Ammo INC. from Az is now selling ammo with a green trace element. Nice, just what many of us want or don’t want to see. BTW, one had be in a certain place to see this..

Yes they were coming at you not going away from you .

The NVA favored the greenies.

Beware the ZU-23!
These are spectacular when they shoot at you at Night.
Two strings of Red Fire, then tracers burns out, then it self destructs.
Better enjoyed when it’s not too close!

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

Green 51’s were serious.

Tracers come in a rainbow of colors depending on nationality and purpose. During WWII, the Germans favored a gold (actually yellow) tracer. The WWII American M21 .50 BMG round had a brilliant white tracer which was visible by its target, and was commonly called a Headlight tracer. It was intended to terrorize German and Japanese fighter pilots. .38 Special red tracer ammo was issued to US naval flight crews for signaling purposes, and .38 Special tracer bullets in several other colors were under development near the end of the war, but were never made in any quantity or issued. I have read about infrared tracers visible only by using night vision goggles. I also remember reading about tracer bullets which aren’t actually tracers that burn but instead have discs of highly visible material on their bases which can be seen by the shooter. I don’t know anything more about those.

I don’t know how many BS stories I’ve herd about guys in RVn that always carried an AK because they didn’t trust a M16. Unless they were SOPs of some kind using AKs to confuse the enemy, not even a idiot would tote an AK.
Day time AK firing would draw our fire from sound alone. Green AK tracers at night would pinpoint shooter. They weren’t dumb. Most of the guys telling such stories were special OPs, like butcher, bakers and candle stick makers.
I was on Quads and 40 Bofors. The 40mm ammo was Navy WW2 stuff. Every round of HE was a tracer. The optical illusion that tracers were being sucked into the ground caused a lot of calls for cease fire. Actually the 40 was a rifle.

No one “ normally would have carried” an AK or SKS due to reason mentioned above.
There ARE WAY TO MANY posers that never set foot out of the US. Then plenty of guys that did go over but sat at a desk in AC or never left whatever base they were on. Others that were there and make up “Big Stories” to impress people. Go figure.

I once was stationed with an USMC Warrant who served in Viet Nam as a young enlisted Marine. He told me a story when he made the mistake of picking up an AK. He was in a big bomb crater in a hand-to-hand fight with an NVA and killed him. His M-16 was down for some reason I cannot immediately recall so he grabbed the AK and ran up out of the crater, only to be immediately shot by his own guys. They said they saw a guy, all covered in mud, run up out of the hole with an AK, so they shot him. He obviously survived, but wan't happy with his fellow Marines.

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No good deed goes unpunished.

I remember the green, also a pale pink if memory served me right.

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Paul
Salome, AZ

Best were from our gun ships, looked like someone dumping out a grill full of hot coals, then the BUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRR.

Tracers had their good & Bad points, when used.

Your location, cover and support, all played a part on how the outcome ended.

I never wanted to fire a round, that said, "Hay, here I am" to the other side.
I can see where they would help out if fired from an airplane, though.

However, our outfit did have the 108 recoiless tank killer, that had a 50 cal. tracer, to show where the shell would hit.

Carry on.

I had some of the 38 tracers. We shot them in various guns and you could ly see the difference in velocity from a snub nosed to a 6" barrel at night. We all know there is a velocity difference, but with tracers, you could really see the difference.

I bought some loaded AK rounds from a guy at a Tucson gun show years ago. Green tracers and man they were daylight bright.
Also I bought some blue tipped rounds from him that were supposed to be "artillery spotter" rounds.
They would go down range (no trace) then on impact there would be a bright blue flash and loud report at the target, like an M-80 going off.

The vendor was out of Phoenix and might be the same guy that Greyman mentioned.
I looked him up on the web a couple years back and ordered some more, but these are much weaker.
The Greenies aren't visible in daylight like the old tracers I had, but still do fine after dark. The Blue spotter rounds have a much weaker report as well.

I loaded mine in once fired PPU brass.
He also had 5.56mm tracer bullets, and some 150 grain tracers for my .308's. Yes those were red, but if it was the same guy he'd stuff them with just about any color if you wanted it.

