I agree with Heliocon. I would imagine that when firing from near your line of sight the tracer would look like a dot, and from a more perpendicular angle it would look like a laser.
So the question to ChrisDNT is; Did you ever observe the 20mm tracer being fired by somebody else from a bit further away, rather than co-axial with the bore?
I've no experience with tracers but I know sparklers make a trail with just the speed of a hand wave
so I could imagine the 'laser effect'.