The fact that I'm in the UK may account for why I'm "allowed" to shoot tracer on military ranges (we aren't entirely deprived of good clean fun here just yet!) - 7.62 is readily available, as is 5.56mm. What a pity .303 Brit no longer comes in tracer though...

I don't shoot 5.56mm but I do shoot .22/250 which, as we all know, uses the same .224 bullets as the 5.56mm.........so I'm wondering how safe things'll be if I were to pull a few tracer bullets from 5.56 and reload them into .22/250?

Sounds like fun...anyone have anything to say?

Ah.... sounds dangerous. Just exactly HOW does the tracer material get ignited? What is it, anyway?

I can't answer Mike's questions, but I know tracer pulls are widely available for sale, so they must be "pullable". The guys at AR15.com also report that they require a hot load to ignite. Mild target loads in .223 often fail to light them. I wouldn't think that'd be a problem in the .22/250. Ask your question at the AR15.com forum and you should get the data you need from those that have been and done:

http://www.ar15.com/forums/forum.html?b=1&f=9

If it's just tracer, then it's generaly lit off by the powder burn....can usually pull them with a collet type press mounted puller with little trouble. Wacking on it with an inertia puller proably won't set it off...but think it's not a great idea.

NOW...once in awhile you'll get "spotter" ropunds or some other form of semi-explosive or incendiary rounds. These are NOT a good idea to pull at all....be sure of your nose tip color codes (they are NOT universal) and avoid the ones where the nose tip color has rubbed off.

Have pulled tracers out of bent Machine Gun ammo before. Have never tried reloading it. One thing to remember if you use it in a 22/250 is that the twist is usually for light varmint bullets (1:12). The tracer (M855/SS109 counter part/orange tip)is a very long bullet and weighs 72 gr IIRC. The red tip (M196, 55 gr fmj cp) is lighter and should work with the 22/250. Just be sure to weigh the bullets before hand and use proper loads.

Make sure you clean your gun well after using also. Tracer leaves residue in the barrel and some types are corrosive.

The treacer will probably work when loaded into the 22/250...does depend on how OLD the tracer is, as with the advent of the fast twists .223's, the military tracer load got pretty long. Would NOT load them to the same level as a solid bullet of that weight...tracer will be long for it's weight, with more bearing area and taking up more case volume than the weight would suggest.

At one time I had a bunch of .30carbine tracer...so like you, pulled some of it and made tracer loads in 30-30 and 300savage. In this case, was working with a too short bullet, so the faste tywists of the adopted barrels wasn't a big deal (over spinning doesn't seem to hurt).

Currently have some 7.62X39 tracer...1/2 of it has become .303 brit tracer (it's a few 1/1000ths too small in diameter, but it seems to shoot well).

What I did first was to FILE the neck of one sample loaded tracer round...then break the bullet out of the case neck for examination. These have some kind of opaque base wad (proabably a sheet of some nitro-celuluse type substance) that purns through during ignition, then ignites the tracer. Decided that beating them apart with an inertia puller may crack or other wise damage this clear base wad...so i pulled them with a press mounted collet type puller.

[QUOTE=ribbonstone]The treacer will probably work when loaded into the 22/250...does depend on how OLD the tracer is,

I reckon the stuff for sale here is fairly recent - after all, the 5.56 isn't so old as an all ranks calibre.


Currently have some 7.62X39 tracer...1/2 of it has become .303 brit tracer (it's a few 1/1000ths too small in diameter, but it seems to shoot well).

Glad you mentioned that...I'd been thinking about that conversion too.

IF you get a chance to shoot some of this at distance (300 yards and farther) would be interrested in any trajectory information.

Haven't shot enough tracer at paper...usually it's pure fun ammo for a variety of reasons...but it seems to do odd things.

Mentioned age as some of the real old tracer rounds (WWII issue and earlier) were made with compounds a bit less stable than today's...beating them open with an inertia puller isn/t recommended.

The commercial Hornady "Vector" ammo runs on a simpler system. The bullet has a little bit of magnesium compound inserted into the base (it kind of hangs out like a tail) coated with some type of easy to ignite compound. It will go dead with humidity / moisture (at least the igniter compound will).

I regularly shoot 7.62 tracer at ETR targetryout to 1200 yards on still days - 600 on windy ones! The tracer doesn't ignite until about 80 yards out.

I reckon the trajectory is similar to that of 148gn 7.62 milsurplus loads. But then it ought to be when you think about it. I reckon out beyond about 600 it must shoot differently as it's getting lighter all the time in flight. Jolly good fun though!!

223 ,5.56 tracers SUCK ! They almost got me killed in Viet Nam ! They set the bush on fire 20 feet infront of my position ! They bounced around in this thin bush like a fire cracker fuse and fell to the ground and set to bush a blaze during a fire fight ! Tracers will also ruin your rifle barrel as they start burning in the barrel just a head of the chamber and leave their fouling in the barrel for the next round to ride over ! Can you pull them yes, but i wouldn't shoot them out of a good barrel unless there is a War on over there ! JAGG

I have pulled and cross sectioned .223 and 30-06 tracer
bullets. They were all built the same.

The pyro compound is similar to a road flare.
I would be much more worried about the gunpowder igniting
than the tracer igniting. (which means I'm not worried at all)

The composition was packed into the base of the bullet,
and sealed with a metal foil which looked like copper or brass.

The extreme temperature and pressure generated during
firing is enough to melt/tear through the seal, and ignite
the composition.

I would have NO reservations about inertia pulling and
reloading mil-spec tracer bullets.

Dave

I would have NO reservations about inertia pulling and
reloading mil-spec tracer bullets.

Dave

Thanks Dave, I'll try 5.56 in .22/250 and 7.62 in .303

have u fired a 223 same5.56mmnato from a 22-250 answer asap please

In my misspent youth I did pull some tracers from 30'06 ammo and loaded them in 30/40 Krag cases.Had no difficulty or problem.
I shot them in the rain or when there was good snow cover.
They were very inaccurate on the range.
Frank

you need to be carefull with tracers, ok in controled ranges, but when i was in the milltary 1990 the tracer always lit up worked well and started alot of fiers on the ranges , we always had a water buffalow standing by,,
timmy