I'm looking to buy a bunch of 62 gr 223 bullets and tracers are actually a bit cheaper than normal SS109 pull downs.  Are tracers any less accurate than normal SS109 62 gr bullets?

in my experience yes.

Shooting at 600 yards they where all over the place, as in they kept a 20 foot group

i have found getting them to light is a little harder than you would expect.  shooting steel or hard targets are pretty fun since they bounce all over the place.  but you best not shoot them if its try, won't end well

I've never reloaded them, but I've found most inside of 200yds or so to be on par with plinking ammo.  Just don't shoot them at steel when it is dry, think pop flare in a hayfield

If your barrel is on the shorter side, they can be real hard to light.... and unless you are shooting past 100 yards, you wont see much.

As for accuracy... the 64 grain american eagle stuff I've tried was not very accurate... plinking...

I know .308 tracers seem to light about 150-200yds.  Never had one light before 100yds.  Seems tracers work both ways in the field....

Last tracers I had were 5.56, they were almost all visible by 20yds, accuracy to 100 was ok, out to three would serve the purpose of designating, not much good beyond, occasional fliers were pretty common. Pyrotechnic seperated on quite a few. I have not loaded them, they are long as hell, I can't imagine not having to substantially change loads. Course the length combined with the 1:9 may also be responsible for the accuracy results.

how about the older 55gr tracers?  i bought 500 of them because i hear they light sooner, tried out 10 the other day, 3 lit, 1 right out of the barrel and very bright.  i am guessing it's just because they were pulled and subjected to a little too much moisture.

I always have some tracers in my stores, I use them as the second or third rounds in the mag to let me know when the mag is coming to an end. And no I don't use them on the range, I have them in my field mags, never know when you might run into a couple zombies..... Oh, and I too find them not too accurate also.

You have a burning substance in the rear of the projo, burn rates vary and with that so does base drag effects.

It is illegal ot shoot tracers or incendiary projectiles on federal land, unless it's on an approved (read military or police) range.
As far as I know, all states ban their firing on state land.
That narrows it down to shooting them on private land. But if you start a fire on private land, and local or federal resources are used to put it out, you could be handed the bill.
Just not worth risking a range or forest fire, shooting tracers or incendiaries.
The feds and states are cracking down on people who start fires that cost taxpayer money to put them out. This is as it should be, because such fires not only destroy public land, but they endanger lives. The damage to wildlife can be catastrophic too.

As for accuracy. Imagine a bullet that shed its weight unevenly as it traveled through the air. That sound accurate to you?

As noted above, US Military tracers, by design, should not light until at least 100m-150m downrange.   That's to make it harder for the folks on the receiving end of the fire to track the tracers back to the source.

They are also significantly longer for the same basic starting weight.   The M855 and M856 are a good example of this.  1 in 9" twist is actually the ideal twist rate to stabilize the M855 ball round.  However the much longer M856 round requires the faster 1 in 7" twist to deliver the required long range stability to match the long range penetration required of the M855 ball round (steel pot at 700m).    That fact is lost on all the tacti-cool types who insist the mil spec 1 in 7" twist is better on an AR shooting M855 and similar length rounds.   It's just not and the extra spin from the faster twist exacerbates the accuracy issues with M855 ball ammo (although it's less of an issue in the M4 with it's shorter barrel and lower muzzle velocity - with commensurately lower rpm imparted to the bullet).  One in 7" twist was a necessary evil to enable an M16A2 or M4 to stabilize the longer M856 round - something that is a very dubious capability at best.

The tracer round itself is designed to accommodate the area denial traits of the machine gun where dispersion is considered a good thing, so lack of accuracy isn't really a consideration, nor is the reality that the trajectory of tracer and ball rounds no longer co-incide at longer ranges anyway.

So...if you want to shoot patterns rather than groups, a tracer is not a bad way to go.  Otherwise, stick with ball ammo.

In terms of M855 and M193 ball, both suffer from generous acceptance limits in terms of accuracy, but the M855 projectile with it's more complex construction and penetrator is much less consistent and much less accurate than the comparatively simple lead core and copper jacketed M193 projectile.   Again it's a case of there being a performance downside to the improved penetration of the M855 round compared to the M193 round.

Personally, I think for general plinking and shooting out to 350m, the M193 round in a 1-12 or 1-9 twist barrel is pretty hard to beat.    

I just shot off about 90 of the 62gr pull tracers I loaded up with pick up brass, CCI mil primer, 24.5gr WC844T and they were very weird.  Shooting out to about 260/300yds and they were close to where I was aiming but would waive at the end or go in circles, is that just a ricochet?  
Myself shooting them it was hard to see but the other guys with me said they were all lighting, is that just harder for the shooter to see them?
I was shooting my Colt M4 SOCOM upper and HALO can.

well, hopefully, the accurancy would not be worse, since they are used to visually direct and correct trajectories of other rounds behind them.  however, my guess would be that there would be some error caused by the burning material ablating away from the round as it travels down range.

I've read a lot about artillery and only just now realized that base bleed works the same for a tracer.

I feel stupid.

my recent range day confirmed that all projectiles do indeed richochet, and it is indeed somewhat easier for observers to see and follow tracers than for the actual shooter (me) - click on the photos below to view my videos

i've fired a lot of 240s with 4/1 tracer ball and maybe i'm just used to the slower and larget 308 tracers but they seemed a lot more visible than the 5.56 i loaded up.  

ehh i have them and the powder, might as well use them.  they light they light if not no big deal.  next time i'll shoot at steel with them.

oh does suppressed vs un suppressed matter for lighting them?

The 1-7 twist was needed in the A2 at A2 velocities to stabilize the M856 tracer round.   The M4 with it's shorter barrel launches it a bit slower with a bit less spin so it may not be quite as stable.

More likely it's just losing it's center of gravity as the compound in the base does not always burn evenly.