about steel-walled ammo?

[thunderbyrd]

i found some Tulammo 9mm luger 115 grain FMJ steel case yesterday for a (i think) good price, less than $20 for 50 and i snatched up a couple. took them to the range and ran them through my Ronin and brand new CZ 75. no problems at all.

so the first thing i need to know is are these cases reloadable? and are they in anyway bad for your gun? because if not, i'm going to lay in a big pile of this stuff.

 

[thunderbyrd]

i wish to add: before i got the Ronin, i'd only ever fired maybe 5-6 rounds of 9mm. i am finding it a very pleasant and enjoyable round to shoot.

 

[Atavar]

I have been told that the steel and aluminum cases are not reloadable.
They won’t hurt your gun but I can’t imagine they would be kind to your dies.
I suspect they would not size or crimp as nicely as brass.
You will have to more thoroughly clean the chamber after firing steel cased ammo. It does not expand and seal the chamber as nicely as brass does.
I am sure wiser more experienced minds than mine will chime in.

 

[John Joseph]

i found some Tulammo 9mm luger 115 grain FMJ steel case yesterday for a (i think) good price, less than $20 for 50 and i snatched up a couple. took them to the range and ran them through my Ronin and brand new CZ 75. no problems at all.

so the first thing i need to know is are these cases reloadable? and are they in anyway bad for your gun? because if not, i'm going to lay in a big pile of this stuff.

If they work, they work. Cases are not recommended for reloading. A steady diet may cause premature ejector wear, or not.

 

[Hugger-4641]

I just bought some Rem and Venom 115gr 9mm brass case for $17 and $18 for 50rd. So if you intend to reload I'd go for those instead of steel. When I go to public range, they don't want you picking up brass, so I take some steel or aluminum case.

 

[Atavar]

My public range requires you to pick up your brass. If you don’t want it you can dump it in the recycle drum.

 

[H&R Glock]

The only remaining gotcha is the type of priming used on the steel cases. Some You-Tubers reload steel cases one or two times and get away with it. 9mil can be picked up off the ground at my gun club every day and most is brass. Why bother with steel? Good luck.

 

[ontarget]

For reloading, procuring brass is going to be the least of your problems. Try finding small pistol primers!
I have heard of people reloading steel, but dies are expensive. Once the coating gets worn off the steel from firing/reloading I think you may run into rust issues too.
As for shooting the factory steel, shoot all you can get your hands on if it works well in your gun.
I shoot it in my ARs but my Howa 223 has a problem with extraction with steel, so that one only eats brass.

 

[Buzznrose]

Two best things about steel cased ammo…cheaper to shoot and you can pick it up with a magnet.

 

[Riomouse911]

Buy it to shoot. I’ve shot lots of it in 9mm, .40 & .45 handguns and 5.56 and 7.62x39 rifles with zero issues. Most of what I’ve shot is not the most accurate stuff, but it makes for a less expensive afternoon of cans, plates and paper punching.

By the time any premature wear shows up you have saved enough $$ over standard ammo to buy all the parts that need replacing… probably more than once.

If you intend to reload, buy brass-cased ammo.

As for the Ronin 9mm, I also bought the 4.25” version a few months ago and found it to be a great 1911 style pistol .

Stay safe.

 

[nofendertom]

Agree with Riomouse on saving $ over brass cased ammo. I have heard of extractor and ejector wear on a 1911 .45acp gun. The the cost of replacement would more than be
recovered with the savings on ammo if you buy by the case. I would not use it if was to be an EDC gun, but range only, fine.

 

[trackskippy]

Unless it were all I had, and had no other choice, Id skip trying to reload the steel, unless you just want to prove to yourself you could, and if you needed to, you can. Nothing wrong with learning something new.

I did that with a bunch of boxer primed Federal Aluminum cases I found at the range, and I was pretty impressed. I loaded 50 and kept reloading them until I was satisfied it was doable. I quit at around 6 or 8 reloads.

Surprisingly, they held up quite well, and I only usually lost one or two cases each cycle. Failures were just split case mouths.

If things get really bad, and you cant get brass, the aluminum cases are more than doable.

