.38 Special tracers used to be seen regularly at gun shows, but dried up about 20 years ago. They're good collectibles. I certainly wouldn't shoot any from full boxes. Full boxes are sought by collectors.
Be very careful where you shoot them, as tracers easily cause fires. It is illegal to fire tracers on federal land (Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish & Wildlife Service, etc.). I believe most states ban their firing on state land too.
The only legal place to fire them is on a military reservation that has been approved for use with tracers. Even then, fires get caused.
In 1975, at Camp Bullis, Texas, we set fire to dry grass sticking above the few inches of SNOW that lay on the ground, firing the M60 machine gun with every fifth round as a tracer. Weird to watch a fire creep along the top of snow.
I've always wanted a few .38 Special tracers for signalling. I have three rounds of .38 Special "Firefly" aerial flares made in the early 1980s by Karlyn Mfg. Co. of Seattle. I carry them for my .38 snubnose when I explore the desert. Years ago, I found a single Karlyn .38 aerial flare in a box of assorted ammo at a gun show, so I sacrified it to testing.
It rose to about 200 feet with a bright trace. I fired it from my backyard at precisely midnight, Dec. 31/Jan. 1 so it wouldn't raise alarm.
I have one .38 Special tracer in my collection. I'd never fire it, as they're hard to find today.
While hunting, a .38 snubnose would be a good noisemaker to signal the classic "3 Shots = Distress" if you need help. A few of your .38 tracers would be good to carry for this too, but you'd have to be very careful in a heavily forested area or you'd start a forest fire.
That old Remington .22 ammo is a bit of a collectible too. And if that's a full brick of 500 rounds of Winchester .22 ammo, that might bring collector interest. You see a lot of individual boxes, but full bricks are not so easily found.
When I began reloading in 1970, that's what CCI primers looked like! I think I still have a few boxes of those old primers around. If they were stored indoors in low humidity and fairly constant temperature, they'll still work fine.
Last fall, I fired some .45 Long Colt ammo I reloaded back in 1976! Worked fine.
What's that round tin under the CCI primers? Musket caps or lead pellets?
I wouldn't be in a hurry to use your haul. Ammo and reloading bullets can bring collector interest, especially if they're still sealed or full boxes.
