Today I shot my M1A a little bit, with a nephew who has joined the Marine Corps (delayed entry program, pending graduation from high school).
We ended the day at 4;45 pm , past sunset in this hilly area, with a few shots of old milsurp tracers, from 200 yards into a target berm what was a wall of damp mud.
So, we had a total of 3 sets of eyes watching each shot. The shooter and 2 observers standing just off to the side of the shooter by a few feet.
3 out of 3 of the 1982 headstamp tracers worked. I didn't see all 3 personally but others reported seeing the ones I didn't see trace. They also reported a very bright fireball at the gun's muzzle and even flame/ sparks from the action as the shell ejected. I didn't notice any of that.
2 of the 3 tracers with a Lake City 1968 headstamp traced successfully.
For all of them, I did not see the red / orange dot appear until the bullet was already something like 125 yards downrange, and from there to impact with the mud backstop was only a fraction of a second. The bullet appeared to be a flash of light, a dot frozen in time and space for an instant, rather than a moving object.
I wish I could shoot some more than 200 yards, but that's all the room I have to fling rifle bullets.
We ended the day at 4;45 pm , past sunset in this hilly area, with a few shots of old milsurp tracers, from 200 yards into a target berm what was a wall of damp mud.
So, we had a total of 3 sets of eyes watching each shot. The shooter and 2 observers standing just off to the side of the shooter by a few feet.
3 out of 3 of the 1982 headstamp tracers worked. I didn't see all 3 personally but others reported seeing the ones I didn't see trace. They also reported a very bright fireball at the gun's muzzle and even flame/ sparks from the action as the shell ejected. I didn't notice any of that.
2 of the 3 tracers with a Lake City 1968 headstamp traced successfully.
For all of them, I did not see the red / orange dot appear until the bullet was already something like 125 yards downrange, and from there to impact with the mud backstop was only a fraction of a second. The bullet appeared to be a flash of light, a dot frozen in time and space for an instant, rather than a moving object.
I wish I could shoot some more than 200 yards, but that's all the room I have to fling rifle bullets.
