7.62x51 British Tracer Trials, Dark Ignition Long Range

[wolfganggross]

Can someone please tell us the story of the British tracer dark igition long range trials (and maybe the length of trace and tracer brilliance trials too)? These had tips that were hand painted from the Kynoch factory and was told in very limited #'s, maybe 50 each. Headstamp K/61/L5A1. Been told of 14? of the dark ignition ones with colors of red, Dk blue, Dk blue/ light blue, purple, silver, green, pink/ black, red/ black, purple/ red, yellow, light blue/ pink, red/ light blue, and brown. Thanks for any help, kevin (wolfgang gross)

 

[smle2009]

Hi Kevin,
not too sure about the dark ignition tracer trials,TonyE is the man to answer this, but from documents I have all British 7.62mm tracer are dark ignition out to 1,000 yards and was very close to ball trajectory.
The headstamp you give,not sure why that has significance?,I have one of these and as far as I know it was a 'normal' tracer by ICI Kynoch that was not accepted therefore no NATO acceptance mark,Radway Green got this honour, the L5A1 number was given to the accepted and approved tracer in 1959.

All the best
Tony

 

[TonyE]

British 7.62mm tracer trials are a very long and complex subject and there are literally dozens of different types tested between 1956 and about 1970. It is very hard to identify specific types without having the documentation and most of this is long gone. The specific trials I think you are referring to are the 1963/64 trials for long range tracers. The dark ignition part was taken as standard. The object was to obtain a trace to 1,300 yards with matching to the ball trajectory at certain ranges. A lot of work had been done previously on trajectory matching and several degraded ogive bullets had been developed to better match ball bullets as the tracer bullet became lighter at longer ranges. One of these designs, the 4 calibre radius head XL10E1 was the starting point for the long range trials. There were eight different 4 CRH bullets in this series but they mainly identified by case head stripes with normal red tips.There were further trials in 1968 with what are known as "20 series" bullets.

I am not sure if the K61 rounds are from these trials as I thought that most of the cases were K63. My notes are far from complete but I suspect the K61 are from an earlier trial that led to the L5A3. However, I do have the following K61 trial rounds with what little info I have:

Dark green tip - Type 2
Red tip - Type 3
Dark blue tip - Type 4
Red/blue tip - ?
Mauve tip - ?
Light blue tip - ?

Attached are some labels. i believe the buff coloured ones refer to the long range trials and are all on K63 cases. The two white labels refer to the degraded ogive trials and are on K62 cases. I will post some pictures of the rounds later when I have photographed them.

smle2009 - actually the L5A2 was a bright ignition tracer for use in brush and jungle. Although type approved it was never formally issued for service.

Regards
TonyE

 

[TonyE]

Some pictures of the rounds in question. They show the K61 rounds, the degraded ogive types and another series with just a splash of paint on the tip, but I am unsure which trials these are. All are on K68 cases. The single round is a very early 1957 type of degraded ogive tracer.

Regards
TonyE

 

[wolfganggross]

Thanks TonyE and SMLE2009
At the top of page is the information that I found on the K/61/L5A1 from 2 years ago, but didn't write down my reference and do not remember who wrote it (stupid). Then Purchased a few rounds at a cartridge show last month and it came with a index card that said;
"7.62 NATO Kynoch exper. trace from original marked boxes out of the Kynoch plant. Boxes marked to corespond with lot nos. and markings from Bill Woodin - Chicago APR 68, author of 30.06 book." Here is a list of the colors and numbers, maybe they can help you.
Item #
5-purple tip red ring
7-yellow tip
9-blue (light) tip
10-brown tip
12-red tip dk green ring
14-grey
15-blue tip pink ring
16-pink tip dk blue ring
17-orange tip lt blue ring
18-dark blue tip lt blue ring
21-dk blue
22-green

From the older non credited information have written down:

Length of trace trials 1968 headstamp +/K/68/L2A2
Slash of piant on bullet in silver, yellow, plain, orange, green, and red

UK tracer brillianc trials 1969 headstamp +/K/69/L5A3
Slash of paint on bullet in brown, black, green, white, and lime green

Then on same page have written, and don't know if it belongs;
South African Proofs
plain PMP 72 7.62 HP
brown PMP 72 7.62 HP
yellow 86 13-289 12 (yellow case head)
yellow
green SAM 63 7.62 HP

Will take pictures later tonight of the long range trials K/61 and post them, have about 9 so far. Didn't really understand what they meant by "slash of paint on bullet", great to see.
Thanks again kevin

 

[TonyE]

Many thanks for that, I will see how it correlates with the notes I have. It would be nice to find the Kynoch loading notes for all these rounds but I suspect they have been lost forever.

The "splash" of paint simply means that the tip of the bullet has a bit of paint on one side, rather than the whole tip being dipped. The K68 rounds I show have the splash so probably come from the length of trace trials you mention. Here is the picture again and you can see the paint has just been brushed on one side of the tip.

Regards
TonyE.

 

[wolfganggross]

Thanks again,

 

[TonyE]

Thanks for showing those. I think that Nos. 1,2,4,and 7 (left to right in your picture) are from the degraded ogive trials and are 4 CRH bullets. There was just so much going on with tracer trials in the 1960s that it is difficult to tell which is what!

Regards
TonyE

 

[DAVE S]

Here is a more complete list of the UK dark ignition Long range trials experimental tracers from the early 1960’s.
#1 Purple
#2 Green
#3 Orange red
#4 Dark blue
#5 Purple over red
#6 Pink
#7 Yellow
#8 ???
#9 Paleblue
#10 Brown
#11 ???
#12 Red over green
#13 ???
#14 Gray
#15 Pale blue over pink
#16 Pink over dark blue
#17 Red over pale blue
#18 Dark blue over pale blue
#19 Purple
#20 Orange red
#21 Dark blue
#22 Green

Headstamps
Items 1 to 18; K 61 L5A1
Items 19 and 20; K 61 (+) L2A2
Items 21 and 22; K 61 (+) L2A2 and K 62 L5A3

Can anyone fill in the colors for #8, #11 and #13?





While none of these cartridges entered service in the UK, one of the designs with a degraded ogive appears to have been the starting point for the Australian F3 tracer that did enter service for that country.

NATO Dave

 

[TonyE]

Thanks Dave, a useful list an good pictures of the packets.

Cheers
TonyE

 

[NATO7.62]

DaveS and TonyE marvellous info for my collection thanks, Jan.

 

[mausernut]

I find the remark on "salt coated" powder interesting, maybe an attempt to reduce muzzle flash..? Powder chemistry is very complex and interesting imho.
Soren