Bad range trip with Wolf.

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hounddog

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I may have to change my opinion on Wolf ammo. Range trip yesterday. Fired off 400 rds of wolf 40 cal ammo through a G22. Have probably put 3000rds of wolf through it before without even a hiccup. Had 7rds completely lock up in the chamber and fail to eject. Had to remove top and pry the rounds out from underside with a screwdriver. Got sick of that, then moved onto my AR. After about 100 rds of wolf 223, had one stick hard in the chamber as well. Had no rod to push the casing out, so I sacked it up and called it a day. The only glitch with wolf I have had before was with my Beretta 96 jamming with every wolf rd, but no other issues. Will continue to shoot wolf (have to, have 20,000 rds on hand at present) but not sure if I will buy any more for a while. On a good note for it, I did manage a 5 shot group of about 3" at 300yds with the ar.
 
Wolf can be very loose with ammunition specs. I would never use it in my Western guns, especially rifles with close chamber tolerances.

You have just experienced what Wolf advocates claim can't happen with Wolf ammo.
 
Never understood why guys spend good money on solid weapons and then run trash ammo through their guns.
A gun is a one time large purchase. Ammo is a reoccurring cost of shooting it. It's much easier to swallow an extra Ben Franklin or two on the initial purchase of a firearm than it is to spend a couple extra Andrew Jacksons every month to feed it.

I run CCI Blazer through my handguns. The only thing I shoot Wolf with are Makarovs, AKs and SKS though.
 
I use wolf only on my SKS. However, I have been thinking about trying it in my G19 after some good reviews I read for their pistol ammo.

Maybe not now.
 
I've never had a problem with Wolf .45 in my Glock 30. But I have seen Wolf jam up viciously in an AR-15, M1A, and an HK USP at the range.


Wolf is like McDonald's- cheap, fills you up, but if you use it constantly you'll eventually run into a problem. :rolleyes:
 
So if you shot 400 rounds, 7 of which jammed so you have a 1.7% failure rate. You had a precise 1% failure rate on you AR. Simple questions would follow here.

How often do you clean you guns?
Did the jammed ammo have measurably different tolerances.
Did your guns have excessive fouling from the ammo fired through them prior to the jam?
Did you try some other brand of ammo to see if the problems went away?

El Tejon and others are whiningh about how cost of something is a reliable indicator of quality. Such is not the case. If the claimed dimensional tolerances aren't being held, a simple micrometer reading would prove/disprove this. I find it interesting that nobody's posted photos of said measurements to back up their claims. Personally I've had high end ammo fail to function, I've had cheap ammo fail to function. I've yet to experience failing ammo that would group one MOA at 300 yards! Seems like stating Wolf ammo is universal junk is highly improbable. While it may well be inconsistent batch to batch, I'm unwilling to condemn a product that is A) fully guaranteed by it's manufacturer, and B) delivered commendable accuracy for 100 rounds in the AR.
 
Wolf / Bear / which ever animal it is today,

Wolf and Bear ammo are two different brand names. It's like saying Remington and Winchester or Ford and Chevy are the same thing, just because they're from the same country.

Generally, my rule of thumb is western ammo in western guns, eastern in eastern. One of these days I might try Wolf in some of my pistols, but then again, maybe not.
 
FWIW, a month ago I finished off 750 rounds of Wolf .308 through my 1919A4. This was three belts left over from a shoot last year. Last year this stuff shot just dandy - the neghbor's kids took turns holding down the trigger, and I kept dumping 5 gallon buckets of water over the barrel to keep the gun from catching fire. No problems at all.

This year, I had all kinds of problems! Same ammo, still in the belts I had loaded last year, all from the same lot and same cases. But the gun wouldn't fire more than ten shots without stopping!

*Twice* it failed to load a fresh round and go into battery, and both times I discovered all the powder from the previous round all over the action. When I checked the bore, both times there was a bullet lodged just past the throat! :what: 1919's are tough guns, but I've had my share of bad ammo blowing this one up, and I'd like to not have to fix it yet again...

After I managed to get through the first belt, the last two ran fine. That first belt ran up and down on the cyclic rate. I took some of the loose rounds and put them through my Ishapore Enfield (my "BMG ammo suitability test fixture") and sure enough, I had a bunch of hang fires. Between the two guns I managed to chop down a coupla trees, but it was annoying having a problem with ammo I had run flawlessly last year!

Nearest I can figure, this is the cause: I was using cloth belts for the 1919A4. I soak my belts in ATF (automatic transmission fluid) to soften up the .30-06 pockets to accept wider-bodied .308 rounds. The first belt was a crummy old green one, the other ones were the white ones. My guess is that I had a *lot* of oil in the first belt, which soaked into the Wolf ammo (probably the primer). This screwed things up, although it took a year for it to happen.

Never had this problem with any other ammo yet.

So don't oil up your ammo and let it sit around for a while - especially with the Wolf stuff!
 
Wolf

Yeah, horrible stuff. :rolleyes:

With over 5,000 rnds of 7.62x39 fired in three rifles and over 1,000 rnds of 9mm in two carbines without a single problem.... yup, I'm definitely giving up on it and going to more expensive stuff. ;)
 
Wolf can be very loose with ammunition specs. I would never use it in my Western guns, especially rifles with close chamber tolerances.
Amen. Seems to work fine in all my eastern-bloc guns. But western guns choke on it. I believe, Like CWL, that they're pretty sloppy with tolerances.
 
Seems to vary a lot by firearm. People have mentioned all kinds of problems with Wolf .30 Carbine ammo, but I've fired a couple of thousand rounds of it through two different carbines with no misfires, jams or any other problem. A bit more fouling after I'm done, but that's it.
 
For the record, I've yet to have any kind of ammo failure from any of the russian animal brands.

Now, with the new polymer coated rounds, I've heard that if you shoot a bunch and get the chamber hot, and leave a round in there, the polymer coating melts and then as it cools, sticks the case to the chamber wall.

Did you do a bunch of long strings, and then let rounds sit in the chambers?
 
My SKS D has fired nothing but Wolf and I have never had any type of failure with it. Some might say eastern ammo in eastern guns but I have also put over 1000 rounds of 9mm Wolf through one of my handguns without a failure. The same handgun that can't fire off a full 8 round mag of Blazers without some type of a misfire.
 
Once again, say it with me now.

Commie gun Commie Ammo.
Western gun Western Ammo. Ok I know Glock is technically an Eastern gun but it is not a Commie gun.

Chris
 
Wolf .22 from Germany is made by Lapua in Germany (where QA/QC is understood and practiced.) Brass cased not steel and no lacquer or polymer coatings.
 
Buy the most expensive ammunition you can find in quantity. Only shoot that ammo. It will leave more Wolf at the distributor for me to buy down the road. ;)
 
Before this range trip, I loved wolf unconditionally. Have easily gone through 20k rds of this stuff, with only hiccup coming that my Beretta hated wolf 40 each and every time. Using their 7.62, 40, and 223 rds. I would have argued with all negative comments before this trip. Now am not so vocal. Guns were clean prior to this trip to the range. so far as case measurements, not sure if measuring a case after it has been fired is much of a indication of what is going on. Especially after having to beat and pry it out of the chamber. I know I am not going to measure 1k of rds before going to the range. All rds chambered without difficulty, just failed to eject, and required a great deal of effort on my part to get them out after the fact. For than matter, the ar is still locked up because I haven't gotten around to really attempting to get the shell out.
 
Did you leave any rounds in a hot chamber for any period of time, long enough to cool or set melted polymer coating, as I described above?
 
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