Incendiary Rounds

I

Irish B

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I picked up a box of 10 incendiary rounds at a gun show for the Mosin just for novelty's sake. I'd like to hear stories from anyone who has experience firing these rounds. Having been a former firefighter for 7 years I can't quite bring myself to fire one of these bad boys in fear of the results. Is it a mild flash bang or is it a decent explosion? Also how hard of a surface do you need to hit to make the rounds effective? Do they ignite when the bullet is launched, when it leaves the barrel, or when it hits the target? The fire danger is high right now in colorado so they're going to stay in the closet for the time being but curiosity is still getting the best of me. After all like the say most child pyromaniacs either go to jail or become firefighters!
 
I've fired a few different types. there are long range and short range tracer rounds. short range tracers ignite as soon as they leave the barrel. I've fired 9mm short range tracers from both rifles and pistols. the usually burn bright red and burn out after about 75-100 yards. they are the most fun.

messing around a little my brother in law pulled some long range tracers out of some old 30-06 casings and reseated them into 303 brit brass and we fired them out of my enfield no4. 30-06 tracers are long range tracers and ignite usually after 100 yards and burn dull orange for about 200-300 yards after ignition and from all of those only about 3/4ths of them actually ignited due to improper powder type(tracers require hotter burning powder to ignite them). I bought a number of 30-06 tracers and fired a few of them from my springfield but so far every one Ive fired has failed to ignite... your fears may be unfounded, depending on how they were stored and how old they are, your 762x54r tracers may be too degraded to ignite.
 
I've shot a lot of 8mm armor piercing incendiary ammo through a 1917 belt fed Browning MG. We shot 1" thick mild steel plates. They'd punch clean through burning the edges of the hole. I'm real sure they'd start a fire if fired into anything combustible. I've also shot some tracer through a G3. We never started a fire but I think if it hit the right thing it could start a fire too. My money would be on the incendiary being the most likely to start a fire.
 
it may be best to wait until after a heavy rain storm or until there's a good blanket of snow on the ground just to be safe.
 
I had a friend who now owns a gun store. He had found some tracers for the 30-06 and fired them in the backyard (out in the boon docks of Wisconsin) where there was a marsh and grassy fields. I thought it was a pretty dumb thing to do but no fire started. I'm pretty sure you could start a fire with them if not careful. If it just rained you'd probably be safe. :confused:
 
I just want to set the record straight that, to my knowledge, these are incendiary rounds and not tracer rounds. There is a difference. They are blue tipped.
 
youtube

Get on youtube and search "incendiary rounds" and there will be lots of footage of same, including some in your caliber.
 
From a military standoint...

a tracer round (normally every 5th round in linked ammo fired by full auto weapons of various calibers) ignites a highly visible compound inside the tail of the projectile, soon after exiting the muzzle, producing a visualization of the trajectory. This allows the shooter to tell if the target is being hit.

An incendiary small arms round, however, shows no visible trajectory. Instead, it ignites a fire upon impact. Most effective when used against thin skinned targets which are highly flammable in nature.

Armor piercing-incendiary first breaches a hard target, then sets fire to whatever is inside the target. Think ammo and/or fuel inside a tank, set afire, resulting in catastrophic explosion.

These are the concepts, at least, of these ammo types.
 
I have some 5.56 incendiary I haven't shot yet. Should be interesting...

What exactly is the compositon in the bullet that makes it incendiary?
It can't be thermite, that won't ignite by black powder. I'm thinking it's thermate like aluminum + sulpher maybe with a binder? I haven't smelled it yet. Does it smell like sulphur when you shoot them?
 
I haven't smelled it yet. Does it smell like sulphur when you shoot them?
Click to expand...

We never shot'm at targets closer than 100 yards and I don't remember a particular smell associated with'm. They didn't seem any different than Ball until they hit the target.
 
I used to like shooting incendiary rounds at night from my M2. We'd get tracer burnout at about 1200 meters and then when the incendiary rounds hit, you'd get this nice twinkling effect. Cooler than hell.
 
Id love to shoot a incendiary rounds, but they are SOOOO expensive to buy a couple loaded rounds. I wish i could just the bullets somewhere to reload my own
 
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