Aluminum and steel cased ammo.
- Thread starter pbm
- Start date
Me too. I've used steel 5.56 ammo with zero failures. I've used tons of aluminum cased pistol rounds also with zero failures.
I can't comment on Al. Never shot any. The delta price was small back in the day and I reload, so no huge urgency.
Fe based cases, shot plenty - mainly 7.62x39. Some people used to say steel case causes more wear, I think this has been disproved in practice, although I suppose it could be theoretically true around the campfire, but I would think barrel and bolt alloys to be much tougher than ammo casings.
One thing though - there was some REALLY crappy eastern block 9mm back 10+ years ago. Misfires, splits, just garbage. People blamed "steel case". No, not the fault of the case alloy.
Fe based cases, shot plenty - mainly 7.62x39. Some people used to say steel case causes more wear, I think this has been disproved in practice, although I suppose it could be theoretically true around the campfire, but I would think barrel and bolt alloys to be much tougher than ammo casings.
One thing though - there was some REALLY crappy eastern block 9mm back 10+ years ago. Misfires, splits, just garbage. People blamed "steel case". No, not the fault of the case alloy.
Biggest drawback I have expierienced is at a range that collects and sells their empty cases to a reloader. Steel and Aluminum cases are not allowed to be used. There could be another reason, like liability too, since they don't want you using reloads either.
You can bring your own ammo, but they like to check it. It also just so happens that they sell ammo as well, so who knows the real reason.
You can bring your own ammo, but they like to check it. It also just so happens that they sell ammo as well, so who knows the real reason.
It’s can be dirty and corrosive. Russian stuff mostly. The primers have potassium chlorate or sodium perchlorate which turns into potassium chloride or sodium chloride when fired. Salt basically. You just got to clean the gun afterwords. Other than that it’s good to go.
The ranges collect and sell the brass. Big profit item. Aluminum and steel cases have little or no value and have to be sorted out.
I haven't seen any modern steel cased ammo that is corrosive .
Modern, no. Wolf or something similar are non corrosive. But the old spam can stuff, not so much.
I disagree. it’s military brass surplus that has corrosive primers. Wolf, Tula and Red Army Standard are not corrosive.
JHZR2
Staff member
The steel can be harder on ejectors, and both steel and aluminum have different pressure/expansion characteristics of the case. I forget where I read it, I think it was about use in revolvers, where there was a potential for an issue.
I run steel case rifle rounds sometimes, but I buy the ones with a proper FMJ bullet, not copper washcoat over steel. I also run synthetic coated bullets in handguns where I can. I personally wouldnt run the magnetic projectiles unless I was shooting a gun with a low cost aftermarket barrel. Id prefer to keep my stuff OE, and I think there is enough evidence that the magnetic projectiles will in time affect the barrel. YMMV.
I run steel case rifle rounds sometimes, but I buy the ones with a proper FMJ bullet, not copper washcoat over steel. I also run synthetic coated bullets in handguns where I can. I personally wouldnt run the magnetic projectiles unless I was shooting a gun with a low cost aftermarket barrel. Id prefer to keep my stuff OE, and I think there is enough evidence that the magnetic projectiles will in time affect the barrel. YMMV.
First of all extractors/ ejectors are 5.00 dollar parts. Second, the steel used in cases is a very soft steel. Test by Luckygunner show that steel projectiles do cause more wear of approximately 30,000 to 50,000 rounds. That with continuous mag dumps. The cost saving of brass versus steel would allow you buy just not a new barrel but a new gun! It’s about a 200 dollar savings per thousand rounds
I have a uncle Sam also that fella has gone off his rocker , fruit loops . Might be we are related somehow ?
Since I reload, I have rarely bought anything other than brass.
Aluminum, as mentioned above, is not much less expensive than brass so I've not had a reason to want it. The only exception was Cabelas at least use to sell some of their house brand Herters ammo in aluminum with a Nyclad-type blue nylon coated bullet and I did like that for a clean range ammo.
The tides do turn a bit if it's something like my Mosin, which I haven't shot in years, and ammo use to be so cheap that it wasn't worth reloading. Of course that comes with the caveat that a lot of the steel case for that has corrosive primers so you need to clean the gun like crazy after shooting it.
Also, for any milsurp ammo, it's not uncommon to find Berdan primers in brass. If that's the case, at least for a common caliber, that kills a lot of the advantage of brass just a range/plinking ammo(it does have some technical advantages in terms of how it fireforms and seals to the chamber, but that generally doesn't come into play unless you're a long range/high accuracy shooter) as Berdan is generally difficult to reload. Some dedicated folks do it for oddball calibers, but even once you get the old primer out they're still not nicely standardized like Boxer primers and aren't easy to find.
Aluminum, as mentioned above, is not much less expensive than brass so I've not had a reason to want it. The only exception was Cabelas at least use to sell some of their house brand Herters ammo in aluminum with a Nyclad-type blue nylon coated bullet and I did like that for a clean range ammo.
The tides do turn a bit if it's something like my Mosin, which I haven't shot in years, and ammo use to be so cheap that it wasn't worth reloading. Of course that comes with the caveat that a lot of the steel case for that has corrosive primers so you need to clean the gun like crazy after shooting it.
Also, for any milsurp ammo, it's not uncommon to find Berdan primers in brass. If that's the case, at least for a common caliber, that kills a lot of the advantage of brass just a range/plinking ammo(it does have some technical advantages in terms of how it fireforms and seals to the chamber, but that generally doesn't come into play unless you're a long range/high accuracy shooter) as Berdan is generally difficult to reload. Some dedicated folks do it for oddball calibers, but even once you get the old primer out they're still not nicely standardized like Boxer primers and aren't easy to find.
I doubt people shoot guns enough to wear them out unless you are a gamer.
JHZR2
Staff member
The lucky gunner test showed significant accuracy decreases around 4-5k rounds with steel ammo. It was compellingly worse than standard FMJ.
Shooting 100 rounds is pretty easy to do. Doing so 50 times is pretty easy over the course of a few years if serious about shooting.
Sure, this was an AR, rifle rounds… maybe it’s different with handgun ammo and whatnot. But I’m not particularly keen on finding out.
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