Silver bullets come to be recognized for their super ability to counter malicious werewolves because of unique properties displayed by the noble metal silver.

In ancient societies which harbored ideas full of superstition and supernatural, silver was accepted as the metal of gods owing to its bright and shiny nature. Silver is a powerful antimicrobial, giving rise to a widespread notion that silver could eliminate toxins from food led to a custom of drinking from silver cups and eating from silverware.

The first credible silver bullet story dates back to France of 1760's. An unknown beast had wrecked havoc in the city of Gevaudan killing as many as 100 people in a mysterious, ambiguous fashion. Known as the Beast of Gevaudan, the creature was reported to be a huge, highly aggressive animal that preferred slaying human beings over animals. It was widely believed that the beast was a werewolf and many people falsely claimed to have killed it, only to be mocked at when the killings resumed.

Many professional hunters and trappers were called for rescue but several of them ended up being attacked and killed. Hunters and trackers used to go out in a large group laden with weapons and dogs. When one such group was attacked, Jean Chastel a member of the group, had a pistol loaded with a silver bullet, personalized bullets with which he shot and killed the monster.

The recent times saw the Lone Ranger, popular American superhero who goes about righting injustices in the cowboy land Texas. He used to load his pistol with silver bullets, although he wielded a gun only to disarm his enemies and not to harm.

In the book Moon Called, the heroine Mercy used silver bullets to exterminate werewolves which she used to cast on her own. In the Brothers Grimm fairy-tale of The Two Brothers, a bullet-proof witch is shot down by silver buttons, fired from a gun. In Eugene O'Neill's 1920 play The Emperor Jones, silver bullet is a powerful metaphor. The lead character Brutus Jones breeds an illusion in the minds of people that he rules as an emperor and can be called only with a silver bullet.