Tracer bullet

“ Crack, crack—crack, crack, crack, clamours the machine-gun over by our mess. Up rush the red sparks of the tracer-bullets.
"There he is—there—there—to the left of those two searchlights. Open fire!" calls the C.O.
With a flash and a roar the little three-inch gun speaks out, and the clatter of the falling shell-case can be heard above the scream of the whining projectile. More machine-guns start their staccato tumult. Tracer-bullets rush upward from a dozen places. The gun roars again. The aerodrome is now thoroughly enjoying itself. ”

“ He took his revolver and fired at it, aiming to hit it just in front and below the hammer, its most vulnerable part. Instead, the bullet hits the ground and ricocheting enters the breast of the dead man. He shudders as the body stirs from the force of the shot, although he knows that life has been gone for hours. Everything is plain to him now why his other shots had not taken effect. He was unnerved. How could a man with a hole through his body hope to hit anything. He had heard of men shot through the heart killing their assailants, and had often wondered if he could do it. ”

“ The explosive bullet contains at its nose a small percussion cap, which, upon striking, explodes a charge within and scatters the bullet in tiny fragments, thus tearing a large and ghastly hole in anything in which it is embedded. Some of the poisoned bullets contain no poison, being a composition of lead and copper instead of steel and nickel, as our bullets are now made. ”

“ Holding a thirty-two-calibre pistol in his right hand and aiming it at the target, Kennedy picked up a large piece of coarse homespun from the table and held it loosely over the muzzle of the gun. Then he fired. The bullet tore through the cloth, sped through the air, and buried itself in the target. With a knife he pried it out.
"I doubt if even the inspector himself could have told us that when an ordinary leaden bullet is shot through a woven fabric the weave of the fabric is in the majority of cases impressed on the bullet, sometimes clearly, sometimes faintly." ”

“ Nowadays, with the wax bullets driven by fulminate out of a duelling pistol, shooting off the heads of assistants can be done with very little risk except to the eyes, whereas with a leaden bullet a bad shot means the death of the assistant unless provided with a steel skull cap under a wig. ”

“ It is not strange that the airman does not worry much over the regular steel ammunition of the machine gun, for like other similar dangers, while they are the most fatal, they cannot be seen, so, he is oblivious to their presence; but when the guns are using tracer and incendiary bullets, the stream of fire is not unlike a miniature fire rocket and behind each of the pretty fire rockets comes two silent, fatal 171ball cartridges, for, indeed, the very object of “tracer” ammunition is to show the path the bullets are taking. ”

“ If in that case they hit a man in the trench they cause terrible injuries, because they do not strike with their heads but lengthwise. Whenever we heard of dum-dum bullets we thought of those ricochet bullets, though we did not doubt that there were dum-dum bullets in existence. I doubt, however, if dum-dum bullets are manufactured in factories, for the following reasons:—first, because a dum-dum bullet can easily damage the barrel of a rifle and make it useless ”

“ I commanded. "Wait for her when she runs out. I'll chase her outdoors. She has only one shot left, so you needn't be afraid of her. I'll get that bullet, all right. Scream at her, scare her to death if you can, but don't touch her. If you do, by God, I'll kill you!"
He stole noiselessly down the stairs and disappeared. I tried another panel with the ax, but, as she was clever enough not to shoot, I reloaded my first pistol, and, taking what risk there was without thought, I seized the ax again and with one fierce blow smashed the lock to pieces. ”

“ The principle consists in using large charges of powder and a light bullet, which gives a very high initial velocity and a trajectory practically a right line for 150 or 200 yards, hence the term “Express.” To increase the killing power of the bullet it is made of pure lead and has a hollow point. Upon striking game the bullet spreads outwardly, giving a fearful death-wound. Moreover, for specially ugly game [155] a small explosive cartridge can be dropped into the cavity in the point, making it an explosive bullet. ”

