Bad range trip with Wolf.

[snow92686]

I shoot wolf 45 in my ruger and rarely ever have an issue but several of my 9mms dont like wolf, but never had a problem with wolf in my glock 17. All my glocks will shoot anything.

 

[eliphalet]

Cheap ammo in good guns is like using cheap oil in a good car, or eating junk food constantly and expecting to stay healthy. Sooner or later there is a good chance it is gonna cost ya.

 

[K3]

Cheap ammo in good guns is like using cheap oil in a good car, or eating junk food constantly and expecting to stay healthy. Sooner or later there is a good chance it is gonna cost ya.

But what about cheap oil in a cheap car? Or cheap ammo in a cheap gun, like Wolf in an AK?

The AK is inexpensive. It is not a precisely tuned instrument, yet it devours Wolf without so much as a hiccup. Hell, I managed to shoot a 5 round group at 100 yards that measured a hair over 2". Twice on the same day. The other groups were 3 to 3-1/2, but that's pretty doggone good for a cheap rifle and cheap ammo.

Seems to me that some of the more expensive guns are a bit too delicate and fragile. A hunting buddy had a Bushmaster AR that hated Wolf. Absolutely hated it. Here is this rifle that cost twice as much as the AK, yet it's a finicky little thing.

That said, in my bolt action hunting rifles, I use my own homebrew. All hunting and serious target ammo is made in the little factory in my garage. For plinking and just having a good old time, give me a commie beater and some of that noxious Wolf junk any day of the week!

 

[RPCVYemen]

Wolf can be very loose with ammunition specs. I would never use it in my Western guns, especially rifles with close chamber tolerances.

I have a Blackhawk convertible 45 LC/45 ACP. I almost always shoot 45 LC - no point to a dinky little sawed off autoloader round in a revolver. One day a friend gave me a box of 45 ACP of random brands, just to run through the 45 ACP cylinder.

There were a number of brass rounds, and some Wolf grey metal rounds. The brass rounds all worked fine - the Wolf wouldn't even fit into the cylinder correctly. Maybe auto-loaders have looser tolerances, but I pushed one Wolf round in, thought the better of it, and had a heck of a time backing it out - unfired. It was way too tight in the 45 ACP cylinder. Cylinder could be out of spec, but all the non-Wolf ammo worked fine.

Mike

 

[.45Guy]

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.

Amen brother! Wolf has turned my carbines into veritable .22's! Alot more fun to plink with as well.

 

[FieroCDSP]

I think the original Poster's problem was liekly laquer coated cases. I've fired such 40cal ammo from a Sigma and had it seize up after 112 rounds (with several stiff to eject ones before). The laquer comes off in the chamber and melts, and sticks the cases. Newer Wolf is using a different coating, so it likely won't seize up. I have, however, sworn to never make another pistol suffer from Wolf, short of SHTF. I will use it and Brown Bear in my SKS, because that thing will eat anything.

 

[jerkface11]

The lacquer does not melt.

 

[mnw42]

Wolf isn't as bad as a lot of people make it out to be and I consider the wolf Gold to be really top notch ammo. My Enfields, CZ52, and other love Wolf! The only things that I consistently feed the steel cased ammo are my SKS and M39. I do not shoot the same volume of ammo as some, so I may never experience the problems that others have seen.

I have, however, seen problems with Wolf in ARs. The chamber 'gunk' issue isn't the coating it is powder. The steel cases don't seem to seal as well as the brass and as a result you can get more chamber fouling. I've seen some people shoot a bunch of Wolf and then switch to brass cased ammo and have FTE issues. A few people I know have had premature extractor failures with steel cased ammo. I am not saying that it is a Wolf issue per se - only an observation. Wolf is in the ammo business and I don't think that they would sell ammo with a faulty coating - it would be bad business.

