How does a tracer bullet work

[Gary Cain]

when were tracer rounds developed and first used? WWI? or pre WWII?

Yes they were first used in WW1.

[ramon]

The .50 BMG round was a post WWI creation, hence tracer development will be in the interwar years.


The .30-06 tracer does date from approximately 1917. Here is a drawing of the Model 1917 tracer round.

[ramon]

For comparison purposes, here is the successor .30-06 M1 tracer round.

[Infanteer]

If you compare the bullets that you find you will notice that the tracer rounds are noticeably longer than the standard ball rounds. And yes, they were primarily used with machine guns, but could be used with other weapons to assist in indicating targets, but as far as I understand this was not very common.

Steve

[gew98]

OK gents :


Tracer projectiles.
The standard metal jacket materials are used - a longer metal jacket with either a lead core in tip ( smaller than ball ammo obviously ) or a mild steel plug in the tip ( or as in the case of german L'Spur patronen a bit of both ).
The tracer ammuntion as we know it started out in the great war with initial strides taken using british 45 caliber and german 11 bullets with phosporous pellets in those bullets for anti balloon effectiveness. As each side captured each others munitions from downed planes the actual opposing designs were hardly that much ahead of each other. The germans first applied tracer/indinary/explosive bullets to their rifle service caliber ( 7,92x57 ).The allies were not soon in the swing of it themselves with captured examples quickly copied. Really though tracer ammunition then was for starting fires in balloons and not for ranging fire as we know it now.
Anyhow as tracer compositions improved in stability and longevity of shelf life they eventually made it into somewhat of a standard of loadings in most nations armies machineguns for ranging and aiming purposes.
Tracer ammunition of US , Brit & german WW2era can be found issued loose in packets , cartridge chargers/clips , belts , tins/cans. The US 30 caliber tracers of WW2 can be identified like the US 30 cal WW2 AP ammo can be in that the bullet has a very prominent cannelure above the point where the bullet is crimped into place in the cartridge case.
Tracer projectiles ARE lighter generally then their ball brothers and they do lose weight and some stability/accuracy/range in flight. Anyone whom has fired alot of GPMG's and service rifles with tracer ammo knows from experiance that at distances over 150 yards tracers do impact below that of ball ammo. So if one were "hosing down" a target at say 300 yards and letting the tracers connect with the target , the ball rounds would be overshooting the target .
It was only in the 1960's that better chemistry applied to tracer bullet manufacture allowed tracers to be made with 'delayed' ignition to sort off help hide the source of their origin.For examle the standard US M62 7.62x51 NATO tracer bullet ignites trace at approximately 36 meters. Yet the M196 and M856 5,56x45 tracer bullets light from the muzzle.
Since WW2 tracer shelf life if stored properly is about 25 to 30 years. After that the chemical mixture of the tracers tends to go inert and is not likely to ignite properly or at all. As well some tracer copmounds used up until the 1950's are reactive enough to actually expand and split the bullet jacket - especially if stored poorly. I have as well found many a dug or range discarded tracer round where time and weather have alowed the chemical mixture to react and literally swell and burst bullet jacket/case neck.
All said and done though tracer ammunition is excepetionally good fun on the range or if lucky like me the hillsides at extended ranges. For example I can take US M62 tracer projectiles and laod them in any 30 caliber rifle case practically and have much sport with rifle that would normally never have had a tracer round loaded for them. Especially using the 7,62x39 surplus ball ammo , pulling the bullet and dumping a couple grains of powder then seating an M62 bullet with a good crimp to the proper OAL. A cheap and fun way to make SKS and AKM rifles light up the impact areas.

[Jean-Loup]

I have found dozens of fired bullets while metal detecting, but none of them ever looked like the tracers described here.
I did notice some WW2 US bullets have the lead visible at the back of the bullet, while others are covered in coper even at the back. But I guess this has nothing to do with being tracers.
JL

[DonC]

I have even seen a Colt M1911A1 using .45 ACP rounds with tracer on the History Channel!

Don