 

[Tirod]

Some ranges recycle what brass is left behind - and have a no steel policy. It started with steel jacketed bullets which were damaging the targets or the deflector, and sometimes caused ricochets. After a while they got tired of sorting out steel cases and made it an across the board policy.

The price of steel is more than cheap enough to make up for the slightly faster wear on the few parts in contact with it - including barrels, much less extractors. The downside of steel case is that it IS cheap ammo - it's not full power specifications, uses typically dirty powder, and isn't manufactured to higher quality standards. In the day it also came with corrosive primers which required mandatory cleaning after use, and some of that is surfacing on the old ammo being dragged out to sell now. Last two gun shows I've been to had tables stacked with 87 different kinds of ammo, two or three boxes of each. If it's really a bargain price, then it's likely corrosive.

 

[halfmoonclip]

Personal snobbery, but I hate steel in guns not designed for it. Feed your Kalashnikov with the steel it was made for; not so much in guns made for brass.
Been shooting/reloading a long time, and have a metric chit-ton of 9mm brass; a moot point for me.
Moon

 

[The Glockodile]

Most steel - cased ammunition is Berdan primed.

 

[Ignition Override]

Folks, isn't high quality steel used in US-made guns just as good as what is used in the Czech Republic (VZ-58), Serbia, PR China etc?
I've never read that US steel (other than some lower, cheaper grades used by Century...$$ ) is inferior to foreign steel.

I've used over 8,000 rounds of steel-cased imported ammo in my imported semi-auto rifles, and about 1,000 or more shared by my S&W 3rd Gens, Walther P99 AS and CZ PCR.
Zero issues. All primers are non-corrosive.

If you don't sometimes do light cleaning in a gun's chamber, more residue accumulates because steel cases don't expand much.
This can eventually challenge an ....extractor....making its function more difficult. Gun smiths have evaluated this.

Notice how often extractors are the Topic with steel-cased ammo? Don't be a slob, just poke a little Ballistol patch etc sometimes into the chamber and rub a bit.

 

[mjsdwash]

I reload steel in .308 often. Tula takes US primers. If your 9mm does as well, and its all I could find, I wouldn't worry too much.
Steel cases don't hold as much neck tension. I over crimp them with a Lee FCD to the point of canneluring the bullet.
Standard dies work fine, standard lube works fine.

Reloading 9mm steel doesn't seem like a great idea. Bullet setback can be a major issue in 9mm. 9mm brass has been easy to find throughout the last two years, and really no reason to reload steel. You can post a WTB here and probably get some for close to free. But some of us do reload steel.

 

[barnetmill]

Some ranges recycle what brass is left behind - and have a no steel policy. It started with steel jacketed bullets which were damaging the targets or the deflector, and sometimes caused ricochets. After a while they got tired of sorting out steel cases and made it an across the board policy.

The price of steel is more than cheap enough to make up for the slightly faster wear on the few parts in contact with it - including barrels, much less extractors. The downside of steel case is that it IS cheap ammo - it's not full power specifications, uses typically dirty powder, and isn't manufactured to higher quality standards. In the day it also came with corrosive primers which required mandatory cleaning after use, and some of that is surfacing on the old ammo being dragged out to sell now. Last two gun shows I've been to had tables stacked with 87 different kinds of ammo, two or three boxes of each. If it's really a bargain price, then it's likely corrosive.

On an indoor range for pistol bimetallic ammo, the biggie is not related to denting the plates, at least not with 9x19. 7.62x25 maybe, especially M48 hardened steel core.
Any ammo can cause sparks, but steel jackets are very apt to spark upon hitting a steel back stop. In door ranges can accumulate bits of unburned powder that can be extremely flammable. Many years ago german AP 9x19 of WWII vintage was still around and it is my understanding that it could cause issues relative to the surface of the plates.
I am not aware that steel ammo will cause problems with service weapons designed for it. But I would like to see some data on it. An AK or a Makarov do not have a problem with steel.
I would not shoot steel in the 'micro' sized short recoil operated pocket pistols. I do shoot such in my G19 and so far no problems with it.