)
Non-toxic to the environment (superior to depleted uranium core)
Superior machinability

 

If you have any other questions about tungsten bullet and missile, please feel free to contact us by email: sales@chinatungsten.com or call: 00 86 592 5129696.