Interesting 9mm bullets ... are these tracers?

[DLS]

Recently I was at the range where a fellow there gave me a stash of dud 9mm Luger cartridges to pull down for components. The gent said only a handful fired, several after a few tries so he just tried the rest once and handed them off to me. He did not report anything unusual regarding the fired rounds I didn't witness any attempts to fire.

The pulled FMJ RN bullets weigh between 115.4 and 116.0 grains and have the typical military asphalt sealant around the base. They bullet bases look like this:






Here are the headstamps:



I'm thinking these could be tracers?

Also of interest to me was the powder. Each case had less than 2 grains of fine spherical granules and dust at a 50:50 ratio. I dropped a match on the small pile of powder, and it burned as you would expect a pile of smokeless powder to burn. (Yes, I did this safely)

So, interesting holes in the bullets bases, and a tiny amount of powder. I'm going to load these bullets up soon and shoot them outdoors on a rainy day to see just what they might do.

Any comments / thoughts?

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[Local Loader]

Not sure if tracer but that is some old USSR Soviet ammo right there. What color did the interior powder burn?

 

[DLS]

The powder burned with a bright white / yellow flame, pretty much like any other pile of powder I've set off in the past. It had a funky smell though, as a lot of foreign powders do. I've burned / fired funky smelling powders from the likes of Yugoslavia, Egypt, Greece, China, and Turkey. This had a different odor.

 

[Local Loader]

Likely cause it's soviet and the powder is likey magnesium-oxide or polyvinyl chloride compound.

 

[edzz]

Israeli
9mm ammo

 

[DLS]

I was thinking Israeli as well, but Cyrillic and Hebrew letters do look similar, at least to my unschooled eye so I wasn't sure.

According to the excellent link @edzz provided it does in fact appear to be from Israel.

Now to answer the main question, what is the function of the tunnel in the base of the bullet and whatever it appears to be lined with?

 

[RVTECH]

Most likely the depressions are due to the manufacturing process at the time and the white material is lead oxide from age.

It's possible the lead was 'injected' into the jackets leaving the depression as it hardened. Just a thought.

 

[CLT65]

As edzz says, definitely Israeli.

And... definitely tracer. Here's some I had in my collection. They're not prime examples, as the box had water damage. I pulled one apart just to look at the base.



Very odd that yours had such a light powder charge. The one I pulled apart had 8.0 grains of ball powder, more than what seems normal for 9mm. That makes me wonder if it's primarily SMG ammo.

 

[Local Loader]

Neat

 

[DLS]

GMTA ... I was just logging on to state I found them to be tracer rounds. There is a cut-away photo of these bullets in the article @edzz posted and I've found a couple of other sources that state what they are.

I'm surprised the guy at the range didn't say anything about being tracers ... perhaps the pyro material has become inert? Maybe what killed the primers also killed the trace material. He just came up to me and said he "could only get a handful to shoot" and "do you know what to do with crap ammo like this?"

I'll still load them up and shoot them, well, all but a couple as want to keep a few to go in my "goodie box" of shooting related odds and ends. I'll make sure to shoot them on a wet day and into dirt just in case one actually lights off.

 

[CLT65]

I've found that the tracer element often goes dead long before the ammo does. I wouldn't expect them to light. HOWEVER- I would never shoot them in any dry environment. You can just never take that chance.

Many years ago, I went with some friends on a camping trip in Eastern Oregon. I only knew a couple of the guys, but it was a yearly trip that most of them had done for a long time. They would camp and shoot in camp, and drive over to the alfalfa fields to shoot "squeaks". It had just rained a couple days earlier, and I had a bunch of .223 ammo I'd loaded up with some really cheap "dead" tracers (they were super cheap back then). Never once saw one light up, but after shooting a few, one of the older guys (a retired fire chief, I was told) came over and said "You guys better run over and put out those fires".

Sure enough, we looked closely and a couple small fires had started down range! We put them out quickly, and I was done with tracers from then on.

 

[DLS]

... I wouldn't expect them to light. HOWEVER- I would never shoot them in any dry environment. You can just never take that chance. ...

Roger that! I'll shoot them on a day like today, with a good quarter inch or more of rain in an already wet environment.

It's interesting that the trace chemicals would be so much less stable than the powder. I wonder if the byproducts of decomposition could corrupt the powder. I imagine not, no military would load round that would do that ... or would they? Some of the Viet Nam era stuff coming out of China was pretty fuggily!

 

[Xmark1]

Likely cause it's soviet and the powder is likey magnesium-oxide or polyvinyl chloride compound.

WTF? English only please!

 

[quneur]

... I'm going to load these bullets up soon and shoot them outdoors on a rainy day to see just what they might do...

Too late. Hanukkah ended Dec 6.

 

[orygun]

I'm surprised the guy at the range didn't say anything about being tracers ... perhaps the pyro material has become inert? Maybe what killed the primers also killed the trace material.

I bought some remanufactured tracer rounds for 30-06 and shot three of them off on a gray, rainy day. Only shot about 100 yards but didn't see any sign of a trace. I kept the box I'd shot rounds out of, but sold or traded off the rest. I assumed the tracer part "died".

 

[CLT65]

Only shot about 100 yards but didn't see any sign of a trace.

Many rifle/MG tracers don't light up until they're 100 yards downrange, to avoid giving away the gunner's position. Pistol tracers typically light right away. I had a single .45 acp tracer once, and shot it out in the mountains in the rainy winter, from one landing to another a half-mile away. It looked like a tiny flare, arcing over the treetops.

 

[washagonian]

Israeli
9mm ammo

Thanks for sharing that document @edzz.

Fascinating. Most comprehensive info on 9mm I've ever run into.