Once and for all thread: Wolf in an AR

i just got my first Bushy and thats all ive shot out of it. i got the 500 round bulk pack my dad had sittin around. i clean it after every outing. which is actually what im about to go do now.

Do not buy steel cased .223/5.56 for any gun. Because my AR eats a lot of it and paying 200$ a case is getting ridiculous.

wait.... did you say "take the highroad"?

So far so good...

You might want to read the Boxoftruth article on this, as well.

I've put a couple hundred rounds of wolf polymer through my bushmaster without a problem. I clean afterward with mpro7 which seems to dissolve all the nasty wolf fouling, and I scrub the chamber, too, as per the box of truth. Last thing you'd want would be for your fancy HD ammo to stick in the chamber because you slopped it up at the range with the wolf blasting stuff. Just a minor concern. I shot some brass cased first last time I went out, to confirm my chamber cleaning routine was effective. No problems yet.

I've run about 1000 rounds through 3 different rifles with only one problem. The Wolf I had was about 2 years old, and I found that it was not very accurate ammo in all 3 rifles. All 3 would shoot "regular" 55gr ammo into an average of 3" groups at 100 yards, and the Wolf 55gr would be closer to 6" to 8" at the same range. Good for fun blasting, but I use other ammo for match work (3 gun) and HD. Otherwise, it is good ammo.

My son has a case of 1000 rounds of Wolf 62gr soft points in the garage for shooting when he gets back from Iraq. Bought the ammo about 4 months ago, and it has gone up a bit since then.

The only issues I have seen is that with lower end AR's, it can have a hard time running reliably. It shoots fine in my weapons, but I choose not to shoot it regularly in them.

I have shot a ton of steel cased Wolf, and it seems to work just fine. Thus far, I haven't picked up on any damage to the chamber or anything like that.

Several years ago I shot a bunch of Wolf and Barnual through a Colt AR. The plan was to purposely not clean it until it failed. The Barnaul had hard primers and one in every several hundred would not go off. Over the course of several months I shot about 1,300 rounds of it in 2-300 round range sessions. When it finally jammed no amount of holding the charging handle back and beating the stock on the ground would open the action. Turns out that the reason it jammed was because it was one of the hard primer rounds that had FTF. figuring that out put a wrench in clearance procedures since I wasn't going to be able to ponnd on a rod from the muzzle to free the bolt. The round basically hot glued itself to the dirty chamber. I am sure that had the round fired the gun would have continued to run since that is how I finally cleared it; I split the lowers, recocked the hammer, re-assembled and fired, resulting in a perfect extraction and ejection. Almost perfect since I was at home and used the dirty laundry as a backstop. I meant to, aimed straight down, groundfloor with a crawlspace, never really much liked the shirt... After my ears stopped ringing I cleaned the gun throughly, experiment over. So yes, you can use it, clean often. That was the only AR jam I have ever had in 13 years of platform ownership.

I've never had any problems with shooting the poly version of Wolf in any
of my four ARs. I believe a rifle that won't function with Wolf is a rifle
that has some kind of function problem that is masked with the higher
power milspec 5.56 ammo.

I've probably fired at least 10,000 rounds of Wolf 55 grain FMJ steel cased ammo through my Bushmaster. In that time I've had maybe a half dozen failures, probably less. Don't remember em all exactly, but the last 2 with the newer Wolf stuff (they changed the coating at some point) were the case got stuck in the chamber after the round fired, and then the next round tries to come in and smashes into the stuck one. I had to push a rod down the bore to ram the case out. Both times this happened after firing many hundreds of rounds. It may be a result of all the crud building up, or maybe because the chamber was very hot and the coating sticks, or maybe both. I don't know for sure - that much is all guesswork.

But to sum it up, it works great for the price. (Well, the price used to be good, but even with it at 3 times what it used to cost it's still cheaper than anything else.)

I've shot thousands (well over 8k worth) of rounds of wolf through 2 AR's. One's a Bushy, the other a mutt. Neither have any issues with it.

No problems with Wolf through my Bushmaster Dissipator. The only problems I had were with my Armalite AR-180B, apparently they have a tight chamber.

Not again ... I've only been shootin' Wolf though ARs (3 so far) since I found it ... 'bout ten years or so ... probably at least 10,000 rounds or so ... no problems with one Colt, 2 Bushies.

