.45 Colt tracer rounds?

[awp101]

I guess I can cross this off the list of things I've never seen (or thought of) before...

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?t=148495

Not mine, etc, etc, etc.

[J Miller]

Joey wants ....... drool, slobber, snivel, covet covet covet.

I'd love to put those in my cartridge collection. Boy howdy would I.

I've never seen, nor heard of them. I heard about the .45 ACP tracers Hornady or Speer put out some years ago, but not .45 Colt.
I figure these were made in the 80s maybe. They are put together in W-W cases with domed primers rather than the Hornady cases.

Well, at least I got the pictures to look at sometime.

[Cruise]

Used .45 ACP in Sunny SE Asia. From a slow Bird Dog they sort of just spiraled to the ground. Used primarily to start fires in the dry grass. Not as effective as thermite grenades (these where similar to smoke grenades).

[jhrosier]

OK, I thought about it.
I can't begin to imagine what purpose a tracer in a .45 Colt would serve, except accidentally starting forest fires.

Did I somehow completely miss the point?

Jack

[J Miller]

OK, I thought about it.
I can't begin to imagine what purpose a tracer in a .45 Colt would serve, except accidentally starting forest fires.

Did I somehow completely miss the point?

Jack

Jack,

I think it was Hornady that introduced a 45ACP tracer round some years ago and their purpose was training people how to shoot. The idea was ( and I'm doing this from memory ) if people could actually see where their shots were going they could learn faster and deal with their flinches and bad habits better. It could be these .45 Colt tracers were for the same thing. But I really don't know.


Many years ago I did load up some old .45 ACP ball tracers in .45 Colt cases and those were a fun thing to shoot. Didn't start any fires with them so I don't know about that.

Joe

[jhrosier]

Thanks Joe,

I had forgotten about this, but sometime back in the '60s there were shotshells with a ball of some sort of tracer material made for the same purpose. As I recall, there was some discussion as to whether the tracer element stayed with the shot pattern to produce usable results.

Jack

[AJMD429]

I thought 'tracer' rounds were basically ones with a bit of phosphorous (unsure whether 'red' or 'white' type) in the hollow base of a bullet, that would for some reason glow/burn once the round was fired.

Whatever they are made of, could you not make your own if needed?

[DPris]

I still have a box of the Hornady tracers in .45 ACP (manufacturer's samples). I tried some, but with the muzzle jump in a 1911 I never saw the track or impact on a 25-yard target.
I suspect most other shooters didn't either & Hornady dropped 'em from lack of interest.
Denis

[jhrosier]

...Whatever they are made of, could you not make your own if needed?

Tinkering with phosphorus could get you nominated for a Darwin award.

Jack

[awp101]

There may be something to the training thought. I mean it's not like you're going to use a .45 Colt to lay suppressive fire or mark a target...

The rangemaster at the Ft Campbell skeet range acquired some 12ga tracers. Since he was there all day with not much to do other than shoot skeet (what a rough life! ), he started trying to run a straight shooting his 12ga from the hip. He used the tracers to see where his shot was going vs where he thought it was going.

OTOH, load up that Gatling in the other post with some .45-70 tracers and let's have some fun!