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U. S. Army Veteran

I didn’t get handed an M60 until 1985, but by then tracers didn’t ignite until they were about 100 yards down range. If you kept the burst short, the single tracer in the burst, igniting about 100 yards from the muzzle, made it harder to identify the precise location of the gun.

Tracers fired by an aircraft are a mixed bag. On one hand, make it easier to see where the rounds are going relative to a fast moving target in the air pulling G and while firing from various aspect angles from a moving aircraft pulling Gs. On the other hand, they notified the target aircraft they were receiving fire.

Back in 70s some outfit was selling emergency Flare cartridges for most of the popular calibers. At a 4th of July celebration a guy I know fired them in his friends M29. A couple did as advertised and then one went squib. The tracer ignited, stuck right ahead of forcing cone. It looked like someone had struck bore with stick welder.
I have also herd lately about tracer ammo, 30/06 doing the same thing. I won’t fire tracer ammo of any kind out of my rifles. The wanna-Bee cult is paying $5@ for small arms tracers and I saw 50BMG for $25@. Regardless of Myth Busters experiments, tracers are a dangerous fire hazard.

Tracers are popular for some purposes, a crowd pleaser at MG shoots. Can be fun to play with at times but a very much a fire hazard too. At the Knob Creek shoots more than once the line had to cease fire while support personnel ran up into the hills to put out fires.

As to military use several countries adopted different colors. Various chemicals will result in different and distinctive colors which can help identify your own fire from the enemies. Besides single color tracers the Germans developed a type of ranging tracer that had layered compounds that changed color as they burned. Was intended to allow for quick knowledge and range adjustment in anti-aircraft fire. I have had a few boxes in my cartridge collection over the years. Very interesting if a bit over engineered.

The “ Huns” over developed just about everything, LOL?

I've heard theses put on a great light show at night in Vietnam.

A long time back a friend gave me a ziplock full of 30 caliber tracer bullets. Supposedly they were US made pulled bullets. So I loaded up a handful in 30/06 and shot them just for educational purposes. They sure enlightened me about the crazy things bullets do after impact. They went all kinds of unexpected directions. No fires were started but would be easy to see how it could happen. Most lit as soon as fired some would after traveling a ways and some never did. I have a feeling they were old maybe WWII vintage. Fun for a few shots but my curiosity was sated. Still have the leftovers around here somewhere.

I was shooting my M1 carbine with hand loaded 90 gr short jacket soft point bullets with a rising sun behind me. I got a wonderful tracer effect with the sun illuminating the bright copper flat bases on the new bullets. I transitioned to some plates at 200 and 300 yards just to see it longer and enjoy the arc.

A range officer quickly showed up to stop the “tracer” firing, and I had to explain to him what was actually happening.

Yes they are pretty to shoot at night.
At this time in my life I do not see any practical need for tracer ammo.

I am concerned about fires being started, especially in Arizona.

When I was 14 I had 22LR Tracers and set a corner fence post on fire.

You have no idea what you have hit 1/4 mile away when shooting outdoors.

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Who are? "They"

Would any public range, indoor or outdoor, let you shoot tracer ammo? I'm not aware of any around here.

Man... makes me think back to one of the field exercises I went to... in Muensingen early 2000. In the winter. I hated it but the shooting range always brought a smile to my face.... pop up targets... out to 600m.

We had 5 rifle positions and one MG3 machine gun, mounted on a UNIMOG. At night we loaded 1 tracer to 2 regular FMJ.... that was great. And before I had a smartphone....

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Jorge

We made “ fireworks” with 50 Cal. tracers and a little bit of C-4. Marin the ARVN did’t like it but we enjoyed the show. Amazing what GI’s do for fun.

Certain placeS. Allah hu Akbar!

I don't know of any near me either. (Northeast PA)

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Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

Doubt Any range would allow tracers. We used to shoot just about any weapon at Camp Butner N.C. but they said absolutely NO tracer or 50 Cal., either Barretts or M-2’s. Development were “ encroaching” the impact area which brings up many stories of UXO.