8mm-black tip-help

[cowboyt]

Can anyone id some german military slugs that I'v had for years, these were pulled from milsurp ammo some time in the early 60's- they are black-tip boat-tails,.323 dia-152gr and the base is slighty recessed with a shiney yellow substance in the recess-I have not loaded any of these for fear of what they may be-Help Please
cowboyt

[trooperdan]

Purty sure those would be tracers.. and I'm also fairly sure not 1 out of 50 or more will light up! Of course, if one does light, it will be at the worst possible time and place!

Edited to add, I noticed my post count went to 792 on this post! Kinda appropiate i think!~

[Bert2368]

Most likely APT. Do you know where and when the ammo was made? Just because they don't light on firing doesn't mean the tracer comp won't light on contact if you shoot something hard- Don't try them out anywhere a fire could start.

[Texasflyboy]

Can anyone id some german military slugs that I'v had for years, these were pulled from milsurp ammo some time in the early 60's- they are black-tip boat-tails,.323 dia-152gr and the base is slighty recessed with a shiney yellow substance in the recess-I have not loaded any of these for fear of what they may be-Help Please
cowboyt


AP = Armor Piercing
APT = Armor Piercing Tracer
APIT = Armor Piercing Incendiary Tracer


From your description it appears you have standard Armor Piercing ammunition. Some APT and APIT was banded on the tips as black, black over silver or black over a green ring. There were many wartime variations for 8mm AP, APT, or APIT.

My best guess is that you have APT. Armor Piercing tracer projectiles.

An easy way to check is to go to a safe place, place the round on a small steel plate on concrete, and taking all appropriate safety precautions (safely glasses, etc..) hold a small torch to the base and see if the tracer compound ignites. It make or may not go scooting off the plate when it ignites. Depending on how old the ammo is, or if it has an incendiary charge, this can become a very dangerous test rather quickly. So, be safe. You might want to try the fire test first. It's a bit safer.

What I have done in the past is to place a suspect projectile in a steel pipe and build a fire around it. I stand out of the line of either end of the pipe and observe if the projectile ignites. If it does, tracer. If it detonates with a "pop", incendiary. It may well do both, rather quickly and spectacularly. So, again, be safe.

If the projectile does not ignite or pop, that doesn't mean it isn't tracer or incendiary. It may mean you had a dud.

If I were trying the test, I would try five or ten until I was sure that none had ignited. And after the test objects had cooled, I would slice them open and examine with a dremel tool. Lead core projectiles will just have a hollow cavity. AP will have the AP core inside. APT will have a tracer cup and a smaller cavity. APIT will have both the cup and small cylinder inside to hold the incendiary charge.

[Kuato]

That projectile is a tracer used by German snipers for practice. Producer: Finower Industrie GmbH, Finow, Germany.. As far as I can tell..


http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/4098/germantracer.jpg

More than likely, its a green tracer..

[cowboyt]

This has been helpful, I checked and they ARE magnetic so ap-tracer makes sense to me!! now I guess I''ll save them as I have for the last forty years!!!
cowboyt

[Depreacher]

I had a coffee can of 300 ww2 30-06 AP bullets (not the whole cartridge). Sold them on GB last month to a nice man in OR. $455 plus shipping. :-D Now they only bring about a dollar ea. Had 'em for 40 years.

[dominicfortune00]

IIRC, if the bullet rattles when shaken it is some sort of explosive type.