Posted on 05/27/2012 5:48:19 AM PDT by FLAMING DEATH
We've all been there...walking around the local gun store (or, as I like to call it, the Magic Goody Shop) and seen Russian-made steel cased .223 ammo selling for quite a bit less than the brass versions of the same rounds. And, many of us have fallen to temptation and bought scads of the stuff, thinking of how much money we'll save, and how we can plink 'til our heart's content for pennies on the dollar.
And then, many of us have faced the bitter disappointment of repeated malfunctions and losing money when we give away a large pile of ammo that simply won't function properly in our guns.
I've seen quite a few stories of people trying to shoot steel cased ammo out of an AR-15 rifle with less than satisfactory results. The most common issue is the dreaded "stuck case", where the case wedges itself so firmly in the chamber that the extractor simply doesn't have the "oomph" to move it. In fact, most often, the only remedy is to put a cleaning rod down the bore of your gun and whack it with a hammer.
That's what I had to do. My AR was particularly finicky, barely firing 50 rounds of Wolf or Tula before hanging up completely, bringing an early ending to a day at the range. The thing would run like a champ all day long on brass, even crappy brass, but a couple boxes of Tula would bring it to its knees.
I began reading about this on the Internets, and it is a common problem. Many have the completely WRONG idea about what causes this, however.
First, it is NOT caused by a "lacquer coating" cooking off and leaving its residue in the chamber. If you don't believe me, get a spent shell and hit it with a blowtorch. Nothing's coming off of that sucker. If you've bought your ammo in the past few years, it doesn't even have lacquer on it.
Second, many people believe it is because the steel expands, and, being less flexible than brass, wedges itself in the chamber. That's not true either. But, steel being less flexible that brass does contribute to the problem.
The answer is simpler (and fortunately more correctable) than either of those.
Steel doesn't expand like brass does in the chamber. This allows a slight gap around the cartridge case upon firing. That gap admits powder residue and carbon into the chamber, which begins building up on the sides. Pretty soon, the dimensions of the chamber are too small to allow the casing to move freely in and out. The next time the bolt slams a round into the chamber, it wedges there, unable to be moved without physical intervention.
"Well," you might say, "the 7.62 x 39 rounds that I shoot are steel cased, and they don't have that problem". No, they don't. But, it is not because the blowback of residue into the chamber isn't happening. It is because of the shape of the round itself. The sides of the 7.62 x 39 are tapered enough that they can still overcome friction with the sides of the chamber. The .223 is far straighter, and so it is far more difficult for the extractor to overcome the frictional forces of the now smaller chamber that has a good hold on the straight walls of the shell case.
This is the problem I had with my rifle. On multiple occasions, always after firing less than 50 rounds of steel cased ammo, I have had a major stoppage with my AR. It always involved a spent case hanging up in the chamber, it always was impossible to clear without jamming a cleaning rod down the barrel and knocking it out, and it almost always put my AR out of action until I could take it home and work on it.
Once, while in the presence of a buddy of mine, I experienced the problem and he said, "You need to run a little brass in every mag to keep it cleaned out."
That didn't make sense to me. How did brass keep the action clean? Besides, common knowledge was that you never mix steel and brass when shooting...that mixing the two would only make this problem worse.
Then I read this article on the Box O' Truth http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu18.htm about steel case and brass cased ammo. Although their hypothesis confirmed my friend's statement that brass ammo could help clean the chamber, they stopped short of recommending (or figuring out) that running steel and brass together can make a gun run more reliably.
I figured it was up to me to test it.
I started by cleaning the chamber thoroughly and soaking it down with CLP. I then loaded my mags with one round of brass case for every 9 of steel. Then, I headed to the range.
Fully expecting to get a stoppage before the end of mag number two, the AR kept eating the steel case well past that point. The brass coming out eventually carried a considerable amount of black deposit on the outside of it. It was rock hard and couldn't be scraped off with a fingernail. I did a variety of shooting, including slow firing (shooting once every 20 seconds or so), sustained slow firing (shooting once every five seconds), fast firing (shooting as fast as I could pull the trigger) and even some bump firing (near automatic rates of fire).
