Do tracers cause any actual damage.

[lonewulf]

Originally Posted by Redroach

Ah, I got a question to the ammo-savvy people, to maybe answer my ever-nagging question:
If I, as a "soft target" get hit with a tracer round
a) in a clean shot through
b) where the round gets buried in my body

, I suppose that has additional, nasty effects when compared to normal rounds, right?
Maybe the in-and-out shot should not be too bad because it has only limited contact time with skin and flesh, but I imagine the tracer round that gets stuck in the body being very, very bad. I mean, as far as I remember, Phosphorus is not the coolest-burning substance and probably, a significant volume of tissue gets burned outright (i.e. within myself, then getting gangrenous etc. pp.). That's a vision I'm not too eager to make it reality, to be honest...
Is that true? I mean, the whole thingy with tracer rounds doing additional damage on soft tissue?

I've hunted for years and at one point I used military surplus .303 ball ammo (just ball, not tracer) on Red deer (not something I'd recommend to anyone). Based on that experience I'd say if you were hit by one of those things, and the projectile remained inside the torso, you probably wouldn't give a monkey's if it was tracer or not. Pretty much you'd be dead or so far gone you may as well be. ( FMJ ammo usually holds together well, however, there is no telling what it will do once it encounters flesh and bone - go sideways, backwards, tumble end-on-end - anything can happen). The damage caused by one of these rounds passing straight through the body will depend on the impact point and what the projectile engaged on its journey. Projectiles that strike bone typically create secondary splinter wounds that can be horribly destructive to surrounding tissues. Organ damage can also be very significant. If you aren't already dead by the time the projectile is exiting the body you probably soon will be. Gut shot wounds will typically allow game to escape and in these instances death may take some days. I see no reason why people who are hit in the lower abdomen would fair any differently. In my experience, people seriously underestimate the destructive/wounding power of your average high powered rifle.

[Redroach]

I think I've been misunderstood. Tumbling etc., is all well and I understand that - but what I really wanted to know about is the burn damage by a tracer round. I can imagine the burn effects being pretty severe in their own right if the shot gets stuck in the body.

[Friendly_flyer]

Originally Posted by Redroach

I think I've been misunderstood. Tumbling etc., is all well and I understand that - but what I really wanted to know about is the burn damage by a tracer round. I can imagine the burn effects being pretty severe in their own right if the shot gets stuck in the body.

The burning substances of a tracer is pretty much the same as in fireworks, so yes, it burns rather hot. However, as Lonewulf explained, the round would spend a very short time inside the body. A burn is proportional to temperature x area exposed x duration of exposure. Considering the area creating the burn is very small, and the time it contact with flesh is typically in tenths of seconds or less, the burn, while painful, would not in itself likely be lethal. The effect of the bullet itself on the other hand...

In the unlikely case a bullet ended up expending all two seconds worth of tracer flame inside you, the damage would be considerable. Another effect is that the residue would likely be rather unhealthy stuff. Still, the bullet would have to end up inside you in the first place, so chances are you'd still die from the bullet wound rather than the tracer burn.