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This is why you don't shoot ****ing tracers at an indoor range. Has brought down a number of indoor ranges. Hope the person is prosecuted.
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Bullseye gun range on fire.
- Thread starter drewga11
- Start date
I thought tracers didn't ignite until after 25 yards? I asked a Marine friend and he said if they were old they ignited almost instantly?
Not sure how you'd achieve that with a solid tracer element. They ignite almost instantly and you couldn't pick them up with your eyes inside of 25 yards anyway, moving way too fast.
I was just reading up on this because that's also what I thought. Turns out there are lots of different types of tracers. They all seem to use magnesium as the 'fuel' but they add other chec,icals to the mix to change the colors, the brightness, or even the visibility.
They have both 'bright' and 'dim' tracers for the 5.56, as well as infra-red only versions for use with NV equipment. They do all seem to ignite immediately but the chemical mix can be delayed enough that it doesn't reach full-burn for a number of seconds. This was mainly done so the enemy didn't have a bright, glowing finger pointing exactly back to the shooter. As the article mentioned, 'tracers work in both directions...',
I gotta buy a couple small parts from them today. Will report back later
A few seconds? Negative. 5.56mm NATO round is traveling at just over 3,000 fps or 922 meters per second. 1,000 yards out a tracer would be nearly useless. They ignite immediately and are clearly visible within 200 yards. I'm speaking from experience, not an article.
Edited to add: Don't mean to come off preachy, just tired of innernet articles.
Nope, no problem... real world beats WikiPedia any day.
The 'few seconds' was my paraphrasing of what the article was talking about when mentioning that they somehow delayed the visible part of the ignition.
They didn't say how long the delay was, just that it helped reduce the tracer pointing right back to the position it was fired from. It may also have been one of the variants, since there were plenty of tracer types just for the 5.56 listed.
The 'few seconds' was my paraphrasing of what the article was talking about when mentioning that they somehow delayed the visible part of the ignition.
They didn't say how long the delay was, just that it helped reduce the tracer pointing right back to the position it was fired from. It may also have been one of the variants, since there were plenty of tracer types just for the 5.56 listed.
I have received tracer rounds accidentally mixed with surplus M2 Ball rounds from the CMP. The paint was all but gone from most of the tips, some had no paint left.
They still lit, and could be seen burning in the berm at 100 yds.
They still lit, and could be seen burning in the berm at 100 yds.
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The paint has nothing to do with their function.
Pic from the outside. That is the pistol range side of the building and you can see holes in the roof. Got to see video of inside of range and it is done for. Cant confirm nor deny that a tracer started it but witness on the rifle range said some asshole kids was firing tracer and the fire started in that lane. They said it only took a couple minutes to burn everything. Store is fine with a smoke smell. No fire sail though!!!
