Hi, At least you did take one apart. The pressure down the barrel holds the gas check in place and upon exit it flies off igniting the red phospforus, bad spelling. It burns once lit until it is gone or until it cannot get any oxygen for whatever reason. if safe to do so aim about 1 oclock in the night sky and you will see they burn out long before the flight of the bullet is over. I dont suggest or recommend doing this unless you have several miles where there is no danger of the projectile doing damage to anything. If the area where the tracers hit before burned out is dry fires are easily started in brush,leaves,grass etc. That is also a concern. Other than being careful have fun and in my hop the tale that they burn the rifling out of your barrel is just a myth. The gas behind the bullet contains no oxidizer as the gas produced by firing the cartridge leaves a vacuum behind in its wake and the burning powder consumes the oxygen. They sell pulled tracers fairly cheap but other bullets perform better on impact. They used to put one in the linked belts every 5 rounds so it looks like a stream of red and the gunner can adjust fire as needed to place them on target. I was a 19F many years ago and when the barrel would get hot the gunner elevated until it became so hot we had to change the barrel. I lit many Winstons from the red hot barrels I pulled before throwing it off the Tank and sticking the new barrel in so the loader could attach it. The loader would hand me a new one while the turret was swung to the right and I as the driver had the job of pulling them as it was a lot easier for me to just climb out of the hatch and pull it when he disconnected it inside. Looking back I wish I had snagged one of the asbestos gloves we used as it would be handy handling hot metal in the shop. I do wish I could still buy surplus ammo loaded cheap as I enjoy shooting my PTR and it eats ammo like a kid does candy and renders it useless to reload. We paid for the ammo, we have paid to store it, and now instead of getting it cheap to shoot we are paying again for it to be demilled and paying for the parts at inflated prices. If I can buy steel cased Russian ammo cheaper than I can buy the surplus components to reload how is this helping the US citizen taxpayer at all. Common sense says rockets and other ordnance needs demilled but small arms ammo 50 caliber and less is a waste of taxpayer money and misuse of it by the powers that be whether military or other government agency or branch.
