By the way I wanted the texture on the bullet to be stretched.
I set up a planar projection at the front of the bullet to create that effect.

And with this sprite idea. I just can't get it to...

That's a great idea about the sprites.
I was thinking about it but I don't really have any good flame footage.
Is it possible to blend the current shader with footage so it is sorta half half?
I...

This is a pretty cool explosion out of a gun using a cloud particle shader with a raytraced bullet trail.