I bought a case of XM856 rounds the other day. What exactly are tracer rounds. How do they work. Can they damage your barrel? Sorry if this is a silly question, but I really dont have a full understanding of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracer_ammunition
That should cover the basics.
Your tracers will burn out to approximately 800 yards. The negatives are that they will easily start fires and a lot of gun ranges don’t allow the shooting of tracers for that reason. The tracers have an igniting compound in the base of the bullet that ignites from firing but the main tracer compound that you will see burning bright doesn’t ignite until 50-75 yards downrange. The igniting compound actually lights the main tracer compound. They can impact and richochet while still burning and can bounce completely over a hill or backstop. Be careful or you will burn the woods or fields from shooting them. Shoot only after rains. You can shoot them into the dirt or berm and they will keep burning until the tracer compound is spent.
They are not supposed to do any damage to your barrel but I’ve read (and don’t know for sure) that shooting a lot of them can leave fouling in your barrel that would attract moisture. They are not corrosive or anything. I’d just clean your barrel normally after shooting a bunch of the tracers. Fun to shoot especially near or after dark but an extreme fire hazard.
Some states or areas ban the shooting of tracers also.
tracers are great, but the problem I always had with them is while they allow you to see where you are shooting, they also allow them to see where you are shooting from. I don’t think they will hurt your gun.
Wouldn’t this be a great question for whomever you bought the tracers from or perhaps before you purchased them?
Thanks for the info. I wasn’t sure if some sort of corrosive chemical spued out while the round travled the barrel or not. I always clean afrer shooting but I try never to shoot corrosive ammo.
“Wouldn’t this be a great question for whomever you bought the tracers from or perhaps before you purchased them?
Reply With Quote”
spamsammice, I would recommend that you not rely on the kid at the pawn shop or the guy behind the gun store counter for your information. Sometimes, they are very informative, but most of the time, I have found that they arn’t a good source.
My point was, you could have asked here first so you could be sure you weren’t wasting your money on something you couldn’t use. It sucks to see people throw money at something the “don’t have a full understanding of”. Like those guys that buy a gun for a hefty chunk of change and then come here and ask if it was a good bargain. Only to find out they got taken.
I hope you’re able to get some use out of them. Very few of my local ranges let me use them.
Point understood.
I have a decent stash of tracers as well. But, they are all for TEOTWAWKI.
Military tracers don’t start burning until they are well out of your barrel, so until then they act like a regular bullet. I’ve shot alot of 5.56 and 7.62 tracer, never saw an issue from doing so.