“ A wave of the curious spectators rushed across the street and gathered around the injured man. They found that he had been shot through the fleshy part of the thumb, and the bullet, ranging down the arm, had sliced a furrow to the bone all the way to the elbow. ”

“ John's face was like a mask, although his heart was beating hard. A whistle over his head showed that a bullet had passed there and he heard its plunk as it buried itself in a tree on the other side of the road.
He remembered with some consolation that the modern,, small, high-powered rifle bullet, unless it killed, did not do so very much harm. It went through one so fast that it did not tear flesh or break bones, and the wounds it made were quick to heal. ”

“ Similarly in siege warfare, as soon as high-angle fire with shells became sufficiently accurate, there was no further need of round shot and ricochet.
The term “ ricochet ” is now only applied, in modern rifle shooting, to the graze of a bullet that has struck short. A modern bullet-that has ricochetted inflicts a very severe wound, as its nickel or other hard envelope is torn and jagged by its contact with the ground. With its high remaining velocity it is dangerous even after more than one ricochet, except at extreme ranges. ”

“ And a revolver was found lying close at hand, upon the desk. But this revolver was loaded in every chamber and there was no other weapon to be seen in the room. There was a bullet wound in the left breast of the corpse, and the bullet had penetrated the heart. Death must have been instantaneous. The most mysterious thing about this strange affair was discovered during the autopsy. It is incredible, but it is absolutely true, as it is vouched for under oath by the authorities who were present, that the bullet which was found in the heart of the dead man was made of solid gold. ”

“ A gun fired in the direction of the earth, or in the line of the centre of gravity, would recoil much less (perhaps fifty per cent. less) than when fired vertically; from the very obvious fact, that if the bullet was not kept in position by its friction on the sides of the barrel, it would fall to the ground of itself.
“The recoil of a gun is inseparable from a discharge of its contents—on the broad principle that action begets reaction; it is, therefore, only when the ‘kick,’ as it is called, becomes painful, that it is essential to avoid or lessen it. ”

“ However, there exist dum-dum bullets, as I mentioned before. They are manufactured by the soldiers themselves. If the point is filed or cut off a German infantry bullet, so that the nickel case is cut through and the lead core is laid bare, the bullet explodes when striking or penetrating an object. Should a man be hit in the upper arm by such a projectile the latter, by its explosive force, can mangle the arm to such an extent that it only hangs by a piece of skin. ”

“ You then discover that although you can see the dim shadow of your game, your bullet will have to cut its way through at least twenty twigs before it can reach its goal. A solid bullet may deflect slightly, but it will generally deliver its message direct, unless the opposing objects are more formidable than ordinary small branches. A hollow bullet from an Express rifle will fly into fragments should it strike a twig the size of the little finger. This is quite sufficient to condemn the hollow projectile without any further argument. ”

“ As a result, when projected from the gun, the heaviest side has a tendency to divert the ball and make it more or less erratic in its motion, and, therefore, inaccurate. The spiral motion has the effect of minimizing this difficulty. The cavity formed at the rear of the projectile was devised particularly to cause the thin lip of the bullet to be driven into the grooves formed in the gun barrel, and by that means the boring motion was transmitted to the bullet."
"But as we have no means of rifling our guns, there will be no necessity of putting the cavity in the rear end of our bullets." ”

“ Some savages--as, for instance, those of Timor--when in want of bullets, use stones two or three inches long. Some good sportsmen insist on the advantage, for shooting at very close quarters, of cleaving a conical bullet nearly down to its base, into four parts; these partly separate, and make a fearful wound. I suppose that the bullet leaves the gun with the same force as if it were entire; and that it traverses too short a distance for the altered form to tell seriously upon the speed: when it strikes, it acts like chain-shot. ”

“ The loading of such a gun was a slow and painstaking task. The charge of powder must be measured out and poured down the barrel. The bullet, with its "patch," or bit of rag, must then be rammed down upon the powder, and finally the priming of powder must be placed in the pan. The utmost care was used in loading, but, even then, the spark might fail to ignite the priming, or the latter might be damp, or have been shaken from the pan. Many a brave frontiersman lost his life because, in his time of need, his musket failed to "go off." ”

