Jules vernes said in one if his novels as a man took a bullet made from mercury to attack a polar bear. He broke a mercury thermometer and took the mercury leveing it to freeze at temperatures of -37 degrees C. Then he load the gun and killed the bear. My question is the following: friction force that has a bullet in the gun pipe is enought to melt it? And if it melts, has enought power to kill a bear?

Mercury has a melting point at -38 degrees celsius... It would melt just as it was shot by the hot outgassing..

it could melt...well..in that book it says that were -40 C...but can it kill a bear?

it could have inhaled the mercury cloud/mist coming out the barrel of the gun. poison could kill it, as it was resting from a feast of a crazy person with a gun =)

i don't think it can melt so fast...i know we are talking about hige temperatures...but...the time that a gun shots is lower than 1 second...and i don't think it has enought time to melt completley...

your right... it wouldnt melt. it'd vaporize. since mercury has an extremely low melting point its gonna have an extremely low flashing point as well. when that barrel fires that mercury round it simply gonna vaporize. now if he were using depleted uranium he wouldnt have anything to worry about

If it melted after firing it wouldn't matter to much as the Mercuries moving.

I believe some anti armour rounds use copper in a melted for to help penetration.

If the mercury gets out the barrel solid their will be no difference in result when it hits a soft target.