I bought some steel cased ammo when I got my new Glock 19 9MM

Didn't even realize it was steel cased until I got it home.

Only bought two boxes, and after is gone, probably won't buy more.

Am wondering what "the fire" thinks about shooting this stuff?

Thanks for any feed back!

Virgil B.

I think that, at the very least, they are a little harder on extractor hooks. Also, if it's got a lacquer on it (which many times they do), this can melt (once the barrel gets hot) and accumulate in the chamber, which can be hard to clean out and could cause reliability issues.

Bottom line, I won't use it.

I have a few old boxes of it (Wolf brand) that I bought many years ago not realizing it was steel cased, but I wouldn't use them unless I had no other option. They will likely be included in my legacy, i.e., I will likely never use them.

Hawkeye:

Thanks for the feed back!

I sure won't buy any more on purpose.

I mostly buy CCI Blazer brass practice ammo

Might "gift" this stuff to someone.

Virgil B.

The Winchester 115 gr stuff shoots really well in both of my 9mms. I bought the first 2 boxes not realizing it was steel cased. Shot that up and went back like a rimfire hoarder.

It's the only reason I can walk through the door of wal mart...

It is accurate and functions well in both of MY 9mms, but my son bought a Kel Tec PF9 and it doesn't function well in that.

So on one of his trips to the range he shot up 200 of my Gold Dot G2 stash.

I used 200 rounds of this stuff for break-in on the Kahr. It all shot fine, the pistol never hiccup'd.





If my memory serves me, this was the first 50 rounds, at 20 yards, just pushing them out.

Those don't look like they have any sort of lacquer coating, so shouldn't create hard deposits within the chamber, but they are still steel, and likely will accelerate wear on your extractor. There's a reason a softer metal (most commonly brass) is the standard in manufacturing shell casings, despite being more expensive than steel.

Steel case ammo can be excellent; it was perfected more than 80 years ago.

What do you think the Germans used in their excellent their excellent full-auto weapons e.g., MG-42, M.P.-38.
And the Russians: PPSh-41, PPD-34/38 / PPD-40, etc.

And the USA in 45ACP.

Then of course there's all that crappy, unreliable AK, Tokarev and Makarov ammo that those wacky Chinese and Russians still suffer with.
Like the Germans, they never figured out how those steel lacquered cases jammed up their guns and broke parts.

Its been quite a while since I've seen lacquered steel case ammo for sale but wouldn't be surprised if there was still some available at out of the way places or in the back of someone's closet. I know I have two spam cans of such for the Mosin-Nagants and probably a couple packs for the SKS and AR15 hiding someplace. I wouldn't want to use the old 5.56 ammo as it can foul the chamber and is a bear to clean out. I also feel the powder or primers are slightly corrosive as I have seen rust form shortly after using the old stuff.

The newer ammo with the polymer coating hasn't been a problem. I have several boxes of it in 5.56, 7.62x39, 9mm, 40 S&W, and 45 ACP. I use it for general plinking at the cabin where finding my empties is mostly a dream. I use only a couple of guns for this and consider replacing an extractor as a part of regular maintenance so potential of increased wear means the extractor gets replaced a bit sooner than normal. I still clean the gun soon after use as the current ammo has the same foul odor as the old and I wish to minimize any corrosion problems.

Lacquer coated ammo is still readily available. Don't use it if you can afford anything better.

9mm Barnaul laquer coated

I run steel cased Tul-ammo in my 9 mil Shield from time to time. I don't use it all the time but when I do it feeds and extracts that stuff like a champ. Not too shabby in accuracy either

The Winchester stuff I shot above, wasn't lacquered.

It did seem to have a light dry lube on the case, very faint but perceptible powdery feel to it.

I can't speak to using steel cased cartridges for your Glock, but my HK USPc is a no-go. From the ammunition section of my HK owners manual:

"CAUTION: HK firearms are designed to function with quality manufactured brass cased ammunition. Use of steel or aluminum cased cartridges is not recommended and could adversely affect safe and reliable functioning. For further information on ammunition selection, contact HK Customer Service at 706-568-1906."

H.K.'s USPc manual also commands:

" Do not fire ammunition through the pistol that:
Is foreign and/or outdated military surplus ..."

So.. According to H.K. American military surplus is fine. - but, all Foreign Military surplus 9x19 is a no no (at least that's H.K. prescription for the "American consumer").

I got quite a bit of bulk TulAmmo 45ACP to practice with.

It's functioned well. Maybe a tad more powder fouling, but cases extract and feed fine. Accurate.

Yeah, they work fine, but if they have lacquer, it will build up in the chamber and get hard in there. Also, as stated, it will accelerate wear of the extractor.

Hmmm.....if I live in another country I'm not supposed to use American military surplus? Or are the pistols "tuned" for their respective countries of residence by some black magic??

Tuned by German Elves.

It rusts on rainy days.

i have used several varieties of russian 9mm ammo for years in any number of 9mm's. zero problems cept some appeared to be a little underpowered.
for plinking at close ranges not an issue.
i don't run guns hot enough to melt surface coatings.
I think i might have a 30.06 steel casing somewhere obtained from one of patton's WWII training centers on the arizona desert.
it's certainly not a new idea.
I watch a lot of battlefield recovery primarily in russia. some of the ammo found still looks pretty good.

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.

My assumption is that, that gun owner is a fugkin' moron.

Absolutely agree...

Same happened to me with my S&W M&P 9C, way back when they were first introduced. I was shooting steel cased ammo, and the gun locked shut, but not quite all the way home, on a live round. Try as I might, I could not open it to rack it out or push it home. Ended up bringing it to the local gunsmith who managed to get it open and remove the live round. He told me the lacquer had melted from the heat of the chamber, and then glued the round in place. That was the last time I used steel cased ammo.

PS My decision not to use it again was mainly due to my concern about lacquer deposits accumulating in the chamber from repeated melting and hardening, but also for concern about a repeat of the lock up from a round getting glued into the chamber.

Could heat from firing that chambered round have allowed it to be cycled?

Had it been all the way home, I would have just pulled the trigger as normal, and it could have worked. I don't know.

My advice is to avoid the steel cased rounds treated with a lacquer coating. Some have said that they don't do this anymore, so that's a good thing, if true, but lots of old stock is still floating around. I have a few boxes of the 9mm from this event still in storage, which I don't intend to use.

Federal makes aluminum cased 9mm ammo, works well and fairly inexpensive
Never had a problem with steel cased Tula

I've used lots of aluminum and have never seen a problem, nor am I concerned about aluminum damaging the gun or depositing anything into the chamber (other than what's normal and can easily be cleaned out).

Common sense will tell you that steel casings are harder than brass and potentially more
abrasive to chambers in semi-automatic firearms extracting casings under pressure.

- X

How'd the gunsmith get it open?

I always wondered the same.

And, I told him I would have just shot that cartridge.
Worst case, it may have damaged the extractor.
Cheap, easy to get, and easy to replace on a Glock.

I don't know how he opened it up. Back room work area. I assume some force was involved.

Long socket at end of slide and a hammer. The barrel goes into the socket.

Did that on a frozen pistol from a ruptured/swelled case on a friend's gun.

Didn't take but a light tap or two.

Sounds right.

Doesn't bother you that you couldn't figure that out on your own?

It has been used for a long time, but for any of my pistols I would not use steel cases. It is cheaper however. Can't imagine reloading a steel case but I suppose it could be done.

Hickock45 ain’t done a vid on that yet .

Just bought the gun from that store the day before. I wasn't going to mess with it. Had no idea why it was stuck.

I've heard that steel case ammo minimizes the flip of high bore axises.

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.