 

[Werewolf]

1000's of rounds of Wolf fired out of a Saiga Rifle (7.62X39) and a couple of CZ-75's with no failures to fire, feed or extract. 100's of rounds of Wolf fired out of a Sig P220 with no failures to fire, feed or extract.

I've noted that about 1 round in 10 seems to be an outlier re point of impact - even when fired from a bench. Bullet can be as much as 10" or so from point of aim. Other 9 hit where they're supposed to.

I use Wolf exclusively out of my CZ-75B SA in IPSC matches knowing I'm going to get 1 in 10 outliers. Big deal - not like I'm getting paid or anything if I win.

Wolf in .40 S&W 180gr runs around $7.60 per 50. I can reload it cheaper (and do when I'm shooting in military semi auto pistol matches) but not by much and it just isn't worth my time to reload it when I can buy it for $7+.

You get what you pay for and have performance expectations unique to each buyer. For those disatisfied with Wolf I'd hazard a guess that your expectations are probably too high.

 

[rocklocker2]

i bought a brick of wolf 22lr and my new savage MK11 will not extract it.the rim is a bit small and round and i end up picking it out with a small screwdriver.and around here that wolf crap is 30 bucks a brick.no problems with PMC.

 

[dm1333]

Rocklocker2

That Wolf "crap" that you are talking about is some of the best .22 lr match ammo that you can buy. You might want to have your rifle checked out. The reason why Wolf is used by so many .22 competitors is consistency.

I've put over 400 rounds of Wolf through my AR-15 with no problems whatsoever. I've also put about 180 rounds of higher quality ammo through the rifle. The only cleaning has been running a bore snake through it a few times.

 

[XD-40 Shooter]

1200 rounds of Wolf through my Yugo SKS and M-1 30 Carbine, no issues. For the price, it allows to me to shoot these rifles on a fairly regular basis, I'll stick with it.

My other pistols and rifles will never see Wolf ammo, I'm not putting cheap, dirty, crappy ammo in my $500 Springfield XD. I reload ammo for it, for $6/50 rounds.

Commie ammo in commie guns, SKS's like cheap, dirty, crappy ammo.

 

[jerkface11]

Your Croatian pistol is too good for Wolf ammo?

 

[MisterPX]

Hmmm, save $80 per case, times 30K rounds, means $2400 to punch out 3 or 4 stuck 223 cases....Sounds good to me.

Never had any issues in tens of thousands of rounds of Wolf pistol ammo.

 

[doberman]

The only issue I have with Wolf is there aren't any ranges around here that allow it to be shot there, or any "steel" whatsoever.

So it sits.

If I do get out and shoot the MUCH more expensive brass ammo, it seems I spend as much time picking up the cases as I do shooting!

C'mon, you know I'm not the only one.

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

It's not actually the polymer that's causing the jams. Wolf ammo uses steels casings, which don't expand as much when the powder ignites. This allows some of the carbon filled gases to flow back around the casing before ejection. After many rounds the carbon builds up in the chamber and a new round can get stuck while chambering, thus you get a FTE.

I shoot only Wolf .223 in my AR. When I go to the range, I easily shoot 200 rds in one trip. I can't afford to buy ammo that costs double or triple what Wolf costs. I don't hunt, so I don't need super high quality rounds. I just need lots of ammo that goes bang so I can practice.

 

[renegade1alpha]

I shoot lots of Wolf ammo and have NEVER had problems with it in any of my guns. I shoot it through my custom Springfield 1911, Glock 22 and my Bushmaster AR and although it is a little dirtier than most it shoots fine.

 

[XD-40 Shooter]

Hey jerkface, I have no need to put Wolf ammo in my XD-40. I can reload superior ammo for it for less money, so why bother with Wolf? I don't.

Reloading 7.62x39 on the other hand, is more expensive than buying Wolf. The brass in X39 is rediculous as far as price. Therefore, I buy Wolf for the SKS, I find it to be accurate and consistent, especially considering the price.

