Steel case ammo?

Steel tends to wear your gun a bit more but most people never shoot enough to fully wear out a gun. If you fall into the catagory of those who will shoot your barrel out then it may still be worth it to replace a barrel and extractor to be able to shoot still so I'd say go for it.

I fired thousands of steel cased rounds in multiple calibers...through multiple guns...and I've noticed no visible or excessive wear or breakage. No problems at all. And I've probably saved a few thousand $$$ in the process.
I'll check again after I shoot another 50,000 to 100,000 rounds. Watch for my post

It is all I shoot in my Simonov.

Steel case will wear out your gun quicker, but the money you save should let you replace it a couple of times over.

Will Steel Cased Ammo Hurt Your Gun? - AllOutdoor.com

"Not long ago, I posted a Brownells video about lubricating an AR’s BCG, part of their “Smyth Busters” series that talks about gunsmith myths and shines the light of fact on topics of concern for shooters. This time, they talk about steel-cased ammo and whether it’s bad for your firearms.

Some folks claim that steel-cased ammo will damage your gun because steel is harder than brass, which is the traditional material used for metallic cartridge cases. Others claim the heat of firing will melt the thin coating on the exterior of the case, which is applied to prevent the steel from rusting.

But, they say, none of that is true.

Even torture tests which generate extreme heat fail to melt those coatings, they say — and about the only increased wear you’ll see from steel cases will be to your gun’s extractor.

Shooting steel is a bit dirtier, though, with some of the case coating scraping off with use, and increased leakage of gases because the steel doesn’t seal against the chamber walls as well as brass — so expect to clean your gun more often if you run steel."

Watching a few of the destruction tests on Youtube.com shows me something. The man shoots machine guns of the AR and AK and machine pistols until they blow up or melt down on fire. Barrels and gas tubes are red hot and the stock is on fire. The gun always fails without any discernible failure due to steel cases.
I find this Myth-defying.
Steel cased ammo, however, does improve your sex life.

If that's all you can get, or (as the case may be nowadays) all you can afford, go with the steel case. It's more important to keep your skill-set sharp than it is to avoid whatever issues may result with your firearms.

Personally, my own negative against steel case is that I can't shoot it in any of the indoor ranges around here, and winter is breathing its icy blasts down the back of my neck at the outdoor ranges.

The issue isn't the steel case really ( it may make the gun a lil dirtier, but not enough over a range session ):
It's that they normally have bimetal jackets which can wear the barrel more, especially throat erosion. If you get the barrel hot, it's faster.
However . . the money saved more than pays for a new barrel.

I still have a few cases of Hornady steel match 75gr, love it!

It's not the steel case that does the appreciable damage to the rifle. It is the "bimetalic" (copper washed steel jacket) jacket on the projectiles that does the damage. They will with no exception wear the barrel faster than a pure copper coated projectile. But a barrel is a wear item.
It WILL wear no matter the precautions taken.
You shoot ANYTHING through it and you get damage.

The steel case will not obturate as well as a brass cartridge. Leaving a bit more of a mess in the forward part of the chamber.
Meaning you will need to clean the chamber on occasion.

Yes it (the steel case) will cause accelerated wear on the extractor and possibly the ejector, but that is a moot point. Bu the time you realistically are going to see failures there you are many thousands of rounds in cycle and likely would have seen failures already with brass cased ammunition.

In my experience the worst parts about shooting steel cased ammo is that it's dirtier, less accurate and maybe a little under powered.

As long as it runs though, I have no problem feeding it to my guns. The slightly accelerated wear is amortized by how much you save on ammo. If you save 2k in the process of wearing out a barrel, the $200 new barrel is no biggie.

gotboostvr said:

In my experience the worst parts about shooting steel cased ammo is that it's dirtier, less accurate

Click to expand...

That, in a nutshell.

Some of the early laquer-coated ammos had issues with the laquer melting in the chamber, but they have since fixed that with different formula, or they are now poly-coated. As far as the bi-metal jackets... as was said, the barrel is a wear item, anyway. I've not had good results with steel-cased ammo, the accuracy is usually sub-par when compared to equivalent brass-cased ammo, and the powder they use is usually quite... uh... flashy, for lack of a better term.

When I bought my M1a, I also picked up some Monarch steel-cased .308 (before I knew it was steel-cased.) Not only did it blow a 10" flame out of the muzzle brake, but the accuracy was for crap. L, Monarch steel-cased ammos, R, generic M80 (Prvi)

Charlie98 said:

That, in a nutshell.

View attachment 959034

Click to expand...

It works perfectly fine IME for off hand, run-n-gun carbine drills/plinking from contact distance-100yrds on pizza boxes, empty beer cases and old MidwayUSA shipping boxes.

It gets nowhere near my bolt actions with high power scopes. It's just a waste of time shooting Wolf prone off bags. Is it me, the gun, or the ammo causing those 5" groups when under normal conditions it'd be sub 1"?
Hint: it's the ammo.

I don't shoot steel ammo in my ARs, It's at the right position of high enough volume for wear to be an issue + accurate enough that I will see a difference. Even if the economics work out over time, I prefer not to worry about it.

My Combloc guns see nothing but steel and they love it. I don't care about the wear, since they usually have sewer pipe barrels to start with. And for pistol ammo that runs at a much lower velocity and pressure than 223 or x39, I will run steel all day. Pre-pandemic, I was buying brass 9mm over steel because of the small cost delta (it was like $9 for WWB and $8 for Tula... screw it), but I will still shoot Wolf 9mm if the price is right. I shoot steel 45 and 357 because there are big cost savings to be had there.

