Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

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Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by chickapow » 12 Jun 2014, 8:51 am

Hi everyone,

This is copied from the SSAA website about shooting at their ranges.

No incendiary, tracer or armour piercing ammunition is allowed on the range. Any ex-military ammunition that can not be positively identified as NOT being one of these types must not be used.


What's the big deal with using ex-military ammo even if it is one of these things?

You're at a shooting range so it should be safe to shoot any bullet?
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by chickapow » 12 Jun 2014, 8:52 am

P.S. I don't have stockpiles of this stuff, just asking.
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by Shotfox » 12 Jun 2014, 8:57 am

It's hard enough to get people to shoot at their targets (have a look around next time you are at the range).

Now add incendiaries and armour piercing bullets.
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by wrenchman » 12 Jun 2014, 9:14 am

FMJ rounds can blow threw back stop and ricochet because they don't mushroom. Tracer rounds burn holes and start fires on public ranges. I think it could be a good idea.
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by MeccaOz » 12 Jun 2014, 10:57 am

I dont even know if we are allowed to buy military ammo in Australia. And I know we cant get tracer or amour piercing stuff off the shelves.
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by harlow » 12 Jun 2014, 2:50 pm

wrenchman wrote:Tracer rounds burn holes and start fires on public ranges.


Burning holes in targets?

I wouldn't have thought there is enough time for it to catch with the bullet going through at thousands of FPS?
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by chickapow » 12 Jun 2014, 2:52 pm

MeccaOz wrote:I dont even know if we are allowed to buy military ammo in Australia. And I know we cant get tracer or amour piercing stuff off the shelves.


I dunno. I see people often talking about shooting or buying old mil-surp though?

Maybe that's for regular ammo only, TBH I never paid enough attention to it in the past as it's not something I use.
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by ex_reven » 12 Jun 2014, 8:23 pm

Armour piercing ammo would be highly prone to ricochet. This becomes a range safety as well as a range template issue as it can cause rounds to unpredictably leave the range template even when the shooter is aiming in the correct direction downrange.
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by Baronvonrort » 12 Jun 2014, 8:46 pm

chickapow wrote:Hi everyone,

You're at a shooting range so it should be safe to shoot any bullet?


It depends on the range, tracers can and have started fires.

Ranges will modernise over time, the greens whinge about lead contamination with soil so perhaps steel bullet traps that catch the lead allowing it to be recycled will become more common.

This bullet trap can take anything up to 50 cal with FMJ and tracers being allowed, what they call AR500 we call Bisalloy 500, they use these indoors as well,made to suit whatever size.
http://www.actiontarget.com/wp-content/ ... t_Trap.pdf
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by kritch » 13 Jun 2014, 1:43 pm

Baronvonrort wrote:Ranges will modernise over time, the greens whinge about lead contamination with soil so perhaps steel bullet traps that catch the lead allowing it to be recycled will become more common.


"They" say we'll all be using solid copper bullets in the coming years.

That'll give them one less thing to whine about hopefully.
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by Hilux2003 » 13 Jun 2014, 6:21 pm

Armour piercing bullets are ok on most NATO templated ranges - they are just the normal military issue round. The SS109 in the 5.45 has a hardened steel insert infront of the lead core & from scoring on a butts range, I much prefer the FMJ's hitting the frame to hollow or soft point. The FMJ just goes through the timber, whereas the others shower the scorers with all sorts of "flying matter".

Incendiary bullets are mostly a bit hard to obtain (legally), not even supposed to be held on a collectors permit in NSW. As mentioned earlier - they are designed to start fires, which is why they are not for civilian use on most ranges, along with tracer rounds.
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by SendIt » 16 Jun 2014, 11:56 am

harlow wrote:Burning holes in targets?

I wouldn't have thought there is enough time for it to catch with the bullet going through at thousands of FPS?


They will burn for a second or two after firing, so unless your shooting 1,000m or whatever the exact range may be they're still going after they've impacted.

If that's into dry grass etc. it's enough.
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by harlow » 16 Jun 2014, 11:58 am

SendIt wrote:They will burn for a second or two after firing, so unless your shooting 1,000m or whatever the exact range may be they're still going after they've impacted.

If that's into dry grass etc. it's enough.


Yeah I see now. I didn't know anything about them before but reading more about how they're actually made in the other topic on it at the moment I see how it would happen.
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by Warrigul » 16 Jun 2014, 6:23 pm

Hilux2003 wrote:Armour piercing bullets are ok on most NATO templated ranges - they are just the normal military issue round. The SS109 in the 5.45 has a hardened steel insert infront of the lead core & from scoring on a butts range, I much prefer the FMJ's hitting the frame to hollow or soft point. The FMJ just goes through the timber, whereas the others shower the scorers with all sorts of "flying matter".



Yep, much easier to repair the frames as well, come deer season zeroing day at 200m on the fullbore range I used to get all eight targets ready for use(only needed three on a normal day) simply because at least two would need major repairs during the day(hunting bullets make a mess of wooden frames on risers) and it was simpler to switch to another target than make running repairs.
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Re: Incendiary, tracer and armour piercing ammo at ranges

Post by Lorgar » 17 Jun 2014, 3:16 pm

Warrigul wrote:hunting bullets make a mess of wooden frames on risers


I gave up on using frames... Managed to blow one apart every range trip without fail and attempting to repair them got old.

Just have a pair of star pickets now which I tape boards between. The 3-bladed shape really soaks up the holes.
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