Brass or steel shells?
I was told that steel casings wear out the upper much more than brass. Any truth to this?
0
-
Only on junk rifles, like AR-15's [:D]
Seriously, it's a old wives tale0 -
quote:Originally posted by Seion
I was told that steel casings wear out the upper much more than brass. Any truth to this?
Steel cased rounds are made from mild steel, much softer than the hardened steel of gun chambers. You shouldn't get extra chamber wear just from the rounds going in and out.
Where there might be SOME truth to this is that because steel is less elastic than brass, you can have two problems in using steel case ammo:
a. You may not get quite as tight a seal between the case neck and chamber and carbon fouling can back into the chamber around the case neck. More fouling = more cleaning = more wear on your gun.
b. Because steel cases won't contract back to size quite as much as brass ones, and because of the fouling issue mentioned above, the cases can be a bit stickier in the chamber.
Note that this is why rounds DESIGNED to use steel cases, such as the Russian 7.62x39 and 7.62x54R rifle rounds have strongly tapered sides to help extraction.
Anyway, stickier steel cases can cause increase wear and tear on the EXTRACTOR system of the gun. Supposedly broken and/or chipped extractors can be more common in pistols using steel case ammo.0 -
I have found that it is not the steel case which causes headaches, It's the COATING put on them to stop rust. Why would any one , with the possible exception of military forces, want to chamber a round that has been dipped in lacquer ?? Even Wolf brand, the cheapest ammo made, has seen fit to now offer the steel cases with a zinc coating. Bob 0 -
quote:Originally posted by babun
I have found that it is not the steel case which causes headaches, It's the COATING put on them to stop rust. Why would any one , with the possible exception of military forces, want to chamber a round that has been dipped in lacquer ?? Even Wolf brand, the cheapest ammo made, has seen fit to now offer the steel cases with a zinc coating. Bob
Well, Wolf now uses a "polymer" coating for most of its standard rifle rounds (whatever that means). Zinc-plated steel cased rounds are available from the Russian Barnaul company under the "Silver Bear" brand name, and there are also other coatings available.
For what its worth, I've never encountered any problem with lacquered cases in any of my military-type guns DESIGNED to run steel cased rounds (eg SKS, Mosin-Nagant, AK-clone, etc). I generally avoid running steel cased ammo in other guns.
So far as I know, its the guns designed to run brass cased ammo that can have extraction problems with steel cased ammo. Empirically, lots of the Commie Bloc military forces used steel cased lacquered ammo over the years, and not just during times of brass scarcity. I don't think they would have been able to do this if the rounds were prone to causing malfunctions.
Anyway, this is a pretty good objective evaluation that might shed some light on the subject of lacquer vs. polymer and case sticking:
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu18.htm
Lastly, the question of sticking cases is sort of getting away from the original question. Again, will use of steel cases wear out your gun faster? If it DOES lead to extractor malfunction, just understand that AR-15 extractors are relatively inexpensive and fairly easy to replace. While you obviously don't want to have this problem WHEN IN COMBAT (!), as a recreational shooter, you're still probably going to be way ahead of the game in terms of cost savings if you go with all steel cased ammo and have to replace an extractor a little more often.0 -
Great info. Thanks to everyone that replied. 0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
5 comments