Can we put this one to bed, ever?

here is what we know, they are lacquered, so that stuff is being shot down in your chamber/bbl. they are steel cased, which means, they are getting hotter, and staying hotter longer, and staying expanded, longer, while your extractor is trying to pull it out of your chamber, which by the way is also coated with gooey lacquer. Go right ahead, your extractor was meant to take that kinda punishment, and so was your chamber, right?

so what is wrong with Wolf? load into mag, chamber round, pull trigger, gun go bang, projectile fly out, case get ejected, chamber another round? ammo is ammo?!?

The lacquer and polymer melting myth is BS. People have heated cases up to red hot with a torch, and there is no melting.

I personally have had 2 failure to ejects. Both times were at a carbine class. Both times were in the middle of dumping several mags rapid fire, so it was hot. Both times, the gun was getting dry. I have about 7000 rds through my Bushmaster. I don't clean it. I keep it lubed, and it works fine.

rangerruck: Here is what we know: they are lacquered, so that stuff is being shot down in your chamber/bbl. They are steel cased, which means they are getting hotter and staying hotter longer, and staying expanded longer while your extractor is trying to pull it out of your chamber (which, by the way, is also coated with gooey lacquer). Go right ahead--your extractor was meant to take that kind of punishment, and so was your chamber, right?

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Evidence? Since when does something on the outside of a case get "shot down the barrel?"

Anything that gets hot quick also gets cool quick. Basic laws of physics. Is steel more receptive to temperature change than brass?

Have you ever fired Wolf through an AR?

From the OP: "I'm posting this thread not to start a flame war, but to ask THR members who have personally fired Wolf Ammunition in their AR15 what their experience was. Even more, I'd like to know from those of you who have fired it quite a bit of this ammo out of your AR15s."

10000 rds plus though a variety of AR's. Only two real issues. One was with some ammo that had gotten wet and had rust spots on it. My brother shot it anyway, at least until he totally locked one in the chamber. Took a cleaning rod and a hammer to remove. Second is with an "AR 47." Modified ar receiver to accept ak mags, 7.62x39 upper that I think is made by DPMS. For some reason I cannot get the wolf to feed in this gun. If I put one in the chamber, will fire and eject, but will not feed the next case. Works fine with brass ammo. I suspect it is due to friction between cases. Next range trip will take some carbon graphite spray and try lubing a mag and see.
So far as how "dirty" the ammo is, cannot really say I see a difference between wolf and any other ammo I have shot. With the gas blow back system, they tend to get crusty quickly.

If find this thread interesting. Normally Wolf ammo threads say, "My friends cousin had his extractor break in 8 pieces and the laquer glued his hand to the AR, oh.....and it causes global warming." It seems as though there are alot of people who use it regulary without a problem.

I spoke to a guy last time I was at the range who had a Wolf experience. Apparently DPMS will void your warranty if you shoot Wolf ammo in one of their rifles. His rifle was sent in for work, they let him know his warranty was now void.
From DPMS website:

Transportation to and from our repair facilities, government fees, damage caused by failure to perform normal maintenance, sales outside the United States, damage due to high velocity, high pressure, reloaded, or other non-standard ammunition, or any unauthorized repair, modification, misuse, abuse, or alteration of the product is not covered by this limited warranty.

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After an experience I had personally with some Wolf .40 S&W, I will never buy that garbage again.

--meathammer

How is Wolf non-standard? It is loaded to SAAMI specs, and thats the measure of standard, right? I think it is highly unlikely that DPMS has a company policy that voids your warranty if you use Wolf ammo, but just in case it is, I just fired off a letter to DPMS and asked them to confirm this rumor. If it is true, then I will eat crow, I guess.

I just bought a DPMS, and would be interested in hearing if that is true.

Bushmaster has ammo on their 'no-no' list, I'm pretty sure its Olympic ammunition, but definately not Wolf.

Personally, I don't shoot the AR enough where I have to choose between high quality ammo and eating. I've put maybe 300 rounds through mine in the last year, most of it Black Hills.

I shoot Wolf exclusively in my AR (all polly coated newer stuff) and it's been fine. It might be hard on extractors but I haven't had any fail and think of all the extractors you buy with the money you save

I read (I think it was on ARFcom) that the sticky problem was lacquer coated wolf being shot in an AR, then firing soft cheap (back then!) South African brass cased ammo which would expand and stick in the chamber, requiring a rod to knock it out.

ETA: It stinks and isn't as accurate as other ammo but it's cheap and goes bang!

no problems, but not as accurate