Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns steel cased ammo?

Mauser and Garand extractors are pretty heavy duty items vs those on a handgun.

The steel cased ammo I bought is TulAmmo.

It says "steel case non-corrosive berdan primed" on the box.

It has functioned 100% for 20 rounds, so far, and seemed to be full power loads.

Might go ahead and shoot up the rest of it, as I only bought two boxes, or 100 rounds.

I doesn't appear to have a lacquer coating on it.

Thanks for all the feed back.

Virgil B.

is that a CW9 with its MIM extractor?

The US Military used steel case .45 ACP ammunition?

During WW II we made them by the billions.

Chrysler Plant at Evansville Ohio

Likely due to shortages in supplies of brass, not because it's a particularly good material to make cartridge cases out of. There's a reason only bargain basement "range ammo" is made with steel cases nowadays.

Yes, of course steel was substituted to conserve resources.
During the 30's the Germans figured out how to make excellent bottle neck rifle cartridge cases out of steel.
During the 40's the USA could not accomplish this; we could make decent steel 45 ACP.
Now 80 years later Hornady makes nice steel rifle cases.

I have little experience with steel case ammo. I have shot maybe 2 boxes of it in my life and it functioned 100%. I have also shot aluminum case ammo with similar, perfect results.

But, I do have a question:

Is it really true that the lacquer melts and gums up the chamber? I have done some googling since this thread was posted and the internet warriors seem to disagree with this assertion. Most say it's a myth. Instead they claim that since steel cases don't expand and seal as rapidly as brass, it's the carbon building up that's causing a problem--a problem easily and quickly solved by simply cleaning the gun.

Does anyone have any reliable data or real world experience on the subject?

**Edited to add: Most of the reviews from people shooting steel case 9mm ammo rate it highly. Most complaints don't seem to relate to the steel case. A small percentage of shooters gripe about it being dirty or it failing to fire, but there is very little criticism than can be attributed to the steel case itself. It appears that the manufacturers are trying to produce an ultra cheap round and are cutting corners wherever possible throughout the manufacturing process. Using steel would be a way to do that. But...what negative effect does the steel case actually cause?

Waders, here's a nice articleLucky Gunner Labs.

It won't hurt a fugkin' thing.

Exactly. and there's basically no such thing as "extractor wear".

Thanks. I've read the LG study. I was wondering if anybody had any experience with handgun rounds, ideally 9mm.

The LG article was about AR-15 results. Was the bore wear due to the steel case, the powder, the projectile, or a combination of all 3? Would the results in the AR study translate to handgun ammo? I have no clue, but I'd guess not, given the difference in pressures, muzzle velocities and the obvious fact that different rounds are constructed differently. I appreciate the link though.

At this point, I don't have any plans to shoot any steel case 9mm ammo. I can buy 1000 rds of Rem brass case for about $27 more than the cheapest steel case stuff. I can get $20 for 1000 clean, once-fired, matching headstamp 9mm brass at the local gun show. That makes brass ammo only $7 more per thousand. Cheap insurance...

You're welcome. Bore wear in the L.G. study is from the steel ("bi-metal") jacketed bullets loaded in the Russian 223 ammo.

Not here to argue but

My experience 9 45 and 223/556
Anything I Shoot volume almost exclusively shoot steel
I am old and fluffy
Peggy deals with pacemakers and I have these large round magnets on a rope I walk around (no need to bend down) and pick up my cases throw them in recycle
Have had no issues with ARS
None with mini 30s or 14

None with any Glocks I have an old gen 2 (couple thousand rds) that I never clean I just want to see when it will stop
None S&W autos

tula and Wolf still runs fine no issues

The one place it will NOT work 357mag the case will expand and you will have hell to pay to get it out

That would support the extractor argument but I just have never had that or any issues
I read the opinions till I was blue I can replace anything on an AR or Glock so I wanted to really know and never looked back

Shoot it and giggle

Of course hunting ammo quite a different story because of the bullet not the case
Hank

I used to shoot a lot of Mosin Nagent surplus and after 60 or so the chambers do get sticky, but once cleaned for corrosive primers the fouling would disappear.

I've bought cases and cases of Wolf/Tula pistol ammo when the little backwater outfits I was training wouldn't budget for more. People say it's hard on extractors. My experience doesn't bear that out. People say it's dirty. It's a damn sight cleaner than the old soft-bullet wadcutter loads we burned by the thousands at the KCPD range, decades ago.

It's fine, just scrub your chamber every 300-500 rounds.

It's all nonsense.

Agreed. I put "the Real Hawkeye" on ignore a few years back and all my steel cased ammo problems disappeared immediately. It's amazing what modern technology can accomplish and within seconds.

I used to shoot Wolf 9mm by the zillions - the smoke stunk.

This is secondhand from a reluable source,
And I am a total [bleep] for countering someone elses experience.


A good friend was shooting lacquered steel case from a Glock 22.
After several mags, he loaded, and holstered the gun.
He then shot a 22 for awhile, and decided to quit.

When he tried to clear the Glock, it was locked closed on the loaded round.
He repositioned his hands, pulled on the slide, and it slid open but not far enough.
When he shifted to get the slide fully back, it slipped, slammed closed, and would not
move again. He the took it to a gunsmith who kept it overnight,and charged $25 to unload it.

The ASSUMPTION is that the lacquer caused the problem.
I don't know, and I have never left a loaded steel case in a hot chamber.