Myth or Fact: Steel cased ammo wears down extractors

Myth or Fact: Steel cased ammo causes significantly faster extraction wear

  • Myth- No damage to extractors from steel cased ammo

    Votes: 94 77.7%

  • Fact- I witnessed the damage

    Votes: 27 22.3%
  • Total voters
    121
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.
Ammoman.com Wolf .223 $289 / 1000 shipped

http://www.ammoman.com/index.htm

I won't even compare to other .223 prices on there, nothing else is close.
Cheapest non-wolf .223 I can find anywhere is Federal at Walmart: $40 / 100 + tax

Wolf: 28.9 cents / round
Walmart federal: 43 cents / round

Difference of 14.1 cents per round
Or, $141 / 1000

Where are you buying your US factory made .223?
 
Centerfiresystems.com has wolf .223 for $229/k. NOTHING in .223 and "made in USA" comes close. Saw some Pri recently for $379/k. Brass, but still not USA.

That's a BOATLOAD of extractors!!!!

Justin
 
It depends on the gun. Some guns don't care, some do. Farnam sent out an alert about steel cased ammo being fired in Sigs. Seems extractors kept cracking.

Sure, you can buy a spare extractor, but if that's your carry/defense gun, that's false economy.
 
dunno I shoot only brass, Have been told they put a coating to stop rusting. during repeat shots it can melt and build up in the chamber. This causes cambering problems and its very difficult to remove.
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Nope, you're utterly wrong. The newer polymer (and also older lacquer) coating does not "melt" off the case. Because steel does not expand as well as brass in the chamber it allows a lot more carbon past the bolt (I'm speaking from an AR-15 perspective). This carbon buildup is what can cause stuck cases.

Go here to find out some of this basic info before you spout more misinformation.
 
Sure, you can buy a spare extractor, but if that's your carry/defense gun, that's false economy.
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I guess it doesn't seem like false economy to keep spare parts around for the gun I deem "most important".

not to mention that black lacquer crap melts off into your chamber and is impossible to remove.
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Not to mention that black lacquer crap hasn't been on imported ammo for 7 or 8 years now......
 
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TexasRifleman said:
Not to mention that black lacquer crap hasn't been on imported ammo for 7 or 8 years now......
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:eek:

what are talking about? there's some at my local gander mountain, dunham's, & dick's sporting goods right now.

might wanna check your sources there, buddy...
 
hat are talking about? there's some at my local gander mountain right now. might wanna check your sources there, buddy...
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Lacquer coated Wolf has not been imported in many years. Might want to check your own facts buddy.

If they have some it's very old, or it's the polymer coated version.

You are welcome to check the Wolf ammo website, none of their current produce line is lacquer coated.

Heck, even Wikipedia has it right.

Note: all ammunition currently manufactured by Wolf has polymer-coated or brass cartridge cases and any obturation problems have been radically reduced.
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I guess it doesn't seem like false economy to keep spare parts around for the gun I deem "most important".

And if you can train DOUBLE the times for the same money, false economy?
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Apparently I was too subtle.

If YOUR gun has proven that steel cased ammo isn't a problem, then this may not apply.

But, it makes little sense to me to use ammo, no matter how cheap, that can break key parts in your defense gun.

If my carry gun was a Sig and I knew that firing steel cased ammo routinely broke the extractor, then I'd be a fool to run steel cased ammo thru it, regardless of how many spare extractors I had.

Why?

Because Murphy's law would dicatate that the extractor would break, unbeknownst to me, on the last shot fired during practice.

So when the gunfight started, I'd be in for a rude surprise pretty fast. I don't want my last thought to be, "well, at least I got to shoot a lot of ammo cheaply......"
 
TexasRifleman,


'facepalm'


some call it lacquer & some call it polymer....either way it melts off into your chamber.

you seem to like to argue semantics, solely to try and make yourself sound more intelligent....fail.
 
some call it laqcuer & some call it polymer....either way it melts off into yoru chamber.

you seem to like to argue semantics, solely to try and make yourself sound more intelligent....fail.
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LOL you are so lost. The polymer coating and the lacquer coating are 2 entirely different things.

There was an intentional change in the design of the ammo years ago to address this very problem. The polymer does not "melt" at all. It's like a teflon coating on a frying pan.

Spend about 5 minutes with Google and you will want to come back and delete your posts here, you have no idea what you are talking about. Don't mean to be rude but you've basically accused me of making stuff up, and that's completely untrue.

This is a VERY well known and VERY well documented change in the ammo design.
 
