they could fit more than twice as many shrapnel, if they used a more tetrahedron form, instead of spheres. but idk if it matters that they withstand less force. also, spheres are probably harder to produce, but maybe its faulty bearing balls, that arise anyway as a waste product.

[–] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If cost is a concern, then just using off-the-shelf bearing balls is almost certainly a good choice. They're mass-produced in such volume that I doubt you can find cheaper small hardened steel objects with reasonable drag properties

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Those look some of the extremely common 4-5mm hardened steel bearings. All of them in that grenade are likely less than 1 euro. Looks like they are embedded in resin. The resin likely cost as much.

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 1 points 1 month ago

If you don't care about precise size, balls can be made cheaply by dropping drops of metal down tower where they are cooled by air as they fall, and then by water after they solidify. Then just sort by size

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 6 points 1 month ago

you can just pour balls in but any other shape has to be arranged one by one

[–] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

And then their trajectory would not be straight and they would go all over the place, like the ground.

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 5 points 1 month ago

they do that anyway, there's a lot of ground. balls have lowest drag per mass for randomly oriented tumbling object