A older friend of mine gifted me a bag of loose 45 acp to dispose of for him. It all appeared to be vintage-ish… some ball, some old style round nose soft point hollow points, and 8 of these little oddities. IIRC, he said he thought they might possibly be early Super-vel for law enforcement but isn’t sure. Has anyone run across something like these?

Handloads?

at first I thot they might be old glassers, but I don't think so.

I doubt they're handloads, never seen a boolit like it.

I'm sure someone in the great SigForum will recognize what is going on.

Maybe nuclear tipped.

I’m stumped.

A quick search found this maybe a tracer rounds.

Old .45 ACP ammunition featuring a red center or red color on the projectile is most likely a vintage military tracer round or specialized training ammunition. The most common identification for a red-tipped or red-centered .45 ACP is the .45 ACP Tracer M26 (T30), which was designed as a short-range red flare for emergency signaling.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Here are the primary possibilities for old .45 ACP ammo with a red center:
Military Tracer M26 (T30): Identified by a red tip or red markings, these were produced during the mid-20th century, notably around the Korea/Vietnam era.
Shot Cartridge M12/M15 (Survival Rounds): While often sealed with red wax or a red cardboard disc, these were used in survival kits to shoot small game, often featuring a reddish appearance at the tip.
Commercial Training/Tracer: Modern "red" ammo often uses red polymer coatings (like Federal Syntech) or red tracer compounds (like Ammo Inc. STREAK), but if it is truly "old," it is likely military

If SuperVel would say so on the case.

Are the cases nickel or plated? I dont think the military used either.

If lead is exposed at the tip as it appears to be, it would not be a (US) military cartridge. I had access to 38 Special tracer rounds in Vietnam, but they had FMJ style bullets with red coloring on the tip.

I have seen videos from WWII depicting the firing of 45 ACP tracers, but I believe they would have also used FMJ bullets with trace compound in the base.

What does the headstamp of the cartridges say?

The case heads actually vary when I looked closer. Some are Winchester, some Remington, none say SuperVel. The nickel cases appear to be like any other I’ve handled. My assumption is that these are reloads of some kind but I’m stumped on the actual bullet design. I do know the previous owner did not reload and after a few decades of sitting around in a mixed bag, I’m guessing he’s a bit fuzzy on the exact details on where each ammo type in the bag came from exactly.

There are some other lead tip hollowpoint rounds in the bag… I’ll post up a pic or two at my first opportunity.

quote:

loose 45 acp to dispose of for him.

Not an expert - will be interested to hear the experts chime in - but 'dispose' would definitely seem to be the verb of choice.

After some thought, it occurred to me that the red part of the bullet could be a priming compound insert designed to sort-of explode on impact like the 22 LR “Devastator” bullets used in the attempted assassination of President Reagan.

An Internet search to determine whether such bullets were ever made in .45 caliber was inconclusive. One AI source said that a very few were made in that caliber, another said no, they weren’t. I suspect the second response was based on the commercial brand name, not whether another company might have manufactured something of the sort.

The other possibility that occurs to me is that the red is some sort of polymer insert like Hornady’s FTX (Flex Tip) bullets use. That doesn’t seem likely, but not impossible as even years ago there were experiments with materials placed inside hollow point bullets to allow expansion without the hollow point’s being plugged by clothing, etc.

Not that I would recommend poking at the red part, but a little experimentation would probably determine whether the red is just a cap for something like primer compound or a polymer (or something else) insert.

To reiterate, the bullets pictured are not marked in the conventional or common way of military tracer cartridges, and the bullets themselves with the semijacketed design and probable(?) insert don’t look anything like tracers I’ve seen. Another thing to consider about conventional tracers is that the jacket base is open at the bottom to form a cup for the trace compound. The jackets of semijacketed bullets usually cover the base to ensure that the jacket and core of the bullet do not separate in the barrel when fired.

I’m considering breaking out the bullet puller and sacrificing one of these to deconstruct. That or get some wet newspaper and see what it does when fired into said medium.

As to my “disposal” comment, that was my language, not his- tongue in cheek of course

Are those not the little plastic "plungers" that help bullets expand? Like Hornady Critical Defense?

Like 808 posted, I believe they are 'tracer' rounds, with the tracer compound on the tip of the bullet rather than the base. I've seen the same thing (red chemical) on the tips of .22LR bullets and actually saw these streak down an indoor range. I was the RO on duty (their use is prohibited on the range due to being a fire hazard) and asked the shooters to please put them away and not fire them at the range anymore.

gearhounds - be very careful if you choose to 'deconstruct' one of these as the red tip could be a pyrotechnic compound of some sort.

Could be hollow points that were dipped in red candle wax or red cast bullet lubricant?

Don’t know what they are, but they are not tracers.
Tracer rounds are formed with a full metal jacket cup, then lead is swaged in, then a hole drilled and the tracer compound inserted(it’s a hard dense compound).
When the round is fired that starts the tracer compound inserted.
So the exposed lead and the plastic ball tell me they aren’t tracers.
The military doesn’t use semijacket ammo. (Yes it uses open tip for very specific ammo-sniping)

Tracer bullets for a hand gun seem useless to me. But the emergency red flare makes more sense.

I believe. 45 ACP tracer ammo was meant to be used in Thompson’s or grease guns.

Very hard to tell from the supplied image, but NO Tracer

I would guess that what is in the HP is hard, like an inverted small Pistol Primer that is sealed in place

The Devastator/Exploder company used to make these in all large bore calibers. They were loaded into random brass



The concept was that the inverted primer would detonate upon contact with a semi hard substance thus fragmenting the projectile and creating Multiple wound channels. This never worked out as expected though it was a wonderful advertising gimmick.



Only a few short years after the introduction of the Exploder, projectile manufacturers learned how to score the jackets thus helping free fragmentation of the projectile

When these first came out the manufacture supplied me with a couple of boxes of loaded ammunition but they were also selling the projectiles in boxes of 24 to those folks who wanted to hand load. It's conceivable that I still have some of those sitting on the loading rack

I’m pretty certain that these are not tracers- the lead round nose kind of rules that out from an available information about them. The next logical step would either be expending one of these 8 by either firing or disassembly. I’ll be sure to post whatever results I glean are.