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Steel cased 223?

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Interesting... So how would leaving an ammo can full of Wolf in the July sun during a carbine class and shooting all 500+ rounds without a single hick-up then doing the same thing in August, again without incident, figure into that theory?

 

You guys come up with the best ideas... seriously.

 

lol

Note that my rifle is a Bushmaster DCM with a match chamber.

I'd bet your carbine has a somewhat looser chamber.

 

The second time i had a failure to extract a spent round during a match, I knew I had to find a solution.

And I did.

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Do you use it?

 

I want to hear what has broken on your rifle from using it. Not what you heard on the Internet or from some guy at the range. Your real life problems with it.

 

Obviously you can't reload it. So that's a big negative if you're a reloader.

 

Wolf .223 has been boxer primed. You actually can reload it. Heck, you can reload Brendan pined cases if you want.

 

I actually have an old manual with some how to advice on reliading in hard times and what you can and can't get away with.

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Steel cases are coated and when you fire them they heat up and leave residue which causes the case to stick. I've had more than one case stuck in my Rock River AR before I stopped using steel. I was told it could break the extractor. I sold the remainder of a spam can and I still have a spam can of Wolf unopened. One of these days I'll either buy something that will shoot it or sell them.

 

Pure internet BS! I challange anyone who actually thinks this to try it. If an excractor breaks it will do it regardless if you are shooting steel or brass cased ammunition it should be heat treated to the point where it's much harder then any steel casing. If it does break it was either defective or has worn out from shooting period. Steel cases are not much harder or thicker then brass and cause no extra wear on any firearm. I have put at least a combined 5k rounds of steel 9mm through my Baby eagle and Khar cw9 and the internals incluing the extractor and FP are in perfect condition upon inspection, the CW9 is my Carry weapon.

 

90% of malfuntions with steel cased ammunition are hard primers. Eject the round put it back and pull the trigger and it will go boom for the 2nd time around more then 95% of the time. No 2 firearms are made exactly alike when they come off the assembely line and each will function a bit differently, this is why shooter A. has no issues with his rifle and steel cased ammo while shooter B. with the same rifle does. That being said No factory produced firearm is ever 100% perfect out of the box, take it too a master gun smith and they can tell you 50 ways from Tuesday on how to improve it. If he tell's you it's because you are using that S--T steel cased ammo then he is not a qualified gun smith as far as I am concerned.

 

From my experiance most malfuntions are from user error, damaged or faulty magazines and failure to do the proper maintance on one's firearm.

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Note that my rifle is a Bushmaster DCM with a match chamber.

I'd bet your carbine has a somewhat looser chamber.

 

The second time i had a failure to extract a spent round during a match, I knew I had to find a solution.

And I did.

 

One of mine was a BM as well. Obviosly they don't come with the correct chamber spec. The chamber in my BM has been reemed to true 5.56 specs.

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Interesting... So how would leaving an ammo can full of Wolf in the July sun during a carbine class and shooting all 500+ rounds without a single hick-up then doing the same thing in August, again without incident, figure into that theory?

 

You guys come up with the best ideas... seriously.

 

lol

You're gonna need a bigger boat...err...cooler ;)

 

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QUOTE; "From my experiance most malfuntions are from user error, damaged or faulty magazines and failure to do the proper maintance on one's firearm."

 

 

I've shot steel through my SKS and my nines for years without a problem. I shot about 50 rounds of steel from my AR and had a jam. Cleared the jam, reloaded and on the second shot...jam. Cleared the jam and took the gun home for a thorough cleaning. Next time at the range, fired 1 mag and on the 2nd round of the 2nd mag had another jam. this time I had brought a cleaning kit, cleared, cleaned & oiled. 8th rd in the next mag jammed. Cleared the jam, took the gun home for another thorough cleaning. Next trip to the range I shot about 150+ rounds of brass without a malfunction. The next time I make it to the range I will try another 100+ rounds of brass to see if I have any problems.

 

I've been shooting since I was 10, I own a number of rifles, shotguns,and pistols, and in the 45 yrs of my experience I haven't had an issue with stuck cases till now, except for my 10/22 when I replace the original bbl with a bull bbl and had to have the chamber polished. It's highly possible that my AR has a tight chamber and needs some work. I also know that steel cases are rough and can cause wear to a chamber, Brass is slicker and causes less wear, that is one of the reasons it is used.

