Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns steel cased ammo?

Maybe we could agree,

Steel would be a much easier to pickup, magnet,
And, it would biodegrade faster.

I get it. You're a physics denier.

Fake news!

like i said, i have fired a ton of wolf, tula, and assorted other russian 9mm with zero issues.
having said that,
few years ago i was firing some 9mm wolf 115grfmj at a stump up in quemato. the bullets were sticking on the outside of a stump i was shooting at. wouldn't say much for it's penetrating qualities.

i still have a lot of it around. don't have to worry about picking up those brass casings.
i did see a you tube video around someplace where they took two ar15's, and a case of steel casing 223 and a case of brass 223.
fired it non stop in the two respective guns, one limited to steel casings, the other brass.
over many thousands of rounds fired, there were a few more stoppages with the steel case stuff, but given the cost difference, the steel case
won out.
I don't think it's a big issue.

That's the dumb part. If it stuck when trying to chamber the round, then it didn't stick from sitting in a hot barrel and melting the laquer. Which is it?

Stuck rounds can happen for a variety of reasons; an oversized bullet, thick case, or bullet seated long will all cause exactly what you describe, and none of them have anything to do with laquer. Sounds like neither you or the gunsmith figured it out but made up an explanation anyway.

So I was ordering some 9mm and decided to give some steel cased stuff a try just because. (After all, my last comment was I wasn't going to try steel stuff, so what better way to be a man of my word than to go buy some...?...) I bought 2 boxes of Wolf Military Classic 115 gr FMJ.



Yesterday I shot both boxes. I was shooting a Kahr PM9 and a 5" 1911. Both guns functioned 100%. Groups were fine out to 50 feet (although my off hand 50 ft groups with the PM9 are suspect, even if I were shooting match grade ammo). The ammo seemed fairly hot; its advertised MV is 1150 fps, and I wouldn't dispute it's every bit that fast and possibly more. About the only thing I noticed that was different was that the bullets visibly sparked when they hit the AR500 steel backstop. So if you plan to shoot steel in a dry field in late August, this might not be the ammo for you.

When I got home, I cleaned both pistols and looked for any anomalies that could be attributed to a steel case but didn't find anything. The guns had both been shot previously with other ammo prior to the steel case stuff so it's impossible to say whether the steel stuff was particularly clean or dirty.

I recognize that it's a small data sample, but at least neither of my guns exploded. Since I can get this ammo to my door for $6.43 per box of 50, I think I might try a bigger batch--maybe 500 or so.

Anyhoo, that's all I got...

I've run that Wolf Military Classic through my Glock 19 and never noticed any problem. IIRC it's not lacquer coated, (?). My G-19 Gen. 3 has almost 2000 rounds through it since I got it new back in 2012. I estimate 80-90% of those rounds are steel case regular Wolf 115 gr. 9mm (but not the military classic). Appears to not have any lacquer on them, they're accurate enough for practice at handgun distance, and I can't recall ever having one that didn't go "bang". I've seen 9mm Glocks at my club that have digested cases of steel case ammo and are still going strong. That's why I didn't hesitate to stock up on it when I got the G-19. I keep a round count on the gun so if the extractor goes I'll know how many rounds it took to wear it out... If the extractor goes I'll just replace it... P.S. Just discovered I still have 2 full boxes of that WPA Military classic here and it doesn't appear to be lacquer coated, or if it is it's a very thin coat.

I have read that Barnaul supplies Hornady their steel cases. I have also read that Hornady supplies bullets for certain rounds to Barnaul. Does any one on the fire have concrete information to the Barnaul Hornady relationship?


Here is an information source http://forum.afte.org/index.php?topic=8425.0

Sheesh, it's only 100 rounds, shoot it up. If it's lacquered, shoot it slowly. It's a Glock, it's perfection, it'll gobble the stuff up and ask for more.

Steel case ammo sometimes binds up a little in pistol mags(rounds float above follower). Give it a shake.