The AR had two hiccups, probably attributable to the Russian ammo's lower power. On the first, the round didn't quite come all the way out of the mag. I gave the bottom of the mag a whack and it kept going. The next, the bolt didn't appear to come back far enough to grab the next round. A quick pull of the charging handle fixed it. The gun seemed to run fine otherwise, and most importantly, no casings were getting stuck in the chamber. After five mags and nearly 150 rounds, I was running out of time and would be late for another engagement, so I packed it up to continue testing later. Besides, the gun showed no signs of slowing down. I was satisfied.
I have seen other options recommended, such as changing uppers or barrels to get a chromed chamber, or using a chamber reamer. Both would probably work, but for the occasional use of steel cased ammo, both seem to be overkill. A 100 round box of cheap brass cased ammo should let you shoot 1000 rounds of steel case, if this method works for you. You might even be able to tweak the ratios and get away with 1 for 20 or 1 for 30.
If you have an AR that doesn't like steel ammo, but have a stockpile of it or have a source where you can get it for cheap, it's worth a try to mix some brass in with the steel and see if your AR will run it.
The tradeoffs are that it isn’t as reliable, so you should use it only for practice or plinking. It’s also dirtier, which means more frequent cleaning.
As far as harming your gun...think of all the Makarov and other ComBloc pistols that have run nothing but steel cased 9x18 or 7.62x25 forever. If your .45 is made better than one of those, you’ve got nothing to worry about.
I really like my Colt AR-15A2 HBAR and my Colt AR-15A2 Government Carbine. I would never load them with Wolf or Tula. I’d rather spend more money on NATO-spec ammo.
I’m not sure that (expansion) is the problem either. I wouldn’t buy Tula or Wolf ammo for an AR-15 or an AK because I’ve had problems with the 45 ACP ball ammo on at least one of my 6 1911s. The 1911 in particular is a tight tolerance gun, and when it is loaded with Wolf Steel Cased 45 ACP it ALWAYS jams, every time. The casing gets jammed during extraction lodging down in the throat and the feed area.
I finally determined that Wolf has a thinner extraction rim on the casing that a typical round made of brass. The extractor can start to extract the casing but doesn’t old it securely until it can hit the ejector. Essentially, when the casing can ‘drop down’ it does. Possibly the same problem in .223
It’s not expansion. It’s lack of expansion. The steel doesn’t expand and “fill” the chamber like brass does. So, you get dirt and grit in the space around the chamber that builds up with each shot. Eventually, it wedges a round in place. Straight wall cartridges have the worst problems; tapered, the least.
And, the Wolf may well have a thinner rim, which would only exacerbate the problem.
I don’t see why mixing a round of brass wouldn’t work with pistols as well as rifles, though, provided you started with a clean chamber.
My Bersa Thunder 9 (that I borrowed) will feed and extract Wolf/Tula just fine, but occasionally doesn’t have enough power to chamber a new round. Never had a round stuck in it, though.
I’m a fanatic when it comes to accuracy. I buy good rifles, good ammo and better scopes. I’m such a lousy shot, I need every edge I can get.
I don’t run junk ammo thru a $2,000 rifle.
Personally, I like to test all my guns with as many different types of ammo as possible, so I can know what to expect should I ever need to switch for some reason. It’s good to know what your guns can/cannot handle.
I’m sure your Colts would run Tula/Wolf/Bear/whatever just fine, though.
Just don’t use it.
It (Russian ammo) is made for cheap mass produced stamped steel guns that are not over engineered as the AR is. And it is dirty. Too dirty for a direct gas impingement AR IMHO.
If you want to shoot cheap buy an AK (I did).
If you want a weapon with refinement and precision then get an AR (did that too).
-There. Best of both worlds.
PS. comments reflect prior to tragic rowboat incident...