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QUOTE; "From my experiance most malfuntions are from user error, damaged or faulty magazines and failure to do the proper maintance on one's firearm."

 

 

I've shot steel through my SKS and my nines for years without a problem. I shot about 50 rounds of steel from my AR and had a jam. Cleared the jam, reloaded and on the second shot...jam. Cleared the jam and took the gun home for a thorough cleaning. Next time at the range, fired 1 mag and on the 2nd round of the 2nd mag had another jam. this time I had brought a cleaning kit, cleared, cleaned & oiled. 8th rd in the next mag jammed. Cleared the jam, took the gun home for another thorough cleaning. Next trip to the range I shot about 150+ rounds of brass without a malfunction. The next time I make it to the range I will try another 100+ rounds of brass to see if I have any problems.

 

I've been shooting since I was 10, I own a number of rifles, shotguns,and pistols, and in the 45 yrs of my experience I haven't had an issue with stuck cases till now, except for my 10/22 when I replace the original bbl with a bull bbl and had to have the chamber polished. It's highly possible that my AR has a tight chamber and needs some work. I also know that steel cases are rough and can cause wear to a chamber, Brass is slicker and causes less wear, that is one of the reasons it is used.

 

what rifle was used? almost sure the chamber was out of spec.

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I also know that steel cases are rough and can cause wear to a chamber, Brass is slicker and causes less wear, that is one of the reasons it is used

 

Again a complete myth created by gun snobs(no I am not calling you a snob) and fueled by the internet. the wear on the chamber will be no differnt with either, the thickness and spec of the steel case is comparable to a brass case, the amount of contact the steel is making with the chamber and the friction it will cause is no more then brass. You may remove the interior finish off a bit quicker then you would with brass however once the firearm is broken in it has caused no more "damage" if you want to call it that then Brass would have during the same break in process. If your statement were true chamers in all firearms with tighter tolerences then the AK including the SKS would continue to erode away until rendered useless after a few thousand rounds. It Just doesnt happen like that. I have an SKS that will slpit the neck of the Brass after each shot, it does the same to the steel casing. Side by side the marks on the casings are identical as well as the legnth of the split. This pretty much proves that both casings are made to the same specs and tolerences the only difference being the material.

 

By all rights if that were correct the Baby Eagle that I mentiond earlier would be inoperable after the thousands of rounds of steel I have put through it. That being said as stated earlier in this thread no 2 rifles or any firearm for that matter from the same manufacture built at the same time are going to be completely the same off the line or out of the box. One may have no issues the other might, all you need is less then a thousands of an inch to be different in one out of a few specific locations and your looking at feeding, jamming, or ejection issues. There are gunsmiths out there who can take any brand new firearm and correct at least a half dozen minor manufacturing flaws and make the firearm that much more reliable just by looking at it for 5 minutes.

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Great article! It kinda proves my point with the wear but not so much with the coatings. I also found out that my rifle does not have a chrome lined barrel or chamber which might be one reason I'm experiencing more jams with steel.

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Great article! I was at first a bit intimidated by the whole...........40,000 rounds and 4 brand new rifles scenario, however it was all brought down to a level I can relate to with the following statement............

 

"To others, the increased cost of brass cased ammunition isn’t worth it – after all, the Wolf and Brown Bear ammo had very few malfunctions, all things considered. Plus, let’s be honest – in all likelihood, most people will never shoot 10,000 rounds through their AR-15. As a company we would be excited if they did, but the use these rifles saw was far beyond what is likely to be encountered in the real world. So, for many consumers, this test will be justification that buying steel cased ammunition is a sensible decision. In many cases, it is."

 

Thanks again for the link!

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Here is a great read for this debate, FWIW.

 

http://www.luckygunn...eel-cased-ammo/

 

Good article. I'll shoot steel cased, but not copper washed steel jackets. They are just too hard, and in the land of pinned muzzle devices the economics change. Also, their standards were pretty lax form my perspective. They were happy with 4 MOA groups from a rest, and failure was keyholing. The reality for most people is they would have been going WTF well before 12 moa keyholing groups at 50 yards. Also I tend to practice 3 gun type drills and the rate of fire is way more than off a bench for accuracy. How much you heat up the barrel is probably a huge factor in how much steel jacketed reduces barrel life for you.

