Questions about steel and aluminum cased ammo

lionking said:

Another question, for those of us that worry about steel case ware and tear on auto's for the extractors and chambers and such, what about in revolvers? Any issues with firring into the cylinder or extracting?

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The only way to know for sure is to run some through a particular revolver and see if it likes it.

My S&W 625 has zero issues shooting aluminum cased ammo. My Taurus 445TI its quite accurate with 200 gr Blaser. However it will get a little sticky after firing several full cylinders of it, but that's not really an issue.

I did have a Old Vaquero that hated 38 special aluminum Blazer. I'd be lucky to get a full cylinder though the gun without it binding.

I don't think or can't remember if I ever shot steel cased ammo out of any of my revolvers

illinoisburt said:

I cannot think of any common modern pistol barrel thats' been shot out. From what I recall normal service life for a standard 1911 or glock barrel can be 50k-100k or more rounds. I seriously doubt steel jacketed pistol bullets will make a difference in that for most users. Costs to replace a factory barrel in most pistols is minimal and extremely easy. You will have spent significantly more times the price of the gun on ammo by then.

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Fortunately, Lucky Gunner did a test on that particular issue, turns out, steel jackets do wear barrels more than the alternative brass/copper but their test was using rifles. That same test also indicated greater wear on extractors as well. https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/brass-vs-steel-cased-ammo/ If shooting something like 9mm with high pressure, then it is conceivable that you might not get the wear that you would expect if you used steel jacketed bullets but the serious wear and accuracy loss in the luckygunner test was about 5-6k rounds from what I remember using steel versus about double for brass. What a lot of folks don't get about steel is not necessarily whether or not it is hard, but some metals/alloys have more lubricity than others while some alloys are sticky. Sticky alloys will cause more wear, ceterus paribus despite the Rockwell hardness number.

Personally, I don't need the extra cost advantage of cheap Tula, etc. in handguns because I reload and have enough brass and bullets for awhile. If I want to shoot cheaper, I can use lead or coated lead. Tula, etc. are made for cheap blasting ammo and I have better .22 LR choices for plinking.

The hassles of cheap combloc steel cased and steel jacketed ammo and range issues make it a non-starter for me in handguns but others might feel it worthwhile. I sure would not use it in revolvers unless an emergency and I have a number of auto loaders where the barrels are made more or less of unobtanium now as these are out of production. IN rifles, it is a bit more complicated and depends on what you plan to do with it.

boom boom said:

Fortunately, Lucky Gunner did a test on that particular issue, turns out, steel jackets do wear barrels more than the alternative brass/copper but their test was using rifles. That same test also indicated greater wear on extractors as well. https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/brass-vs-steel-cased-ammo/ If shooting something like 9mm with high pressure, then it is conceivable that you might not get the wear that you would expect if you used steel jacketed bullets but the serious wear and accuracy loss in the luckygunner test was about 5-6k rounds from what I remember using steel versus about double for brass.

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We probably cannot directly correlate the results of mag dumping rifles. There was pretty good agreement the wear was significantly accelerated by continuous firing through very hot barrels. I agree a steel jacketed bullet will likely decrease usable life of the rifling, but people implying it will strip the rifling from the bore after a few boxes of ammo is facetious.

I shoot that Win USA Forged steelcase 9mm through my Gen3 17 & 19 all the time and I don’t have any problems with it. I don’t shoot it with any of my other guns though.

lionking said:

Another question, for those of us that worry about steel case ware and tear on auto's for the extractors and chambers and such, what about in revolvers? Any issues with firring into the cylinder or extracting?

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I help teach an NRA Basic Pistol Class. We furnish .38/.357 revolvers, students provide 200 rounds of FMJ .38 Special. Two students brought steel cased Tula ammunition. It was noticeably hotter than other ammunition and wouldn't eject from the cylinder without pounding on the ejector rod. We no longer allow Tula in the class.

That said, I run steel cased ammo in my AKs and SKSs with no problems. I have some 9mm steel cased that works fine in my CZ75.

I have shot thousands of rounds of steel cased ammunition over the years. The only issue I had was with Brown Bear sticking in the magazine as the lacquer coating is not as smooth as poly coating. If I ever shoot Bear ammo, I shoot Silver Bear as it is zinc plated (nice and slick).

illinoisburt said:

I have found I am not a fan of steel cased revolver ammo like Tula 38 and 357. It sticks in the chambers requiring a bit of tapping on the extractor which never happens with brass.

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I oil the cases first before and they eject much easier. Just carry a bottle of cheap oil with you to the range.

illinoisburt said:

I have found I am not a fan of steel cased revolver ammo like Tula 38 and 357. It sticks in the chambers requiring a bit of tapping on the extractor which never happens with brass.

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This happened in my GP100. Appqarently, steel ammo casings don't "stretch" and flex back, like brass ammo. The steel just stays expanded. The same ammo shoots and extracts just fine in the Vaquero. So I'll use it with that. Apparently the tolerances in th SA revolver chambers are just a mil or so looser.