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[Frumple]

Mostly because acid's generally kinda' cruddy at... anything you'd want to do with a sprayer or dart, from what I understand. Except occasionally cleaning certain sorts of messes, anyway. We got way nastier chemicals and poisons and whatnot to use than most stuff that is or acts like your classic acid-y stuff. Also fire. Fire is always good.

Reason we don't have many fancy bullets in general is mostly because there's... just no real need for it. Bullet alone is lethal, and there's not much you can stick in it (at least that's going to transfer into whatever gets hit more than a bullet normally would, anyway) that's going to meaningfully increase that lethality.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

The original intent of the idea was to muck withevhanical things from distance, not for taking down people.
Also doesn't matter if the glass melts as long as the copper keeps the whole thing aerodynamically ok (as in the shape of the bullet). But as others mentioned earlier could just galvanize the inside of a hollowed out bullet with non-reactive materials (which would also increase the amount of acid one could store in the bullet I presume?).

[wierd]

Hydrochloric acid would be the fluid, not exactly sure what glass so let's just assume something optimal for this (I don't know my glasses very well), and the metal would be copper.

Preferably a smooth jacket around the glass spheroid.

apologies if this is already answered--

EASY. That's how much difficulty.

Process:

Modification of "silver mirror" technique, followed by electroplating.

Step 1) In a beaker, combine dextrose and distilled ammonia. In another beaker, pour some silver nitrate solution.
Step 2) Combine the beakers in a disposable bucket and stir vigorously. At first, nothing seems to happen, but then it starts to turn yellow/brown. WORK QUICKLY.
Step 3) Swish the solution over the glass spheroid for several minutes, until a suitably thick layer of metallic silver is deposited. It will be mirror shiny.
step 4) Coat the silver sphere with a copper jacket via electroplating in a copper sulfate bath. The thin coating of silver deposited previously will allow further coating via electroplating.

To fill the spherical ampoule with HCl and then seal it-- I suggest using borosilicate glass, then using a fast laser sintering technique to seal the spheroid. The above process assumes already filled and sealed glass ampoules.



However, this will not be very good for the purpose you desire. The bullets will still tend to shatter in the barrel of the gun, even with a really thick copper rind.

What you are really looking for, if you want an anti-mech round, is NOT acid.  What you REALLY want is a mini-thermite charge, and those are already commercially available. High explosive incendiary rounds would also be a good choice.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Sorry for sounding stupid but can you electro plate enough layers to make the copper as thick as that of a bullets jacket?

I always assumed electroplating could only apply thin layers of metal to objects

[wierd]

Sorry for sounding stupid but can you electro plate enough layers to make the copper as thick as that of a bullets jacket?

I always assumed electroplating could only apply thin layers of metal to objects

Electroplating is usually only used for thin layer deposition, yes-- but it is also used to deposit quite thick layers in Electroforming processes as well.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Huh
Neat

[wierd]

Huh
Neat

Again, what you REALLY want is a commercial thermal penetrator round, or an incendiary high explosive round.

A modified Roufoss round containing a mixture of iron, magnesium, glass, and crushed flint powders instead of the normal explosive head would be ideal-- It would have a tungsten penetrator still, and thus would force activated thermite into the target at high kinetic energies. It would do very bad juju to electronic components inside, and would be capable of penetrating mild armor.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

I meant like messing with mechanical bits like gears. Maybe ruining engine blocks or just causing costly damage that would slow the progress of whoever you are fighting

[wierd]

Raufoss rounds are already classified as anti-materiel weapons, and are designed for taking out light armor and vehicles.

They are for the exact purpose you are describing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raufoss_Mk_211

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Says it's .50 cal. I was thinking something smaller and cheaper. Electroplated rounds filled with a corrosive acid would be cheaper than that highly sophisticated explosive round, no?

[wierd]

Smaller rounds will lack the penetrating abilities of the .50 cal round, which is necessary for the round to do what it says on the tin.

Lighter rounds would just detonate on the surface and leave burn marks, pitting, and scoring.

A great deal of research and development went into the creation of the Raufoss round. Its widespread use as an anti-materiel round even after being in service for over 20 years, should speak volumes about the efficacy of this delicate combination of mathematical requirements.

A bullet is more than just "Something lobbed at the target really really fast."  There's some sophisticated mathematics involved in weather or not a projectile is viable for a specific purpose, given a shape, velocity, sectional density, and total mass.

Lighter projectiles slow down in transit due to air resistance which robs the projectile of the kinetic energy it needs to be an effective missile weapon.  This is one of the reasons why depleted uranium is used in some military ordinance; it is harder, AND denser than lead, meaning it has both a higher sectional density and higher kinetic delivery potential, meaning it can be fired at higher velocities, and be more effective at penetrating hard armor than more conventional rounds.

The Raufoss round has several lightweight components inside, which is why it is a delicate balance between size and effectiveness. The .50 cal package is about the smallest that this kind of weapon can be, and still be useful.  It relies on the .50 cal rifle's increased powder charge to deliver significantly more raw kinetic energy behind it, to retain lethal velocities and energy to trigger the detonation on impact. Smaller versions would have to radically redesign the round with denser materials, like the afore mentioned depleted uranium.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

.-. I'm meaning smaller rounds filled with acid for the purpose of deteriorating external or easily accessible components not smaller explosive rounds. Not sure if that was communicated properly

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Cheaper than a sophisticated explosive round.
And to be honest I don't ecpect it to be of any use as this was just a stupid idea I had. Sometimes I think of funny types of ammunition this being one and wonder how someone would go about making it and posibly using it but there is always a better way than being fun with it

[wierd]

The .50 cal Raufoss round will be radically more effective at stopping light armor and vehicles than a .50 cal version of your acid round would be, because the materials used in the Raufoss round are more dense than those found in your acid round. Additionally, the Raufoss round contains significantly more chemical energy potential than does the acid round.

If you want to cause damage to a vehicle using acid, you would be better off producing an acid fume grenade, so that the vehicle sucks in corrosive vapor into its air intake system. That would be very very bad for the engine in mere minutes of operation, would be more easily deployed, and all that jazz.

It would also be a Geneva chemical weapons violation, however.

[Frumple]

... I don't think we really have acids at the moment strong enough to really do much externally (and certainly none that aren't hella' exotic or complete nightmares from a logistics point of view, which is going to wreck any gains from using smaller bullets), and... there's not really anything easily accessible in these scenarios. People that make armored vehicles put the squishy bits behind the parts that aren't. Pretty much any time you've got access to bits that are relatively flimsy, either the machine's already wrecked or you probably shouldn't be making a lot of noise :V

Really, this is the kind of thing you'd see in a fantasy or sci-fi setting more than a more realistic situation.

Also, at least at the moment, the hypothetical rounds would certainly be more expensive the HEIAP stuff, simply because the infrastructure already exists for the latter. Maybe with wide spread implementation the acid bullet would be cheaper, but...