 

As much as one person I know who kept on shooting wolf after they went back to steel jackets form copper jackets, his round count to WTF is kind of linearly proportional to their round count and starting and end point. Which is interesting.

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Good article. I'll shoot steel cased, but not copper washed steel jackets. They are just too hard, and in the land of pinned muzzle devices the economics change. Also, their standards were pretty lax form my perspective. They were happy with 4 MOA groups from a rest, and failure was keyholing. The reality for most people is they would have been going WTF well before 12 moa keyholing groups at 50 yards. Also I tend to practice 3 gun type drills and the rate of fire is way more than off a bench for accuracy. How much you heat up the barrel is probably a huge factor in how much steel jacketed reduces barrel life for you.

 

As much as one person I know who kept on shooting wolf after they went back to steel jackets form copper jackets, his round count to WTF is kind of linearly proportional to their round count and starting and end point. Which is interesting.

 

+1

This, this article has been discussed on just about every major site out there and there are several factors involved it in, 1 is shooting 5k rounds rapidly is going to heat the barrel up to no end which will cause all sorts of issues. If one were to shoot 5k-10k rouds out of their AR-15 over lets say a year or 2 then you will not see this kind of damage. Again this is not just my opinion this is been proven by others all over the net who have been shooting steel over a long period of time. Pushing anything to it's limit at one shot is going to damage it. Anyone own a boat? Drop it in the water and then open the throttle up all the way all the time guarantee you will have some major issues pretty soon. Regarding the extractor wear I faild to see any before pictures taken under a microsope to making a comparison of the after on a machined part is not exactly daming to me. Lets face it maybe 2 or 3% of the members on this site shoot 5-10k rounds a year period no less in one session.

 

What many have taken away from this is that steel cased ammo performed rather well or better then expected. Litte to no jams, cleaner then the American brassed cased ammunition and unless you plan on going into a land war tomorrow all by yourself or have a mission to beat the s--t out of

your rifle in one shooting session you can shoot steel cased ammo for a very long time with little to no heavy wear on the internals and will most likely

have to change the barrel out never. Which coveres about 95% of casual shooters out there.

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this topic can be debated to no end.  it's all going to come down to your own comfort level/experience with shooting this type of ammo.  I've only put brass cased ammo through my ar so far (new build, around 500 rounds at this point)  i'm interested in seeing how the wolf wpa runs through it so i just picked up a 100 rounds.  if it jams up in my mags, or i get multiple ftf or fte...then i'll know this ammo isn't right for my ar.  not that it's necessarily bad ammo...it just may not run well in my rifle.

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this topic can be debated to no end.  it's all going to come down to your own comfort level/experience with shooting this type of ammo.  I've only put brass cased ammo through my ar so far (new build, around 500 rounds at this point)  i'm interested in seeing how the wolf wpa runs through it so i just picked up a 100 rounds.  if it jams up in my mags, or i get multiple ftf or fte...then i'll know this ammo isn't right for my ar.  not that it's necessarily bad ammo...it just may not run well in my rifle.

 

I do not know the tolerance of your rifle, but I have NEVER been dissapointed with steel yet. Id say ive put at least 500 rounds of herters/tula through it no issues. But as you stated everyone's AR may differ

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this topic can be debated to no end.  it's all going to come down to your own comfort level/experience with shooting this type of ammo.  I've only put brass cased ammo through my ar so far (new build, around 500 rounds at this point)  i'm interested in seeing how the wolf wpa runs through it so i just picked up a 100 rounds.  if it jams up in my mags, or i get multiple ftf or fte...then i'll know this ammo isn't right for my ar.  not that it's necessarily bad ammo...it just may not run well in my rifle.

 

Part of the reason it can be debated to no end is that steel cased ammo is built to a price rather than a spec. What people are debating changes constantly I LOVED the wolf ammo with copper jacketed projectiles.  Bimetal jackets?  Not so much. The accuracy got worse, and the plating thickness varies as well as the hardness of the underlying steel jacket. Clean vs. dirty? Much like cheaper brass cased ammo, I've gotten a variety of results from pretty clean to really dirty over the years. 

 

I'd be all over hronady steel match, but it isn't really cheaper than bulk xm193, so I go with what I get cases I can reload easier from. 

