Do tracers cause any actual damage.

[Ploughman]

Originally Posted by Letum

In reality, tracer rounds are only about 5%-15% lighter than a normal round and just as solid. The lead that is lost in the tracer is very soft anyway and the harder jacket remains very similar.

So yes, tracer rounds have very similar characteristics to standard rounds. In fact, tracer rounds are designed to be as similar to ball rounds as possible in order to match their flight path as closely as they can.
There are differences of course, but they are negligible for most purposes,

I remember some story from the Ubi-Zoo about an American fighter group that removed tracers from their belts and found they scored much better as the tracer had a different ballistic behaviour to the ball and was causing them to miss with the bulk of their fire. I know this is .50 cal, and the difference with .303 would be substantial. Anyone remember the details of this?