Thoughts on use of tracer ammuniton for sd

Completely foolish to use tracer ammo for SD.

Start house fires (yours or your neighbors) or forest/neighborhood fires. HUGE liability.

Tracers are designed to guide rounds in during rapid fire or machine gun fire so you can walk rounds onto a target. Wholey different than self defense shooting.
 
I remember years ago reading a humorous list called

Murphys Rules of Combat

Number 10 or 11 was

Tracers work both ways

;)
 
The only benefit that I can see tracers being used is the one my uncle told me..load the first 3 rounds in your mag to be tracers..that way you know when your about to run out of bullets
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Neat Idea.
 
Not for a pistol.

There is still a tremendous risk of a missed shot or a shot that overpenetrates starting a fire. Also, some tracers are designed to ignite some distance from the muzzle. SD often occurs at close range. I don't know if pistol tracers bullets are like this, but if they are, chances are they would hit the target before they'd ignite and you wouldn't see anything.

You probably aren't going to need to reload anyways.
 
The only benefit that I can see tracers being used is the one my uncle told me..load the first 3 rounds in your mag to be tracers..that way you know when your about to run out of bullets
Click to expand...

It's common practice with the British paratroopers and SAS, but then again, only in assault rifles because it's only around 100 meters the tracers become distinctive to the eye.
 
Since most self defense situations happen at seven yards or less, tracers offer no benefit. Buy some quality hollow points and you'll be better off.
 
Go with a laser (crimson trace) or something similar. The tracers sound like a very bad idea. As mentioned by Mike.
 
I would check my local and state laws very carefully before trying this one out. In some places it is illegal to own, possess or use tracers at all. In most bigger cities, like Chicago and such, use, possession and ownership of exotic ammo is against local laws and can get you prison time. Even though some states don't have laws against tracers many of the local laws make them illegal. This is why you can't have certain ammo shipped to you based off of where you live. Wikipedia explains this issue well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_Breath

The people at Firequest Ammo when you order will tell you if they can or can not ship to your local area:

http://www.firequest.com/exotic-shotgun-ammo.html

Outside of using tracers in general, it really is an exotic idea for civilians to consider. Even the military uses tracers more often for signalling than tracking their fire. In Viet Nam we used to remove the tracers from the belts of machinegun ammunition rather than shoot them because that was one less way for the enemy to track back where we were shooting from at them.
 
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