Why does Walt use tracer bullets for his machine gun?
As it can be clearly seen in the first and the last episodes of the fifth season of Breaking Bad, the ammo boxes in Walt's car say that there are tracer bullets in them. Why is that? It wasn't explained in the Talking Bad episode that followed right after the last episode, because it wasn't as important as the other things they only had an hour to talk about live, but I think it's still peculiar.
Why tracer bullets and not the ordinary ones? As far as I know tracer bullets only "ignite" at least about flying for ten meters or so, and there wasn't even that much distance between the gun and the back wall of the club house the shooting took place at.
Best Answer
It looks as though these are portrayed as standard US Military issue rounds. For this type of round, every fifth round is a tracer round ... it's the way they come in the can. Tracer rounds ignite as soon as the bullet is fired, which means they are glowing when they have left the barrel of the gun. The 7.62mm round fired out of the M60 will stay lit out to about 900 meters (max effective range of an M60 machine gun is 1100 meters). To give you a better idea on tracers, here is the excerpt from wikipedia:
Tracer ammunition (tracers) are bullets or cannon caliber projectiles that are built with a small pyrotechnic charge in their base. Ignited by the burning powder, the pyrotechnic composition burns very brightly, making the projectile visible to the naked eye. This enables the shooter to follow the projectile trajectory to make aiming corrections.
When used, tracers are usually loaded as every fifth round in machine gun belts, referred to as four-to-one tracer. Platoon and squad leaders will sometimes load their magazines entirely with tracers to mark targets for their soldiers to fire on. Tracers are also sometimes placed two or three rounds from the bottom of magazines to alert the shooter that their weapon is almost empty.
Tracer rounds may also ignite flammable substances on contact from a nominal distance.
As I stated, this is just the way the ammunition comes when pre-packaged for military use.
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What is the purpose of tracer bullets?
Tracer rounds, which are usually loaded as every fifth round in machine gun belts, provide essential information to Soldiers firing at an enemy target by creating a line-of-sight that allows them to track the trajectory of their bullets and adjust their aim.Why are tracers used in combat?
Tracer rounds have lit up battlefields since the First World War. Those fiery streaks from pyrotechnic rounds serve an important function: they indicate where the rounds from a machine gun or cannon are hitting, enabling machine-gunners or pilots to correct their aim.What did tracer bullets do in ww1?
Tracers proved useful as a countermeasure against Zeppelins used by Germany during World War I. The airships were used for reconnaissance, surveillance and bombing operations. Normal bullets merely had the effect of causing a slow leak, but tracers could ignite the hydrogen gasbags, and bring down the airship quickly.Are the tracers in fury accurate?
Almost all of the bullets fired in Fury are tracers. This inspired some guffaws from audiences, who claimed that the bullets looked like lasers from the Star Wars movies. Unbeknownst to such moviegoers, the tracer fire is completely accurate, and actually is what inspired such lasers seen in science-fiction movies.TRACER | Bullets That Light Up When Fired
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