The alloy already tends to vary slightly. How does one analyze the composition to tell, for sample, the difference between 5.020 percent tin in the copper alloy, and 5.025 percent? Change the alloy too much and it’s properties change- something like three percent chromium turns steel into an entirely different animal: stainless steel.
Microprinting? Possible, yes, but do you understand what forces act on a projectile? If the base of the bullet is exposed lead (very common for jacketed hardnose rounds) that lead is actually eroded measurably in the mere milliseconds of the trip down the barrel, by the several-thousand-degree hot propellant gasses and 50,000+ psi.
To say nothing of the damage it suffers when it impacts something.
An “indestructible sliver” of what? Tungsten? How does one encode the data on it? How does one recover it after the shooting and read that data? A .223 bullet is quite small, the “sliver” would have to be smaller still. There’s just one, presumably, per round- together that adds up to pretty darn low recovery odds.
But hey, if it only doubles the cost of the ammo, and adds just major levels of bureaucracy, manufacturing difficulties, recordkeeping, package tracking and chain-of-custody hassles, it’s all worth it, isn’t it?
Happy- the analogy isn’t perfect, but, just as a quick question about magazine capacities, how does the current federal restriction of ten rounds on magazine capacity affect the DC shooter?
The rest of us, hundreds of thousands who have never used a firearm illegally, should accept that limitation because it might have saved somebody’s life, maybe, theoretically?
And yes, tracers have been known to start grass fires. As have love letters, cigarrettes, kids with matches, fireworks, ad nauseum. Take heart in the fact that they’re not very common. The few “oh, that’s cool” tracer shots wear thin after a while, and they’re usually somewhat more expensive than regular ammo.