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Wannt shoot steel cased ammunition with no troubles then get your AR fixed, Watch the below Video and pay atention around the 2:30 sec mark. Your trouble is either that or it's going to be with my 2nd link.

 

 

http://www.murraysguns.com/223vs556.htm

Ben Murray is one of the best old time gun smiths left in the country, I have known him for awhile from my dealings with the SKS, guarantees if your rifle is out of spec once it's corrected you will be capable of shooing all ammo types in brass or steel.

 

As far as increased wear for the price of 5k rounds of decent brass ammo I can shoot about 10k of steel then replace the extractor and barrel and most likely still be under what one would have paid for the 5k of brass espically in todays current market. I shoot pistol and rifle about 3 times a week so I use nothing but steel cased ammo even in my EDC when I train.

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Wannt shoot steel cased ammunition with no troubles then get your AR fixed, Watch the below Video and pay atention around the 2:30 sec mark. Your trouble is either that or it's going to be with my 2nd link.

 

 

http://www.murraysguns.com/223vs556.htm

Ben Murray is one of the best old time gun smiths left in the country, I have known him for awhile from my dealings with the SKS, guarantees if your rifle is out of spec once it's corrected you will be capable of shooing all ammo types in brass or steel.

 

As far as increased wear for the price of 5k rounds of decent brass ammo I can shoot about 10k of steel then replace the extractor and barrel and most likely still be under what one would have paid for the 5k of brass espically in todays current market. I shoot pistol and rifle about 3 times a week so I use nothing but steel cased ammo even in my EDC when I train.

 

Well a few things.

1: it looks like that guy is pulling 2" groups, not 1.5" groups, but generally agree with the accuracy to a point. Accuracy being simialr, the xm193 likely does it at 200-400 fps faster in my experience, which makes holdover easier the farther out you go. It isn't a deal breaker, but leaving it out is IMO unfair in a discussion of accuracy. 100 and under... yeah it is close to a push.

 

 2: you can't shoot 5k rounds of steel cased ammo for the price of similar quality brass cased. Hitting up ammo seek, the cheapest steel is wolf, and it is $0.26 a round. Cheapest brass is xm193 federal and is $0.36 a round. Pick up your brass, and the xm193 is cheaper. Right now, 1000 pieces of federal 5.56 brass is about $120 uncleaned and unprocessed. Mixed headstamp is about $80. You can make up most of the price difference selling local. Even if you leave it, it's 10k of steel vs 7222 of brass.  Heck, back when I thought it was worth it, it was $120 per k for wolf with copper jackets and $190 for xm193, which STILL wasn't  10k vs 5k, it was 6.3k vs 10k, and it has been quite some time since the ratio was that favorable (short term transient price differences aside as things get in and out of stock). 

 

3: pistol. I've seen a recurring problem across steel case pistol ammo. Not a lot of it, but it comes up over and over frequently enough to bother me, and that's the occasional box with bullets that set back with hand pressure. It just shouldn't be the case, and I have seen it locally at least 5 times over three different brands. Lots more that were fine, but that's a BAD QC issue that I haven't seen to the same extent with brass. I've never seen it with steel cased rifle, but for pistol it seems to crop up. 

 

Yeah, there's lots of knee jerk stuff going on, but IMO steel vs. brass remains debated because it is debatable. There's whole bunch of cost benefit things going on and you ahve to pick the spot you are comfortable. 

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I have no expertise in this matter but this has been my experience. I purchased the NJ complaint M&P15 in September 2012 and at that time I was also questioning if it could run Russian ammo. I called S&W and the customer rep I spoke to strongly advised against it. He said it could damage the extractor. I then called Wolf Ammo and they said they would buy the extractor for me (while LOL) if that did happened. I gave both conversations some thought and opted not to run the Russian ammo at that time. I have a Saiga chambered in 223/5.56 that I converted to accept AR mags and the Kel-Tec SU16 that also accepts AR mag and I’ve been running any Steel and/or Polymer ammunitions in both of those rifles since day one.  On 223/5.56 range day I generally only use one mag at the range and toggle the same mag between the rifles. While at the range one day I forget about my “brass only rule” for the M&P15 and needless to say the M&P15 didn’t miss a beat while running the Russian ammo. Fast forward to last year I pieced together an AR build with a Windham Weaponry upper. I figured I’d call Windham Weaponry and put the Russian ammo question to them. The WW Rep simply said break the rifle in with about 200 rds brass and then shoot the Wolf ammo.

