Elemental (native) silver is quite rare in nature, it usually occurs in ores of other metals. Silver was therefore initially considered rarer and even more precious than gold.

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.

Silver is dense enough to make an acceptable bullet. Its high melting point requires better furnaces and technique than is needed for lead. Silver coins and old jewelry are too hard, but pure silver (bullion) isn't much harder than commonly used bullets, and should work nicely.

30 caliber silver bullet in a conventional mold, making it from an old silver coin. As we'll see, this bullet will be several thousandths of an inch undersized and far too hard to shoot accurately.