S&W Sport and steel cased ammo....

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Archangel14

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Anyone have any experience with steel cased ammo in the S&W sport? if so, what's your field report?

Thanks!
 
My experience with the M&P did not involve steel case- but I can make some general observations.

The chambers are a bit on the tight side, so steel might be an issue (due to the extra dirt blown back around the less expansive steel case, along with the steels tendancy not to 'snap back' after expanding as well as brass).

The Sport is an exceelent rifle, and I believe it might do OK with steel- but I would advise running good quality full power 5.56 for the first 200-300 rounds before trying the Steel Case, and I would always advise buying a smaller quantity (maybe 50-100 rounds) to try before buying a case of it (as I have seen a few guys on the line with a a brandy new AR that wouldn't cycle reliably with the cheap Steel Case they just bought 1K of!)
 
I ran steel case Tula outta the box. I did this in order to find a failing point with the rifle vs. cheap ammo. If it wouldn't reliably cycle brass AND steel, materials with which one could be fighting with if the society goes to the John, then I couldn't trust it.

The Sport, my two in particular, feed both, fire, and extract both brass and steel without asking questions. I went through several hundred rounds of steel for practice after bringing the gun home. You may be less hard on your gun, but IME the Sport can handle just about anything.
 
I don't have a sport, but it shouldn't be any different than any other medium grade AR. At worst you might get a broken extrator after some time or have some under gassed cyclying issues with under powered cheap steel cased stuff.

The extractor is an easy fix. Besides, I doubt you would have this for a long time.

The sport probably has a semi auto BCG and carbine buffer. It should cycle the light loads fine.
 
I ran maybe 70 rds brass first to test accuracy. But then I ran about 500 of steel, mostly for drills and plinking. No issues yet, my sport had eaten 6 different ammo types no questions asked, and put them on target.
 
I'm hoping for the best with my Sport. Haven't had out to the range yet and probably won't until after Christmas the way things are looking, but I bought a couple hundred rounds of Silver Bear HP because my Kel-Tec SU-16 eats the Russian stuff fine and I would hope for the same from the S&W. A local shop has the Silver Bear for as cheap as numerous online sources, with the main difference being that they actually have it in stock.
 
Had a DPMS with the similar tight chamber that ran steel just fine until I attempted to run brass after steel case, then I had extraction issues.
 
Tried Wolfe in my MSAR with poor results, case stuck in chamber with rim damaged from extrator. Brass case ammo ran fine.
I emptied the contents of a Wolfe cart., and a Lake City cart.,about a foot apart, lit them on fire and saw a huge differance in flame and burn rate. What was also noticed during clean-up was the Wolfe residue was like sticky glue compared to the LC. Sticky powder burn was not good. My CMMG instructions say not to use steel case ammo. Bottom line is you have a good rifle, spend a few bucks more for brass and save the empties for reloads.
 
Steel cased ammo

I've ran lots of steel, about 5g worth, hadn't any problems yet except in the classIII's once in awhile because they are a little under powered. One rifle is a DPMS and the other is a Colt.
 
I have a few hundred brown bears through one without a single problem just keep the chamber decently clean every 1 to 200 rounds

Sent from my SCH-S720C using Tapatalk 2
 
1K of wolf through mine. I had one case get stuck. The extractor ripped part of the case rim off. I had to clear it with a cleaning rod. Other than that, no issues.
 
Steel is 90% of what I run through mine. Tulammo and Wolf. Runs perfect with Pmags.

If you decide to run aluminum/steel mags, try not to use steel case with soft point ammo. It doesn't happen often, but I have had the soft point tips get malformed and cause a FTF. The malformation comes from it dragging across the aluminum/steel mag lips.
 
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