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IMHO it depends on the gun.
The extractor in the M-1 Carbine is not as stout as the extractor in the AR design or some others. I wouldn't shoot Wolf .30 Carbine just because I see little point in breaking an extractor on it. Yes, it might break anyway on brass ammo.... but then I so rarely shoot the carbine... why bother worrying.

OTOH I have a 9mm. CZ 75 and I don't hesitate using Wolf ammo in it.
 
texasrifleman said:
LOL you are so lost. The polymer coating and the lacquer coating are 2 entirely different things.

There was an intentional change in the design of the ammo years ago to address this very problem.

Spend about 5 minutes with Google and you will want to come back and delete your posts here, you have no idea what you are talking about.

This is a VERY well known and VERY well documented change in the ammo design.
__________________
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...well all i can say is,

thanks for proving my point about my semantics comment.

you are still missing the main point.

i give up
 
...well all i can say is,

thanks for proving my point about my semantics comment.
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It's not semantics, it's 2 entirely different things.

The only problem here is that you are unwilling to actually look into this to find out the truth. Just about everyone in the shooting community acknowledges that the 2 coatings are completely different. One melted, the new one doesn't.

There are threads on this very topic right here on THR going back at least as far as 2004 discussing the differences.

Here, I'll give you a few links to look at on the subject.

http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-96062.html

http://forums.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=225977

http://www.gunandgame.com/forums/ar15-m16/49970-wolf-military-classic.html

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320227

I guess all those people are just playing semantics too? Like I said, very well known and very well documented change in the ammo.
 
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tommygunn said:
IMHO it depends on the gun.
The extractor in the M-1 Carbine is not as stout as the extractor in the AR design or some others. I wouldn't shoot Wolf .30 Carbine just because I see little point in breaking an extractor on it. Yes, it might break anyway on brass ammo.... but then I so rarely shoot the carbine... why bother worrying.

OTOH I have a 9mm. CZ 75 and I don't hesitate using Wolf ammo in it.
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absolutely correct.

ani-clapping.gif
 
extractors break!

In related news; firing your weapon will get it dirty.
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That's odd. I haven't broken an extractor in about 10 years...and that one was OEM in a 1918 GI "Black Army" Colt that had seen long years of service and an untold round count when I pulled it from the slide...in 19-aught-80-somethin'.

Yes. Odd, methinks.
 
I've broken two extractors in 1911s so far.

Colt and Charles Daly, both at about 8000 rounds, but I've got about 15,000 rounds on my oldest RIA and about 10,000 of it was Wolf steel case, no extractor issues. The Colt broke before Wolf was on the market so it only ever shot brass cased ammo.

I did have a defective AR15 extractor, it worked with brass cased ammo but not Wolf, so I replaced the extractor with one that was in spec and all is well. Use the search I posted the details, I actually filed the extractor to match the specs of a known good one from one of my other ARs while waiting for the replacement order, and then it worked with Wolf too once it was dimensionally correct.

Compare costs of a case of Wolf with a case of brass cased ammo, I'd come out ahead even if I had to replace an extractor with every case.

More expensive ammo will generally group significantly better than Wolf so this can be a good justification to use something else (I'm happy to increase the size of my targets and call it good).

Any gun I really like quickly ends up having more spent on the ammo run through it than I did on the gun, so I just don't worry about breaking guns, and always say "if you've never broken a gun, you just ain't been shooting enough!"

--wally.
 
The bull.gif level in this thread is absolutely amazing.

Do you guys honestly believe that the ammunition manufacturers can flout worldwide standards and produce a cartridge that will tear up a gun?

That'd be a self-defeating policy, wouldn't you say?


The steel used in Russian (and other former communist) ammunition is an alloy that is as hard as the metal it replaces (brass, copper, etc).

The "wears out parts" myth is courtesy of some fly-by-nighters who brought in a boatload of cheap Chinese replacement parts, which would have worn out using brass cases (if the penny-pinching folks who bought them had ever bought any brass cased ammo) and is now being continued by ignorant parrots and those with an axe to grind (just like the anti-WASR campesinos)


How will this poll change reality?
 
FMJ said:
i've haven't seen wolf cheaper than US made quality ammo in years.
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Still waiting to hear where you are finding these prices.... I suppose I will continue to do so.
 
The steel used in Russian (and other former communist) ammunition is an alloy that is as hard as the metal it replaces (brass, copper, etc).
Click to expand...

run one of those steel cases through a sizing die and report back to us
 
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