folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...

, a bullet cast from

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

is often one of the few weapons that are effective against a

werewolf In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely ...

witch Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...

. The term ''silver bullet'' is also a metaphor for a simple, seemingly magical, solution to a difficult problem: for example, penicillin circa 1930 was a "silver bullet" that allowed doctors to treat and successfully cure many

bacterial infections Pathogenic bacteria are bacteria that can cause disease. This article focuses on the bacteria that are pathogenic to humans. Most species of bacteria are harmless and are often beneficial but others can cause infectious diseases. The number of t ...

In folklore

Some authors asserted that the idea of the

's supposed vulnerability to silver dates back to the Beast of Gévaudan, a

man-eating A man-eater is an animal that preys on humans as a pattern of hunting behavior. This does not include the scavenging of corpses, a single attack born of opportunity or desperate hunger, or the incidental eating of a human that the animal has kil ...

animal killed by the hunter

Jean Chastel Jean Chastel (31 March 1708 – 1790) was a farmer and inn-keeper from the province of Gévaudan in France, noted for killing the Beast of Gévaudan on 19 June 1767 at Mont Mouchet. Chastel appeared as a character in the ''Brotherhood of the Wol ...

in the year 1767. However, the allegations of Chastel purportedly using a gun loaded with silver bullets are derived from a distorted detail based primarily on

Henri Pourrat The French writer and folklore collector Henri Pourrat was born in 1887 in Ambert, a town in the mountainous Auvergne region of central France. He died near Ambert in 1959. Biography Born to an Ambert shop-owner, Pourrat finished secondary school ...

's ''Histoire fidèle de la bête en Gévaudan'' (1946). In this novel, the French writer imagines that the beast was shot thanks to fictitious medals of the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

, worn by Jean Chastel in his hat and then melted down to make bullets. An account of a Jämte about were-bears in 1936 attributes bullets of silver as the method of killing. Swedish folklore tends to ascribe silver bullets as a catch all weapon against creatures, as wizards or the skogsrå, that are "hard" against regular ammunition. In the

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...

fairy-tale of ''

The Two Brothers The Two Brothers is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 60. It is Aarne-Thompson type 303, "The Blood Brothers", with an initial episode of type 567, "The Magic Bird Heart". A similar story, of Sicilian origin, wa ...

'', a bullet-proof witch is shot down by silver buttons, fired from a gun. In some epic folk songs about

Bulgarian Bulgarian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria * Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group * Bulgarian language, a Slavic language * Bulgarian alphabet * A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria * Bul ...

rebel leader

Delyo Delyo ( bg, Дельо, sometimes Делю, ''Delyu'') was a Bulgarian rebel leader ('' hajduk voivode'') who was active in the Rhodope Mountains in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Delyo was born in Belovidovo (today Zlatograd) in the Smo ...

, he is described as invulnerable to normal weapons, driving his enemies to cast a silver bullet in order to murder him.

In other contexts

The

Lone Ranger The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked former Texas Ranger who fought outlaws in the American Old West with his Native American friend Tonto. The character has been called an enduring icon of American culture. He first appeared in 1933 in ...

used silver bullets in both his radio show and

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...

: after resolving an episode's plot, he would leave a silver bullet behind as his mark. In the television series, the bullets were

prop A prop, formally known as (theatrical) property, is an object used on stage or screen by actors during a performance or screen production. In practical terms, a prop is considered to be anything movable or portable on a stage or a set, distinc ...

s made from

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...

Clayton Moore Clayton Moore (born Jack Carlton Moore, September 14, 1914 – December 28, 1999) was an American actor best known for playing the fictional western character the Lone Ranger from 1949 to 1952 and 1953 to 1957 on the television series of the sa ...

, who played the Lone Ranger, was known to give these props away to fans.

Ballistic effectiveness

Silver bullets differ from lead bullets in several respects.

Lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

has a 10% higher density than

, so a silver bullet will have a little less mass than a lead bullet of identical dimensions. Pure silver is less

malleable Ductility is a mechanical property commonly described as a material's amenability to drawing (e.g. into wire). In materials science, ductility is defined by the degree to which a material can sustain plastic deformation under tensile stres ...

than lead and falls between

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

and

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

in terms of hardness (1.5 < 2.5 < 3.0 Mohs) and

shear modulus In materials science, shear modulus or modulus of rigidity, denoted by ''G'', or sometimes ''S'' or ''μ'', is a measure of the elastic shear stiffness of a material and is defined as the ratio of shear stress to the shear strain: :G \ \stackre ...

(5.6 < 30 < 48 GPa). A silver bullet accepts the rifling of a gun barrel. The terminal impact is somewhat speculative and will depend on a variety of factors including bullet size and shape, flight distance, and target material. At short ranges, the silver bullet will most likely give better penetration due to its higher shear modulus, and will not deform as much as a lead bullet. A 2007 episode of '' MythBusters'' demonstrated a greater penetration depth of lead bullets versus silver bullets; the experiment utilized a lead slug in a .45-caliber Colt long shell vs a lighter, silver slug fired at closer range. Another ''MythBusters'' episode, from 2012, showed that silver bullets are less accurate than lead bullets when fired from an

M1 Garand The M1 Garand or M1 rifleOfficially designated as U.S. rifle, caliber .30, M1, later simply called Rifle, Caliber .30, M1, also called US Rifle, Cal. .30, M1 is a semi-automatic rifle that was the service rifle of the U.S Army during World War ...

. Michael Briggs also did some experiments with silver bullets compared to lead bullets. After making a custom mold to ensure that the sizes of the silver bullets were comparable to the lead bullets, he fired them. He found that the silver bullets were slightly slower than the lead bullets and less accurate.

In folklore

In other contexts

Ballistic effectiveness

See also

References

External links