Richard Atkins
Q I was chatting with friends about where we missed clays and how we might be able to understand our mistakes. Friends will sometimes say things like “You missed that one behind” but there’s always a debate about whether they are right. Someone suggested a gun camera such as the Shotkam, which might help. But then one of the older shooters recalled that he used to use tracer cartridges. I haven’t seen them advertised at all, and wondered if they are still available today?
A Tracer cartridges were indeed available in the UK years ago. I tried some myself as a youngster, but they haven’t been available to civilians for around 25 years. They were removed from sale mainly because they presented a fire hazard to farm buildings, crops and the like. This was due to the incendiary trace pellet, which was embedded into the base of a fibre wad. The pellet was ignited by the burning propellant powder and burned brightly so you could see it in flight. Of course if the wad landed before the trace pellet had burned out it could start a fire.
A tracer shotgun cartridge sounds like a great idea but they weren’t as useful as you’d hope. That’s partly because they didn’t reliably give you a true indication of the path of the shot load. The wads weren’t very aerodynamically stable and had
