Unknown 50 cal projectile

[orcutteod]

A friend found this .50 cal BMG round near an old Army base. I have never seen a hollowed out .50 cal projectile before. My first thought it's a dummy round. Friend thinks it might be an adaption for film with the .50 adapted to cycle on a low powder charge with smooth bore barrels.

 

[flak18]

A friend found this .50 cal BMG round near an old Army base. I have never seen a hollowed out .50 cal projectile before. My first thought it's a dummy round. Friend thinks it might be an adaption for film with the .50 adapted to cycle on a low powder charge with smooth bore barrels.

Tracer

 

[orcutteod]

Yes a uncrimped tracer. Reply from gun boards ammo forum.
(The case is a WWII Salt Lake City plant made piece. The bullet is an empty tracer jacket. It was never finished and is definitely not for a smoothbore low powder charge round. Adding additional volume to a cartridge and reducing the powder charge is a bad thing to do so no way it would be for that.
The empty tracer jackets are actually pretty common. Some of the surplus ammo and component dealers used to sell them in bulk for guys who wanted to make specialty or oddball bullets. Normally there would be a lead plug in the nose and a lead sleeve around the steel tracer cannister all of which would be pressed into the jacket. With all that stuffed in there a seal of copper or plastic would be put over it all and the end of the jacket rolled over to hold everything inside. Lastly it would go through a machine that would roll a cannelure on the bullet about 3/4 in from the base. That is a little groove they use to crimp the neck of the case into for holding the bullet tight in the case. My guess is that would have been an M17 tracer bullet. You can look that up online and see what a finished bullet looks like.)