MERCURY BULLET

[RobertP]

Dealey Joe wrote:Sounds like what we called tracers?No, not the same thing at all, Joe. Tracer rounds are most often used in larger machine guns, loaded about every fifth round in a belt, to indicate the trajectory of the bullets to the man firing the machine gun.Wikipedia explains it much better than I can, as usual:"Tracer ammunition (tracers) are bullets or cannon caliber projectiles that are built with a small pyrotechnic charge in their base. Ignited by the burning powder, the pyrotechnic composition burns very brightly, making the projectile trajectory visible to the naked eye. This enables the shooter to make aiming corrections without observing the impact of the rounds fired and without using the sights of the weapon.A tracer projectile is constructed with a hollow base filled with a pyrotechnic flare material, often made of phosphorus or magnesium or other bright burning chemicals. In NATO standard ammunition (including U.S.), this is usually a mixture of strontium compounds (nitrate, peroxide, etc.) and a metal fuel such as magnesium. This yields a bright red light. Russian and Chinese tracer ammunition generates green light using barium salts. Some modern designs use compositions that produce little to no visible light and radiate mainly in infrared, being visible only on night vision equipment.[5]"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... e.JPEGNote that every fifth cartridge in this machine gun belt is a red tipped tracer round.https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/imag ... 8xdQTracer ammo is used extensively in warfare, while the Carcano observation (exploding) bullets I spoke of are virtually unheard of, and certainly not used by any modern army.