Tracer Ammunition

I cant seem to remember, but are you allowed to fire and buy tracer ammunition in canada?

Thought i'd be cool

Dont think so...not unless you are military or law enforcement, but I am not 100%

Talk to gord at Milarm, if it's legal they can get it for you. Probably only in 308 though

some guys have them for sale, but only if you reload them. I've seen bags of 1000 advertised for sale from time to time.

You can shoot em, just cant hunt with em, im pretty sure thats the regs

The government isn't even really sure, but I know they are difficult to import(read impossible) and if you see-em, snap-em up.

They are illegal for hunting use by virtue of their full-metal jackets and would be frowned-upon by most COs in-the-know as they represent a fire hazard. Most older tracers are hard on barrels like WWII stuff as much from the phosphorous pellet and colourant additives-Red/Strontium, Green/Copper Sulphate, Yellow Sodium as the probably corrosive priming mixture. These would probably be in 7.62x54R, .303 british .30-06 or 8mm. Remember too, that most of them are designed to not be seen from the muzzle as this would give away the position of the shooter. Most , are designed to light-up at least 100 or 200 metres away, so when you are disappointed shooting them into your favourite gravel bank at 50 yards, think about what I've said.

Tracers in 7.62x39 and .308 and .223 are almost all for sure non-corrosive primed, but watch the Chinese ones as they may be corrosive leftovers from the Viet-Nam era. The SKS and most AKs and RPKs have chrome-lined bores and only require special attention at the chamber when corrosive ammo is used.

The coolest thing is .22LR tracer ammo which is only available to law enforcement in this country, and just because they can, very few even know about them or bother to import. I have a few in my cartridge collection that were made-in France in the 70's. A lot of 12-guage"Tracer" rounds are really only loaded with hunter-orange wads to allow skeet shooters to see their mistakes, so don't get all bummed-out when you've told all you're buddies to come see the fireworks.

Without proper knowledge of painted-tip coding, it's hard for the layman to tell from light ball, Armour Piercing Tracer or incendiary so proceed with caution and enjoy. On that note, when you are at the gun shows, not to scare anybody unnecessarily, but remember that such rounds exist that are known as proving rounds or what they used to call "Blue Pills" that are used to proof-test weapons in armory settings. Some of these are designed to produce overpressure in the amount of 75-110,000 pounds per square-inch pressure, so just because the tip is red, assume nothing and try to stick with packaged rounds that tell you what they are.

I have OLIN(Winchester) overpressure proof rounds in a plain white box, in .308, with a nickeled case and red-lacquered bullet and primer that are loaded to 80,000 psi with a 200-grain silvertip. These are not trcers and I am glad I have the box, as I know it would blow my Global Firearms,.308 based on a Krag Jorgensen action all to hell(Or would-it?) It took me 20 years to find that gun so I'm not gonna try-it and neither should you, unless you own a firearms lab.