I don’t use Russian stuff, I just reload using a 223 Lee precession press and can save my old brass, which bring the cost down to about a third the price of new brass. I buy 62gn M855 pulldowns projectiles, 25 gn of Ramshot TAC powder and #41 CCI rifle primers. Cost about 12 cents a round if I use my old Lake City or Rem brass. Cheapest I have found new 23 ammo in about 38 cents per round, maybe 37 cents if I’m lucky if I buy in bulk. Plus I’m a range rat and can always find brass laying on the ground too.
Don’t know, but I’ve measured the thinness of the Wolf steel extraction rim and it is noticeably thinner. the extractor only works in a direct pull pack mode and doesn’t ‘hold’ it for the ejector.
I’m a fanatic when it comes to practicing, and this allows me to practice all the more because of the price. I run it in all my guns, and I figure if they’ll run that, they’ll run anything.
Of course, it isn’t as accurate, but then I usually am satisfied with Minute-of-Watermelon at 150 yards, so...
Actually, I’m not a ‘reloader’....I buy the best that I can afford and I buy in bulk when I get a good deal.
When my son-in-law asked me what I had all those guns for - hunting? I told him “I didn’t by those guns to kill no animals.” Best ammo, best guns, best chance.
You would be surprised that you can reload and make brass the far exceeds and perform much better than any match commercial ammo on the market that fits your gun perfectly if you willing to experiment and much cheaper too. Most champ shooters reload their own pistol and rifle ammo for competition. Reload is a hobby in its own right and damn relaxing.
I have been wanting to get into reloading. I have a lot to learn about it first.
A couple of Appleseeds will give you an edge like you wouldn't believe. Trust me on this.
I ran three boxes of Herter 62 grain HP through my Rock River 2 weeks ago. The only malfunction to speak of was one single failure to lock the bolt open on an empty mag.
Maybe it’s the chromed chamber, I don’t know. I do keep mine meticulously clean and run it nice and wet. I’ve always been cautious using steel case ammo, though. So I keep the majority of my ammo stash brass cased.
Any thoughts?
Well, I appreciate your concern, but I’m going to continue testing, and barring a lack of problems, will probably continue to use it since it seems to work for me, albeit with caveats. I can live with those caveats.
I haven’t noticed any problems related to the “dirtiness” of the ammo as yet. I think that the DI problems of the AR are somewhat overblown, as I’ve never had my AR stop due to being dirty, even after firing 1000’s of rounds of all kinds of ammo. Even tearing it down after shooting, the insides look like there’s no way the gun could keep functioning, but it does. I do keep it well oiled, though. I think people are overly sensitive about cleaning DI guns, therefore they never test to see what their guns are really capable of, which EVERY AR owner should do, IMHO. I have a friend who’s put over 2000 rounds through his AR with nothing but occasional lubrication.
I tend to think that the best of both worlds would be an AR that can run on any kind of ammo, with considerations. I’ll keep testing, though, and let the results speak for themselves.
Buy a few books and watch some youtube videos, You will need to decide if you want a single stage press or a progressive press before you start. Also, Lee presses are a cheap way to enter the reloading world but if you want quality, do go with a Dillon or Hornady press. Its easy to reload ammo. 223 ammo, you just need to prep the cases first back the spec.
I realize all that. And you should realize that there are more than one manufacturer that will tell you its warranties are void if you use remanufactured or reloaded ammo (Glock for one)...
That aside, let me know when you have some good ole’ 30’06 ball black tip loaded, in quantity.
Probably, the LRHO didn’t work because the last round didn’t have enough power to push the bolt all the way back. Herters (Tula) is notoriously underpowered. Some even suggest running a different buffer/spring combo when using it exclusively.
I had a few problems that could be attributed to the lower power, but not enough that I feel I had to make any changes to the gun. Not for plinking/practice, anyway. Clearing stoppages is good practice, anyway.
I’m sure the chromed chamber made a difference. It reduces the friction and allows the rounds to slide out, even when the chamber is dirty.
I do the same as you. I buy both steel and brass, but the steel goes with me to the range, and the brass goes in the safe.
I just put piston systems on my ARs and they run like little sewing machines, even cool to the touch in the bolt and carrier region.
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