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Steel cased ammo in ar15?

callen3615

callen3615

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
Jan 27, 2010
90
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35
Peidmont, NC
Hey guys. I recently picked up a dpms ar15. I just spent the day shooting 22s the 308 and the ar15. I probably shot 80 rounds of 223. I am using brass cased pmc bronze. I just shoot targets, balloons and steel plates under 100 most of the time. I was collecting my brass the whole day. I figured I could reload them for about half the price of factory ammo (like my 308). Well Ive been doing some checking and I have found that not to be the case. The ammo I am shooting is about 8 dollars a box. But I have heard of people who shoot wolf and silver bear through their ars with no problems and it cost alot less than any brass cased ammo.

Im not going to be bump firing or shooting groups just mainly shooting targets for fun. Is there a danger to me or my rifle if I use steel cased ammo?

Thanks guys
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

I have about 2-2.5K through my MK18 clone, all suppressed, with no problems and no signs of any premature wear. They are quite a bit dirtier but if you clean your rifle with any regularity, this is not a problem.

Beyond that, between myself and 2 of my friend we probably have 5-6K down the tubes of 3 AR's which is not alot by industry standards but none of us have had a single problem that has been ammo related.

Take it for what its worth. We are not professionals in the gun industry, just 11B's shooting a lot for as cheap as possible.

Mike
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

Know plenty of people who run steel cased ammo in their AR. Never hurt the rifle any that I could tell.

I personally do not run steel cased ammo in my AR. Why? Because Wolf and Silver Bear are cheap for a reason....dirty and not all that accurate. I find that ammo I load for my AR to be more cost effective as it is more accurate than what I've seen W or SB to be from pretty much any/all rifles.


$8/box of 20 rounds or 40 cents each for factory ammo.

55 FMJ in bulk is about 8 cents
Primer is 3 cents
Powder is 8 cents
Brass is 20 cents each new but if loaded 5X is 4 cents/loading.

23 cents/round, or $4.6/box of 20, to load ammo that is dialed in for your rifle.

YMMV

I'll reload as I find accurate rifles to be more interesting and useful.
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

I've never had a problem with Wolf in any of the AR's I've built, but that Silver Bear stuff has caused several failures to extract. I believe the polymer coating on the Wolf ammo makes it a lot slicker. The Silver Bear is fairly rough on the outside of the case which may lead to sticking in the chamber.
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

Ok, thanks guys.


I figured if I bought bulk reloading components I could reload alittle cheaper than steel or surplus ammo but why? Right now I am mainly plinking. I clean my semi after every session and I dont shoot alot per session. Im just a poor college kid.

I dont have much money to invest in reloading equiptment. My 308 reloading kit is a lee classic loader and a wilson case cutter. I dont have 75 bucks invested in my 308 reloading but I dont reload alot of ammo in 308.

Reloading 223 with a classic loader would be time consuming and I dont think it would be effective for loading plinking ammo.

Although I am saving and tumbling (as I type) my 223 brass because I will probably get into reloading it later.

Im just poor right now and would like a cheap alternative to brass ammo. I had heard some bad things about russian ammo but I will give it a try.

Thanks for the help, always appreciated.
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

I just bought a bunch (800 rounds)of Herter's Steel cased ammo from Cabelas for $3.99 a box of 20. I have run about 300 rounds through my AR (suppressed and non suppressed)and have not had a hiccup yet. I will buy more if I can get my hands on it at that price.
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

I find it interesting that Hornady makes a line of steel cased ammo marketed as LE training ammo. In fact, I was stunned to see that it used laquer coated instead of polymer coated cases.

I haven't been able to try it out as it is only sold to LE personnel...
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

I think steel case is a misnomer, it's probably a lot more like maleable iron.

My main experience with steel cased ammo is with S&B and Eastern Bloc commercial 7.62x39 and .223.

Personally, I can understand why such ammo is coated. I'd be more concerned about firing my rifle with the coating than about the ferric composition of the case.

