The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

the running man wrote:If nothing else it would certainly open people's eyes to ricochets and the curvature of the earth.....it always fascinates me watching a gpmg at night with tracer.....one can appreciate then that bullets are not flat lazer beams!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbiLQpP0Z40&app=desktop

I've had some in the past. Really long lasting trace, over 200 yards, and very bright. Always good for teaching the fact that there is no such thing as a flat trajectory. The only downside is, as others have mentioned, a very short shelf life. I had new manufactured Eley tracer and it was 100 percent on ignition but a couple of months on it was down to only one in 3 or four.

Often the ricochet is just the tracer element coming out of the bullet and flying off. Looks impressive but it is not always the bullet and can be misleading.
On more than one shoot I have seen tracer knock one ETR target down and the glow went straight up or away from behind the target and the next target 100yds further on also gets a hit (shoot-through).

I have a few boxes of 22LR tracer, Eley and RWS.
The Eley used to light from about 20yds to about 75yds and the RWS started later at about 50yds and didn't burn out until 200yds or further. I haven't shot any of them for a while and will be saving them for that special occasion (if they still work).
At the Shot Show in 1999 or 2000, the guy from Eley told me that as the military weren't ordering 22LR tracer any more they have stopped production and actually removed and burnt the machines.
Not the answer I was after.

The 7.62x51 tracer rounds are substantially longer than a standard ball, the back end being quite thin walled, so you often find the ball sans the rear end, as matt says, the tracer portion buggers off (and it is very light).

You can often tell them from mangled ball as many have a second canelure (more a row of small indentations) up near the ogive.

We used to get through tons of 1 bit on AAAD shoots

Maggot wrote:The 7.62x51 tracer rounds are substantially longer than a standard ball, the back end being quite thin walled, so you often find the ball sans the rear end, as matt says, the tracer portion buggers off (and it is very light).

When I first shot at Strensall on weekends in the 80s, GPMGs on full-auto were quite common in military units firing 4+1 or suchlike despite notices all over the place saying 'No Tracer'. On a dull winter's afternoon, you'd sometimes see an impressive light show further down the ranges with burning tracer flying out at all angles from the backstop. After the 5.56mm L85 series took over, no MGs, no full-auto and no tracer at weekends (that I saw anyway).

Ah the joys of flogging bloody fires out with the old combat jackets Laurie...then being told to sod off by the QM when you took it in for a new one

Topically....

I have just been to the security & policing show and Cylume are now doing a 40mm grenade that uses chemi lume instead of noisy nasty stuff.....so you can use the old p**f markers at night and not get blinds/fires.

They do a re-useable trip flare replacement as well....interesting times as technology rolls on.

Talking of tracer I remember watching the Contraves Skyguard system firing locally out to sea after it was taken on operationally by the RA Regt. 35mm 19 rounds per barrel per second and they flew as flat as hell with white tracer, it was like star wars