What was bullets made out of in the war?

Answer 1

Depends on which war. Up until the lates 1800s, bullets were made of soft lead. With the creation of smokeless powder, which created higher velocity cartridges, the lead core was wrapped in a layer of "gilding metal"- made of a copper/nickel alloy. Some bullets used a steel core to penetrate light armor.

The copper/zinc or copper nickel jacket material was referred to as 'tombac', and was used largely in European ammunition. US issued rifle ammo for WW I & WW II was most commonly copper jacket material, as is most US commercial ammunition today.

Both Russian and German soldiers killed each other during both World Wars, primarily with copper washed mild steel jacketed bullets. The jacket material has been demonstrated to cause no more barrel wear than copper, and due to wartime materials shortages, steel jacketed bullets may be either lead cored, or mild steel cores held within the steel jacket with lead. Just because a bullet has a steel core, doesn't mean that it is an enhanced penetrating round - bullets containing specially designed hardened steel or tungsten cores are intended for armor penetration.

Today, the NATO standard 30 caliber rifle ammo (.308 or 7.62 X 51mm) has copper jacketed bullets in US, British and Australian manufactured ammunition, and copper washed steel jackets in German, Portuguese, and other Euro nations.

Tula, and other Russian munitions manufacturers still assemble ammunition having lead core, copper washed steel jacketed bullets. They do produce some copper jacketed ammunition, but it's primarily produced for the US commercial market.