The real problem with steel ammo isn't the steel case, it's the powder. Usually they are underloaded, burn dirty, and stink like cat pee. Some guns will choke with steel because the weaker rounds just don't have enough energy to cycle the action. But if your gun functions well with steel? I don't have a problem with it.

For a 6.5 Grendel AR, I'd run brass if you could get it, but that's a situational call rather than me being against steel in general. Plinking with a couple hundred rounds of steel ammo won't hurt anything, provided that your rifle can cycle it.

I don't worry about the case as much as the bimetal jacket in terms of wear. Then again I probably wouldn't ever shoot enough of the stuff out of any one gun to matter. I'd like to, but you know - kids, work, vacations, property maintenance, etc.

The real question is where is this steel cased Grendel at?

IdaD said:

I don't worry about the case as much as the bimetal jacket in terms of wear.

Click to expand...

Tula was making range friendly ammo; steel cased, but with lead-copper bullets. Price was a little more than regular Russian steel, but considerably less than brass ammo.

Good luck though finding some now.

Try to find Golden Tiger shells.

Green laquour coating with purple and red primer and neck sealitants. They are made at a military outpost and use a boated tail bullet and they’re very accurate, considered the best x39 ammo made.

People confuse cases, and bullets. If people would be specific about which component they mean, there might be far less confusion out there.

Note the very detailed test on LuckyGunner.
If you plan to shoot 6,000 rds. of bimetal-coated bullets in an AR, this wear can equal what an AR experienced with about 10,000 rds.
>> LuckyGunner test, via Google. It's not scientific, but far beyond simply repeating internet rumors with no first-hand experience.

Don't simply repeat "She's a witch, cause they said so !", or similar hearsay about ammunition.

Cleaning a gun's chamber will help prevent expandable brass cases from getting stuck.
Steel allegedly allows more gunk to build up.

Ignition Override said:

...
Note the very detailed test on LuckyGunner.
If you plan to shoot 6,000 rds. of bimetal-coated bullets in an AR, this wear can equal what an AR experienced with about 10,000 rds.
>> LuckyGunner test, via Google. It's not scientific, but far beyond simply repeating internet rumors with no first-hand experience.

Click to expand...

The LuckyGunner test is interesting but they themselves state from the outset heat is a huge factor in the barrel life since they were doing sustained fire for the entire test. They also didn't have control specific to the powder versus the bullet materials as the steel cased ammo had pretty obvious differences in burn characterics like lower velocity and more flash. So whether the results they saw can be compared to most people's shooting is questionable. I've got AK and SKS rifles with literally tens of thousands of steel cased rounds through them over over 30 years with sharp rifling and clean bores. I've also seen a cracked fire damaged lead of a 220 swift that had seen less than 1500 rounds. So I take the bullet jacket = barrel life with a serious grain of salt.

As a comparison, I've shot a TON of Hornady steel match out of my AR's without any significant loss in accuracy. I bought a crap ton @ around $19/50 back in the day. Reloading wasn't worth it at that price.

P5 Guy said:

Will Steel Cased Ammo Hurt Your Gun? - AllOutdoor.com

"Not long ago, I posted a Brownells video about lubricating an AR’s BCG, part of their “Smyth Busters” series that talks about gunsmith myths and shines the light of fact on topics of concern for shooters. This time, they talk about steel-cased ammo and whether it’s bad for your firearms.

Some folks claim that steel-cased ammo will damage your gun because steel is harder than brass, which is the traditional material used for metallic cartridge cases. Others claim the heat of firing will melt the thin coating on the exterior of the case, which is applied to prevent the steel from rusting.

But, they say, none of that is true.

Even torture tests which generate extreme heat fail to melt those coatings, they say — and about the only increased wear you’ll see from steel cases will be to your gun’s extractor.

Shooting steel is a bit dirtier, though, with some of the case coating scraping off with use, and increased leakage of gases because the steel doesn’t seal against the chamber walls as well as brass — so expect to clean your gun more often if you run steel."

Click to expand...

^^^^this^^^^

I have done alot of reading on this I think I went a lil cross eyed after idk how many pages of "will steel case ammo hurt my gun". I dont have the equipment to measure such infintesimal wear differences between brass and modern steel case ammo, but if I did I dont think there would be anything worth reporting. I dont have super high round count guns but 90% of what I shoot is steel case. No problems.

If I had to replace an extractor at 20K rounds as opposed to 22K rounds, the savings from shooting steel vs brass would pay for my extractor 100× over.

I'm not a competition shooter, or a class instructor with a really high round count, but I read the things those kinds of guys had to say about it. Shoot steel, and dont give it another thought.

Illinoisburt:

oh yes.
I had forgotten that they overheated their AR barrels in the tests.

My only point - which I forgot to state- was that most shooters won’t even use 5,000 rds. in their guns.

And the high-grade steel in components of what most of us consider high-quality guns, reportedly is stronger than steel used in Russian cases and bimetal coatings on bullets.

Yup, mild steel vs. tool/ordnance steel......no real contest.

jonnyc:
And yet thousands of gun people on the internet gnash their teeth,... as if they are Bronze Age warriors up against invading people with Iron Age (steel) shields and swords.

They must see themselves -- one day, partly hoping their guns' accessories' high costs can be justified --on top of their house, fighting off a hundred insurgents at the Second Alamo
("Give us the gasoline ! Australian accents)....and suddenly rumors become true-a case won't extract! . . "You mean I was supposed to clean Ma Chamber?"