Steel cased ammuniton...

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I've been shooting steel cased 9mm thru a M&P Shield and a Barretta 92 fs Inox with the only problem being folks telling me I shouldn't. It's as cheap as it gets right now so what's the problem?
Are there tangible reasons not to shoot it? Am I going to damage sumpin? A little empirical support one way or the other would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
 
Russians have been shooting steel cased ammo in all their guns exclusively since early 1900s
that's all you need to know when some one starts complaining about adverse effects of steel cased ammo.
it works, it's reliable it does not make your gun explode in your face. everything else is besides the point and someone's opinion.
Brass does behave better in the chamber than steel but if you gonna leave it where you shoot it then this is simply waste of otherwise fairly expensive alloy. which Russians figured out long ago and switched to using inexpensive steel. plenty of it everywhere and it's cheap.

haters will always hate. use your own judgment don't listen to local range blabbermouth.
 
Have not seen a study on pistols, but the guys who did a test using a AR carbines showed that there was a lot more wear on a barrel using cheap Soviet steel cased ammo than using US made brass. They also did the math though and found that the savings in the cost of the ammo more than paid for new barrels.

http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/brass-vs-steel-cased-ammo/
 
The steel should be softer then the chamber , so worse case it wares the chamber little fast then brass cases.

I'be shot around 500rds of steel case in my ar with only one jam and that's cause i didn't seat the mag right.

I've been shooting alot of Tula in 1911. Besides being little weak I've had no problems with it.
My polished feed ramp and chamber have no marks .
 
Any damage to the barrel would have to be limited to the chamber I would assume? What would the damage actually do to the barrel that would warrant replacement? I'm not much of a pistol shot so my groups would have to open WAY up before I would take note. I was certain that there would be more evidence against its use. Thanks.
 
There are some that claim that the lacquer coating will eventually build up in the chamber. I have an AR that i built strictly for students to fire. It was made for less than $650 (with optics) and It has shot mostly steel cased crap and the cheapest stuff I can find. I have never had a problem or noticed anything in the chamber. It's also never had a proper cleaning.
 
There are some that claim that the lacquer coating will eventually build up in the chamber. I have an AR that i built strictly for students to fire. It was made for less than $650 (with optics) and It has shot mostly steel cased crap and the cheapest stuff I can find. I have never had a problem or noticed anything in the chamber. It's also never had a proper cleaning.

Lacquer can be a problem, I have seen it first hand.

Assuring that you clean the chamber, in addition to the bore, eliminates the problem.

Sounds simple enough, but I have seen more that a few folks ignore proper chamber cleaning.
 
Any damage to the barrel would have to be limited to the chamber I would assume? What would the damage actually do to the barrel that would warrant replacement? I'm not much of a pistol shot so my groups would have to open WAY up before I would take note. I was certain that there would be more evidence against its use. Thanks.

Most wear occurs right at the throat. Even if it was just the chamber, how do you replace that on a semi-auto with out replacing the barrel? Even on pistols where the chamber was originally made from a seperate piece of metal, I normally hear the whole thing refered to as the barrel, especially when buying replacements.
 
Nope, almost all steel cased ammo now is boxer primed. I'm talking Tula, Wolf, Wolf Classic, Herters, etc.

I literally treat it no different than brass. I frequently reload mixed batches of crap brass and steel together for plinking ammo.
 
I agree with the comment about Lacquer ,Just give it a good cleaning as allways after your done.I have shot steel cases ammo for years in my guns.Never had any issues.
 
I wasn't suggesting but that you could separate the chamber from the barrel as far as replacing it went but was trying to narrow down what damage to the chamber meant. Does the lacquer build up to a point in which the chamber cracks or something? Where and what damage would the worst scenario be? Based on the responses it will be awhile before chit happens so for now it's a Go. Thanks.
 
I wasn't suggesting but that you could separate the chamber from the barrel as far as replacing it went but was trying to narrow down what damage to the chamber meant. Does the lacquer build up to a point in which the chamber cracks or something? Where and what damage would the worst scenario be? Based on the responses it will be awhile before chit happens so for now it's a Go. Thanks.

lacquered ammo leaves a film in the chamber as some of it bakes off and is left behind. This slowly makes the chamber smaller until you get a stuck case, failure to chamber or out of battery detonation. Only old surplus ammo is lacquered. New steel ammo is polymer coated and the polymer doesn't build up.

The only downside I've seen to steel cased ammo in my AR is the need to replace your extractor every 5k rounds or so to prevent FTE. at about 7k rounds I had a couple FTEs close together. Extractor lip was worn.

Extractors are very cheap.
 
lacquered ammo leaves a film in the chamber as some of it bakes off and is left behind. This slowly makes the chamber smaller until you get a stuck case, failure to chamber or out of battery detonation. Only old surplus ammo is lacquered. New steel ammo is polymer coated and the polymer doesn't build up.

The only downside I've seen to steel cased ammo in my AR is the need to replace your extractor every 5k rounds or so to prevent FTE. at about 7k rounds I had a couple FTEs close together. Extractor lip was worn.

Extractors are very cheap.

What's the typical lifespan of an extractor with brass ammo? Or, what is the recommended round count for replacement?
 
No idea. I know people have put 10k+ without swapping one.

Cekim is probably the best person to ask about that [laugh]

You figure chrome barrels are 15-25k rounds and rebuilding your bolt with new rings etc is a minor, cheap deal. If it was me I'd do it at 10k rounds regardless just for piece of mind.

10k rounds .223: $3,000
BCM SOPMOD bolt rebuilt kit: $30

Just do it.
 
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Is it Berdan primed? If so, how do you deprime it?

Saw a guy doing it on youtube. His user name is mainejunker I believe.

He does a lot of interesting stuff with surplus ammo. Converting berdan cases to boxer, modifying boxer primers for use in berdan cases, etc. He shows an ingenious way of depriming berdan cases.
 
There are some that claim that the lacquer coating will eventually build up in the chamber. I have an AR that i built strictly for students to fire. It was made for less than $650 (with optics) and It has shot mostly steel cased crap and the cheapest stuff I can find. I have never had a problem or noticed anything in the chamber. It's also never had a proper cleaning.


The problem with lacquered ammo is that if you leave a round chambered in a hot barrel, the lacquer will melt and it will stick in the chamber when it cools and it's a bitch to get out.
 
Dont mean to hi-jack or anything but would any of you guys shoot steel cased out of your carry gun atthe range?....i would assume no amd i wouldnt do it...or am i just being picky?
 
Dont mean to hi-jack or anything but would any of you guys shoot steel cased out of your carry gun atthe range?....i would assume no amd i wouldnt do it...or am i just being picky?

Yes I do. It's not a big deal. It's all just ammo.

This is like asking "you guys don't actually drive your trucks off road do you?"
 
So I take it NONE of you read the lucky gunner labs article that was linked since half of you are still spreading false information and perpetuating rumors.

Mike

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 2
 
So I take it NONE of you read the lucky gunner labs article that was linked since half of you are still spreading false information and perpetuating rumors.

Mike

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 2

Sorry, this is news to me. To some it sounds like heresy, steel instead of brass, wash out your mouth!
 
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