Greg
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

You can get the Hornady stuff from gunbroker I think, I have a buddy that is on his 3rd case of the stuff I think... Since then he's found some dude at the gun show that sells brass stuff for ridiculously cheap, and now that's all he shoots. (I want to say he is paying $200 or less for 1000 rounds)

The fact that my gun will cycle anything I put through it makes me trust it's reliability more. I don't think that I would own a mil-pattern AR that wouldn't run whatever I put through it...
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

Hornady uses their own powders and premium bullets in their steel case ammo. They aren't trying to compete with Wolf.

I used the lacquered .223 75gr all last year instead of the match stuff and I never felt out gunned. I had no failures with it either. I do believe that Hornady did switch to the polymer coating on the new steel case ammunition for this year. I have a few thousand ordered.

More of these matches are not "pick up your brass" friendly...so shooting a match or a Carbine course with throw away brass sounds good to me.

I want to try the 308 steel case stuff as well...my LMT MWS is a hungry fella.

Hornady Steel Match Ammunition

Respectfully,

--KJ
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

I have been shooting the Hornady Steel Match ammo for the past year, in several carbines and it has been 100% reliable.

The Hornady bullets and powder keep the accuracy great. The steel case makes is far less expensive.

Hornady is indeed planning to change the coating on the casings in the nesr future.
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

I shoot wolf all the time in both a gas gun and a piston LWRC. It is dirty, really really dirty in the gas gun, so I try not to shoot too much through that. But the LWRC eats it up and the cleaning is the same as any other ammo, so I don't have a problem with it. Never had any failures with either gun and when I get to about 500 rounds I take a chamber brush and give a quick couple strokes through the chamber while its hot to clean out any of the polymer or lacquer that may be in there.
Clean it while its still hot and the chamber comes up shiney in a few strokes.
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

Our Dept. picked up a lot of the Hornady Steel cased ammo and I could not go through a mag without some type of issue. I run a Spikes Tactical with PMags. The rifle had about 200 rnds of Lake City and American Eagle through it with no problems before this range day and the rifle was nice and clean.I keep my weapons in top notch order and inspect it every day before it goes in the trunk of my cruiser. I tried diferent mags and had others try through different AR's i.e. RRA, Bushmaster, and DRMO Colt M-16. Still had problems with it.It could have been that Murphy was having fun that day or a bad lot of ammo but I wont use steel cased stuff unless I am working on clearing malfunction drills lol.
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

CTD has some steel cased Russian ammo for 3.59/20rds. If your AR has no issues w/ the steel. I run a Mini, but it will chew up and spit out anything. At that price it's less than $100/500rds.
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

I've shot hundreds of rounds of Wolf's steel cased ammo (Usually shoot brass cased handloads) through various AR's. not very accurate and dirty but OK for plinking.
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

I've shot more than 20K rounds of personally purchased Hornady TAP-T & Wolf Polymer coated in my rifles over the last 3 years.
A couple dead primers & 1 extractor replacement in that time.
Oddly enough little to no cleaning either but a lot of SLIP sprayed on for lube.

I preferred Hornady, especially in some of the ammo droughts we've had. Accuracy isn't bad.
The only negative is that I will not shoot it in my cans because it leaves a heavy blue-green copper tarnish at the muzzle. I was pissed in the beginning thinking that it was corrosive.
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

My Ar 15 has a kreiger barrel and my gunsmith doesnt like the Wolf ammo says it will break the extractor any truth to this?
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

out of my 6 556 AR's, three will not cycle the wolff stuff, the other three will, the sig 556 and HKg33 will work fine on wolff too.
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

I have ran several hundred rounds of that cheap Tula Ammo through my colt 6920 without any issues what so ever. Pull trigger it goes bang. Cheap and works fine for target shooting.
 
Re: Steel cased ammo in ar15?

If it was a match AR I wouldn't run the steel stuff, for anything else I'd never worry about it. The steel cases are still very soft, granted not as soft as brass but not what we typically think of as steel. They probably do increase wear on some parts, extractors etc. but in a battle rifle it wouldn't worry me. If it was a higher end match setup for accuracy then I'd shoot match ammo out of it.

