Gun Dog Forum

I have an ar 15, and have been running brass through it, I was told running the steel casings will cause some shell ejection errors. Can anyone confirm this? Thanks a ton.

Corry

I used to work at a sporting goods store and we sold both rifle and handgun ammo in steel and brass. The people that shot the 223 steel didn't have any problems(at least the ones that bought from us didn't). Some people that shot the steel in handguns had some ejection problems with steel, brass was okay(seemed about 1 out of 8 hand gun owners had problems). IMO I think the military rifles are chambered a little oversized so they will handle about anything---you don't want a rifle jamming when someone is shooting back at you!! Handguns seem to be chambered a little tighter--shorter case and less room for feeding and extraction. This is just feed back from the customers--

Just keep in mind that brass is softer than steel and wont score the inside of your gun. Steel on steel, will eventually damage your gun. If you only shoot a few boxes you should be fine. Just my 2 cents. I will never shoot any steel cases in any of my guns unless it is a life or death situation and that is all I had.

We ran out of 223 a couple years ago on our prarie dog trip, the only store in town had steel cased ammo. So I bought a few hundred rounds. I had some issues With the steel stuff in my match chambered barrel on my rem700, and only a couple hiccups in my AR. My biggest issue with steel cases is you can't reload them.

I have shot many thousands of rounds of steel-cased ammo over the last several years, and have had a total of three failures to extract. However, some AR's do have ejection problems with the steel. Rifles chambered for 5.56 tend to be more reliable with the steel than the .223 rifles. (a 5.56 can shoot both 5.56 and .223 ammo, but a .223 can only shoot .223) You will need to try your particular rifle to see if it will eat steel, or not. As far as steel being hard on a rifle, quality rifles will have a chrome-lined chamber. Chrome is many times harder than steel, so the stories of shooting a thousand round of steel and the rifle is going to fall apart are bunk. I love shooting steel whether it's Wolf, Tula, or Herter's. It saves me money and opens up other dollars to do more shooting. Unfortunately, with prices where they are now, some steel is going for more than the premium six months ago.

We used steel wolf ammo for a while, the casings are cheap but they have a coating on them to prevent rust. and this coating will get all over everything in your gun, we did this on my ruger mini 14, the gun is unstoppable but it was dirtly as heck inside, never again\
Isaac and Banks

The largets issue that most will deal with is the extractor itself. Steel on steel will wear the extractor or break it at some point. Might take a few thousand rounds or only a few hundred but if you keep running steel, it's going to happen.