 

[Kimber1911_06238]

I bought my dad 1000 rounds of wolf .40 for father's day. worst present ever.....couldn't get through more than 5 rounds in his hk without a problem. nothing but factory or handloaded BRASS cartridges from now on

 

[hkenvy91]

well all my auto's happen to be h&k's, so .... wolf is definitely out of the question

hey kimber h&k's have alot tighter chamber specs than alot of other pistols ,so wolf is bad in them and is not reccomended!! use brass only

 

[Hokkmike]

Thanks for the post Houndog. there is a reason it is the cheapest ammo. I was thinking about picking up some .40 ammo and you have slapped the sense back into me.

 

[Kevin108]

Wolf has never given me any problems. My Glocks will eat anything. My 1911 choked hard on Blazer though.

 

[iamhistory]

I just had this same conversation Friday night with two gunsmith friends of mine.

My 1911 will not eject Wolf, the only brand up til now that it will not cycle properly. Now I have a batch of CCI Blazer Brass that will not eject. I took the pistol in to get it a checkup and it is in absolutely perfect working condition, as expected. The theory is that the Blazer Brass is loaded too light to get the casing out of the chamber and ejected before the next round is stripped from the mag into the chamber. The empty is actually on its way to being pushed back into the chamber, bending the sides of the casing and thus causing jams.

I ordered a lighter spring to see how that works since we can't find any other issues so far. The thought is that the lighter spring will allow proper battery of the pistol and let me shoot the potentially lighter load.

In the process of discussing shooting the Blazer Brass out of my 1911 and various other weapons, shooting Wolf also came up. I was given a lecture on why I should not shoot steel cased ammo......not necessarily Wolf, just not steel cased anything in my pistols. Basically it came down to if your firearms have a chrome lined barrel/chamber.....then steel is fine. If they do not, then don't shoot it.

The explanation was that brass expands and contracts more readily than the steel cased when fired. The extractor pulls the brass casings out with more ease than steel and the wear and tear on the chamber/weapon is far less than with steel. The steel expands and contracts upon firing also, but contracts to a far lesser degree making extraction tighter and more difficult for the weapon and causing more wear and tear on chambers, parts, etc.

It was suggested that an occasional box of steel cased would be no problem, but a case would do damage and I should not consider a steady diet of steel cased ammo for any of my pistols. The topic of Commie-bloc guns vs. US guns came up and the answer was that the country doesn't matter. The chrome lined is what makes the difference. It gives protection against potential wear using steel cased ammo.

I also asked about extractors being worn or broken due to using steel cased. It was stated that if an extractor gets that worn down from using steel cased it is probably not a good one and it is highly unlikely that one would be actually broken due to steel cased ammo.

Now having said all this, both smiths inspected my 1911 (didn't have any other guns that I've shot steel out of for them to look at) and said it looked fine. I have shot several boxes of Wolf out of it (no other brands of steel) but only a few since it doesn't eject properly. I can't cycle it so I don't buy it. I have shot about 1,000 rounds out of my G23, I have shot about 1500 out of my AR (just to test it and see how it worked. I shoot Lake City now.) and about 3,000 out of my AK since that's all I shoot out of it.

Input, comments, thoughts?

 

[1911Tuner]

The empty is actually on its way to being pushed back into the chamber, bending the sides of the casing and thus causing jams.

Happen mostly on the last round, does it?

The theory is that the Blazer Brass is loaded too light to get the casing out of the chamber and ejected before the next round is stripped from the mag into the chamber.

A 230-grain bullet at 650 fps will cycle the slide unless your recoil spring is ridiculously strong.

 

[yesit'sloaded]

Wolf isn't as bad as a lot of people make it out to be and I consider the wolf Gold to be really top notch ammo.

Thats because Wolf Gold isn't real Wolf ammo. IIRC it is rebranded Partizan ammo made in the Chezch Republic. I use Wolf in the SKS, but thats about it.