 

A few closing comments. Kel-Tec has it in their documentation that they do NOT recommend steel, polymer or aluminum cased ammo.  I’ve purchased the SU16 well before the Saiga and AR clones and never shot anything other than the Russian ammo.  In fact the friend that recommended the Kel-Tec and said they would eat anything so that was one of the attractions for the SU16. If something does happen to the Kel-Tec I’ll either fix it myself or send it back to Kel-Tel and let them fix it because as the original owner I have a Life-Time warranty. I believe the Windham Weaponry Rep I spoke to was speaking from his own experience and was not necessarily speaking the company policy, in fact I don’t know what company policy is on the subject.  Given the fact the above video features a WW rifle I feel pretty good about what the WW Rep said but YMMV

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The extra wear to the extractor is minimal compared to brass cased ammunition and again you can replace an extractor for a few bucks in a few minutes time. I reload most of my steel cased ammunition with either rifle berdan primers or they can be converted to boxer primers with a few extra one times steps and then be reloaded as boxer from there out.

 

I have not had any real  issues with steel pistol ammunition, TUL is the cheapest one there is with the worst QC. Occasionally I will get a hard primer but the 2nd strike will fire it. I have one pistol that just doesn't seem to like it possible trouble with FP protrusion but that's the only real issue I have had with it. I shoot nearly 500 rounds a week mostly pistol. Shooting brass would cost me at least $30.00-$40.00 more per 500 round case the cost VS wear doesn't compare since there has been next to none.

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what rifle was used? almost sure the chamber was out of spec.

this....

 

I've shot thousands or rounds through tons of ARS and never had a single issue, not even a primer issue.  As long as you are using spec items, you should have no problem.  The only real problem with steel is the consistency of the load.

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I have no expertise in this matter but this has been my experience. I purchased the NJ complaint M&P15 in September 2012 and at that time I was also questioning if it could run Russian ammo. I called S&W and the customer rep I spoke to strongly advised against it. He said it could damage the extractor. I then called Wolf Ammo and they said they would buy the extractor for me (while LOL) if that did happened. I gave both conversations some thought and opted not to run the Russian ammo at that time. I have a Saiga chambered in 223/5.56 that I converted to accept AR mags and the Kel-Tec SU16 that also accepts AR mag and I’ve been running any Steel and/or Polymer ammunitions in both of those rifles since day one.  On 223/5.56 range day I generally only use one mag at the range and toggle the same mag between the rifles. While at the range one day I forget about my “brass only rule” for the M&P15 and needless to say the M&P15 didn’t miss a beat while running the Russian ammo. Fast forward to last year I pieced together an AR build with a Windham Weaponry upper. I figured I’d call Windham Weaponry and put the Russian ammo question to them. The WW Rep simply said break the rifle in with about 200 rds brass and then shoot the Wolf ammo.

 

A few closing comments. Kel-Tec has it in their documentation that they do NOT recommend steel, polymer or aluminum cased ammo.  I’ve purchased the SU16 well before the Saiga and AR clones and never shot anything other than the Russian ammo.  In fact the friend that recommended the Kel-Tec and said they would eat anything so that was one of the attractions for the SU16. If something does happen to the Kel-Tec I’ll either fix it myself or send it back to Kel-Tel and let them fix it because as the original owner I have a Life-Time warranty. I believe the Windham Weaponry Rep I spoke to was speaking from his own experience and was not necessarily speaking the company policy, in fact I don’t know what company policy is on the subject.  Given the fact the above video features a WW rifle I feel pretty good about what the WW Rep said but YMMV

just think about how patently stupid that policy is given the two metals.  The extractor is will do more damage to the brass/steel than the projectile will do to the extractor.  I will post a pic later of 2 bolts, one uses primarily metal and the other only brass (precision rifle with far far few rounds downrange) and you tell me which is which.....or anyone for that matter:)

 

I actually won't buy a ready made rifle from a manufacturer that has that policy because not only does it defy logic and reason but tells me they may be making rifles that are inherently inferior for hard use.

 

lwrc, bcm, colt, dd, pof, noveske do not have this policy last time I checked

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