“ A bullet makes the merciful wound; and a bullet through the head is a simple way of going. The bad wounds come mostly from shells; but there is something about seeing anyone hit by a sniper which is more horrible. It is a cold-blooded kind of killing, more suggestive of murder, this single shot from a sharpshooter waiting as patiently as a cat for a mouse, aimed definitely to take the life of a man.
Again we move on in that narrow cut of earth with its waiting soldiers, which the world knows so well from reading tours of the trenches. ”

“ Explosive bullets we know have been universally condemned in human warfare on account of their barbarity, but against defenceless animals they are still held to be legitimate by so-called sportsmen. Thus, we read: “The impact causes the bullet to expand. Often it breaks into pieces or else takes a mushroom shape, the head in its tremendous velocity dragging and catching with its edges the flesh and viscera; and it often happens in the case of delicate animals that upon leaving the body it makes a hole as big as the crown of a hat.” ”

“ The hard covering is employed to enable the bullet to take the grooves in the rifle, and to prevent it stripping as it passes through the barrel. It also increases the penetrating power of the missile, but diminishes its "stopping" power, unless a vital part or a long bone is struck. By removing the covering from the point of the bullet, as is done in the Dum-Dum bullet, or by splitting the end, the bullet is made to expand or "mushroom" when it strikes the body, and its stopping power is thereby greatly increased, the resulting wound being much more severe. ”

“ Many men were shot right through the chest, of whom nearly all died. In cases where we could not readily locate the bullet we did not waste time looking for it, and several men who recovered from their wounds went back to the ranks with an ounce of Russian lead hidden somewhere in their bodies. Occasionally a bullet would take a most erratic course. ”

“ When suppuration of the wound in the soft parts occurred, however, the remarks made as to the injuries classed under the third heading also apply here in a lesser degree.
With regard to the retention of the bullet, in the case of bullets of small calibre this was a distinctly rare occurrence. I never happened to see an instance of retention of either a Mauser or Lee-Metford bullet in an articulation. It is only possible with bullets practically spent, or travelling at a very low rate of velocity and making irregular impact. ”

“ There is a peculiar sound or thud when a bullet enters a human body, different from that which it makes when striking other objects—a sound, once heard, not easily forgotten. I ordered two men to take the wounded man a few yards to the rear, down the incline, out of the line of fire, where they left him in the shade of some bushes and saw to it that he had his canteen handy, and then they took their places again in the firing line. When the wounded man was removed I picked up his rifle, took off the bayonet and affixed it to mine, thinking I might need it if we came to close quarters. ”

“ A line of sharp-shooters was thrown forward to drive them in; but their guns were not as good and the cover was inferior, and it was only after numerous losses that they succeeded in silencing most of them. They still left several men up among the rocks, who from time to time sent a bullet into the line with deadly effect. One man, in particular, ensconced behind a rock on the hill-side, picked off the men with unerring accuracy. ”

“ The solid bullet of pure lead would have killed upon the spot, as the bullet would have retained its substance although it altered its form, and the shock would have been more severe, The hollow bullet exhibits a peculiar result in a post-mortem examination: the lungs may be hopelessly torn and ragged, the liver and the heart may be also damaged, all by the same projectile, because it has been converted into small shot immediately upon impact. ”

“ Putting aside the question of calibre and volume of the bullets we are concerned with, I believe the most important variations as serious effects of ricochet depend on the relative thickness and the composition of the mantles. Fig. 26 illustrates the relative thickness of the mantles in the Krag-Jörgensen, Mauser, Lee-Metford, and Guedes bullets. Given an equal degree of force and velocity on the part of the bullet at the moment of impact, the assumption is justifiable that the thinner mantles would tear or burst more readily in direct ratio to their relative thinness. ”