In my experience if you can get your AR to run well with wolf and the cheap stuff, it will run with anything. I know a few guys that love to trouble shoot their AR's with wolf ammo because they know if they get it to feed that without issue it will usually feed anything.
 
callen3615 said:
Hey guys. I recently picked up a dpms ar15. I just spent the day shooting 22s the 308 and the ar15. I probably shot 80 rounds of 223. I am using brass cased pmc bronze. I just shoot targets, balloons and steel plates under 100 most of the time. I was collecting my brass the whole day. I figured I could reload them for about half the price of factory ammo (like my 308). Well Ive been doing some checking and I have found that not to be the case. The ammo I am shooting is about 8 dollars a box. But I have heard of people who shoot wolf and silver bear through their ars with no problems and it cost alot less than any brass cased ammo.

Im not going to be bump firing or shooting groups just mainly shooting targets for fun. Is there a danger to me or my rifle if I use steel cased ammo?

Thanks guys
Click to expand...

Since it's Halloween, I'm resurecting this thread....anyway, I just got my first AR and am buying ammo. I've mentioned in another thread about optics that this is just a "fun-gun" and I'm not looking to use in in comps or for shooting groups etc. But I recently found 20 round boxes of Herter's ammo at Cabela's near me for $5.99 each. I haven't even shot this rifle yet, but have been buying lots of this ammo since it's so inexpensive. Is this Herter's stuff a good choice for my plinking AR?
 
Any ammo you find commercialy will be fine for plinking. Most shooters couldnt tell the difference between Black Hills 77gr and Herters 55FMJ if their life depended on it ... downrange.
If your gun doesnt run steel cased then its beacuse one one of two issues.

1. You have a very tight rifle set up for match shooting, using pre determined componets for a specific purpose
2. You have a piece of shit gun, either made by a piece of shit manufacture... or put together by an ignorant builder who cannot source parts and assemble correctly.

The only downside is most of the comblock Steel cased .223 is a bit underpowered compared to premium ammo. However it should run in just about any rifle.
 
Great, thanks! I picked up a Windham SRC for about $700. Looking forward to getting out with it soon.
 
Just an interesting note...

Some folks did an exhaustive 40,000 round test on cheap ammo, and found that most steal cases are quite reliable (with the exception of Tul, which didn't finish the test), but produce substantially faster barrel wear. That said, the cheapness of the steel ammo more than pays for a new barrel over the life of the rifle. I don't have a link but a google search should find the article... great info.

Basically, I wouldn't worry about shooting it for plinking purposes.
 
Yup get it and have fun. I run the 55 and 75grn Hornady Steel Match .223 at 3 gun matches and never had a problem with it. Hits targets at 400 with a 6x optic and that's about all I need from it.
 
Rob01 said:
Yup get it and have fun. I run the 55 and 75grn Hornady Steel Match .223 at 3 gun matches and never had a problem with it. Hits targets at 400 with a 6x optic and that's about all I need from it.
Click to expand...

I'm with Rob, Hornady Steel case match is excellent ammo. So excellent you cannot find it in stock anywhere. But it is the one steel case ammo that I would not be afraid to run in a precision AR. It's really good, and priced right. Now if I could only buy some more.......
 
BobinNC said:
I'm with Rob, Hornady Steel case match is excellent ammo. So excellent you cannot find it in stock anywhere. But it is the one steel case ammo that I would not be afraid to run in a precision AR. It's really good, and priced right. Now if I could only buy some more.......
Click to expand...

Yes that is a problem right now. They have been suspended so probably won't be until later next year unfortunately. I am rationing off mine for matches only and using my 55grn loads for blasting practice at home. I also use the steel cased 9mm and .40 as well in my pistols. All functions great.

I used to use Wolf years back when it was $89/1000 and shot a lot of it. Was dirtier but still functioned and gave acceptable blasting accuracy.
 
I really enjoy this guys videos.
The Truth About Wolf Ammo - YouTube

I always have guys at the gun store tell me not to shoot steel cased ammo. While I dont shot it a lot it is nice to be able to go shoot 200 rounds without spending much. I reload 90% of my ammo but like you sometimes I do want to shoot without chasing brass.
 
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