Tracer rounds have phosphorus material in the tail end of the bullet that heats up when fired. This is the visible glow going down range. The exterior of the bullet is not coated with a material as previously mentioned nor is the powder the cause of the glow. Tracers in miniguns are for both night and day target acquisition due to the incredibly high rate of fire.

 

That was a sweet video, especially with Metallica jamming in the background! The "old" Metallica rocked, now I think they suck.

 

I believe the burnout range for tracers fired from the M60 machine is 900 meters. The maximum effective range is 1100 meters.

 

I've never fired a minigun, but in our M-16's and M-60's our tracers rounds- both 5.56mm and 7.62 MM are coated on the exterior- not the interior. Unlike civilian bullets, military rounds don't flatten out- they retain their ballistic shape, many times even after making contact with a soft target. That said, the projectile wouldn't disentegrate to allow anything "inside it" to be burned. The coating burns off as the round flies to it's target. In fact, after a certain distance (which I can't remember) a tracer burns out and can no longer be seen. At short distances, you can see the tracer in the day times, and a night.

In fact, tracer rounds http://www.weaponsindia.com/762tracer.htm started many a brush fire down range- at our night ranges that we had to go put out ourselves. The coating may be phosphorus, but I don't believe it's on the "inside" or in he gun powder- because only the "projectile" not the casing and powder- leaves the barrell.

Tracers are to help the shooter re-direct fire to the intended recipient(s).
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As for aircraft guns slowing the plane down- only the GAU-8 can make that claim- That's only because the recoil of the gun matches the output of the plane's engines. The only aircraft that carries it is the A-10 Thunderbolt II -aka- Warthog.

The Avenger cannon, http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/equip/gau-8.htm is a 7-barrell 30mm gattling gun that can fire up to 3,900 rounds per minute. The Vulcan is a 20mm 6-barrell gun that can fire 6,000 rounds per minute. Although the 30mm round is only 50% larger than the 20mm round- it hits its target with 12 times the centrifugal force of the 20mm. That's a whole can of whoop @$$ buddy. Tha A-10 would make the enemy wish he hadn't signed up for tanks/armor.

 

All I know is that video was awesome! I could use one of those for duck hunting.

 

It's been 8 or 9 years since I went to watch the planes. I cant rmember much of the details but remeber the visions like it was yesterday! It was cool to watch them target practice...The field they shoot in at Ft Leonard Wood has a larg net bulls eye and they have remote comtrol jeeps and broke down vehicles placed to mimick a convoy...They would both shoot at the moving jeep and the convoy as well as drop concrete bombs on them. Our position was next to the control tower where they have an amphibious vehicle with a platform deck for visitor observation...

They had a loud speaker on the outside of the tower so we could hear the pilot to tower and visa versa communications...Before the planes arriaval we heard the tower ask for thier 20 and ETA they replied with Springfield ETA 2.5 minutes. This was impressive because Springfield Mo is an hour drive from the location. BUT...We learned they were refering to Springfield Illinois...a 6 Hour Drive! LOL "Us silly civilians... What were we thinking?"

During Manuvers they would fly over our heads to shoot at the Net bulls eye and the report from each pass sounded like two quick 3 second "burps"...I cant remember how many rounds they said each burst was dumping, but it was an insane number. if you live near a base and get a chance to witnes manuevers, I suggest doing it...

 

When I went to PLDC at Ft. Bliss, TX- they had Vulcan gunners on top of M113's doing target practice. That happened to be our PLDC instructor's MOS. We kept hearing something say: (bu-u-u-urp, b-u-u-u-u-rp) We asked what that was; he said that was the sound of 100 - 200 20mm Vulcan rounds going down-range. He went on to say that they program the gun with how many rounds to fire at any one time because if they just laid on the trigger, they'd be out of ammo and virtually defenseless in seconds...

When I was in Germany; the group I deployed with had two of them to aid in site AA defense. I imagine they'd have been most effective against ground targets too..

 

Tracer bullets do not have the pyrotechnic element on the outside of the bullet jacket. The glow element is in a small cavity in the base of the bullet. The exterior jacket is colorcoated for identification: 5.56mm geen tip is FMJ with steel core, black tip is
armor piercing, orange is tracer. For details on 5.56mm ammo see:

http://www.ammo-oracle.com/body.htm#milammo

Fritz

 

Now that's one bad a$$ gun.

 

Anybody know where I can get a mount for my tree stand for that gun?

 

So you want to hunt deer and make hamburger at the same time?

 

Those guns in whatever version/caliber have got to be the most destructive thing in our arsenal after a Nuke. Well, the Daisey Cutter is awesome too but a one time deal.

Looks like a training range video and I would bet the target vehicles are siezed from drug dealers and such. One of them looked like a 70's Triumph roadster.
Bill

 

The one vehicle that was shot from land looked like a clip from Monster garage when Jesse shot up a failed project with one mounted on a Suburban.

 

This would really ruin your day...
http://www.globalaircraft.org/planes/ac-130_spectre.pl
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/ac-130.htm

AC-130H, close-air support devastation:
Two 7.62mm mini-guns
two 20mm Vulcan cannons
two 40mm cannons
one 105mm Howitzer

Upgraded AC-130U has "surgically precise" close-air support devastation:
One 25mm Gatling gun
one 40mm
one 105mm Howitzer

"AC-130U sensor suite consists of a television sensor, infrared sensor and radar. These sensors allow the gunship to visually or electronically identify friendly ground forces and targets any place, any time. The AC-130U employs synthetic apertures strike radar for long-range target detection and identification."

You don't want to meet one of these in anger. You will lose.

 

Hell I carry one of those in my console! Gotta love Texas and guns!!