I have colt le 6920 ar 15 m4 carbine , is it ok to shoot the wolf steel cased ammo. thru it? I've heard yes and no.

Personally I would never shoot any steel cased ammo through any gun, unless it was a Com Block gun designed for steel cased ammo.

I've put over 20 cases of Russian steel-cased .223 through three Colt uppers using a registered receiver. I have experienced exactly 2 FTFires, and not one other failure type. That performance is better than commercial and milsurp 5.56, IME.

In that time I broke exactly one extractor spring and hook. The break occurred on closing the action - I had installed both a D-ring and an X-power extractor spring for this particular shorty with dropped extraction issues (firing SA M193). The resultant excessive extractor tension caused the hook to impact the case rims. Live and learn.

Price out a Colt extractor and let me know if one extractor over 20k (actually 30k total) rounds is a horror. Chrome-lined bbls do not last over 20k rounds.

Much nonsense is written about lacquer melting (it doesn't), chambers being damaged (they are not), and extractors breaking (see above).

Not all AR-15s digest steel. Most of these examples involve .223-throated chambers, or a marginally reliable "build"/rifle. It is a simple matter to purchase 100 rds of steel cased .223 to determine whether it will make sense to buy more.

The vast majority (at least 85%) of ammo used at MG shoots is steel-cased. Most steel-cased .223 is underpowered, dirty, and not particularly accurate. Depending on intended useage, this may be immaterial.

BTW, I've fired an equal amount of steel-cased 9mm through the Uzis, but also through various 9mm handguns. I can tell you the steel-cased has been far more reliable overall vs any brass cased I've tried.

Sam

Thanks for the input.

I have ran hundreds of Tulla 5.56 through a 30 year old Colt M16 at full rock!!

No issues ever

ive got a colt m15 in 7.62 x 39 with a chrome bbl...all its ever had has been wolf....I haven't had any feeding or extraction problems...

My Century Arms FAL 308 loves Wolf, never a jam or extraction problem.

Anyone have problems with steel cased ammo out of AR's? All I hear are success stories here. I was told not to run Wolf through my AR's by someone in LE.

No sweat in a true 5.56, I'd skip it in a true 223. (If you can find any 5.56 or 223 that doesn't cost more than 270 commercial ammo)

A while back I read a test where a fella took 4 AR's, and sjhot one with USA made ammo, and the other 3 with 3 different brands of foreign steel cassed ammo.

The main thing I remember is that the barrels were wore out badly [after around 5000 rounds IIRC], in the first few inches in front of the chamber by the steel cased ammo.

The powder must have been particulary erosive, is one possible reason for the highly increased wear.

Here's the article.

http://www.luckygunner.com/lab...cased-ammo/#reliable

It's a good read, but not a rigorous study. For instance, they specify temp not exceeding 750 deg F. Well, that can have several different meanings, depending on test protocol. 750 deg F is pretty darn hot.

There's also some info (can't find it just now) out there concerning soft steel projos and barrel wear. They seem to wear barrels faster. But the wear pattern is not proximal as seen from gas erosion, of course. The combloc nations don't worry about it. I don't worry about it, either. If I had an accurized tackdriver AR with a pricey "name" barrel I might not want to abbreviate it's accuracy life.

But then, why in the world would I want to run 5 MOA ammo through it?

Sam

I have a fairly large ammo fort made from Wolf so I shoot Wolf from time to time.

I occasionally shoot Wolf in two of my AR's. Those guns have chrome chambers and barrels. I have spare barrels if needed.
The AR by design is a battle rifle. It should be able to shoot all types of 5.56 ammo if needed.

My other AR has a spendy chrome moly match barrel and a Wylde chamber.
Once I shot a couple of boxes of Wolf through it to see if the ammo would feed. It does.
I wouldn't shoot Wolf through again it unless the Zombies were at the door and there was no other option.

I have run thousands of rounds of Wolf with no problems.

It is a bit dirty. The biggest problem is the steel case doesn't expand quite as much as brass, so the chamber gets nasty pretty quickly. And if you switch from wolf to brass, you WILL get a case stuck in the chamber. You can go from brass to steel, no problem, but before you go from steel to brass, you need to give the chamber a through cleaning.

I have 'read' that the steel cased ammo is hard on extractors, but that is a cheap, easy to replace part if and when it happens.

Wolf is nice too, because, as a reloader, I dont feel the urge to try to pick up every piece of spent brass. Makes blasting more fun.

Shoot Wolf, don't worry, and have fun.

Pat Rogers at EAG sees 750k rounds go downrange every year and his policy is that if your gun goes down while using steel cased ammo he won't help you fix it. He's quite the critic of steel cased ammo.

quote:

Originally posted by RyanB:
Pat Rogers at EAG sees 750k rounds go downrange every year and his policy is that if your gun goes down while using steel cased ammo he won't help you fix it. He's quite the critic of steel cased ammo.

If a guy spends a ton of money to go to one of those tacticool classes and goes cheap on ammo he deserves whatever he gets.

I will have to concur with Zeke above. I attended a pistol/carbine shooting class - went quality on the pistol ammo in 45 auto and then just brought whatever I had in Herter's (Tula made I think) .223 Rem. During an exercise a case jammed in the AR's chamber and had to be removed with a cleaning rod. The carbine (M&P 15) had previously not had any problems with the ammo when practice and plinking, but I learned my lesson on not using that ammo when it counts.

It will be fine; shoot it. I do without problems of any kind. If you get a freak stuck case, just punch it out. Could happen with brass too. No big deal. Steel cases are coated so the fear mongers saying you will get wear from them are wrong. And steel jacketed bullets; Please. They are coated with copper and you won't notice any difference. Hoggson is right.

I use Wolf and Tula 7.62 X 51 thru an AR10a4. Never had a moments trouble, found it to be accurate out to 400 yards. I'm shooting people size gongs and head sized gongs.
This is shooting prone, kneeling, standing with hand on post.

Jim

I have shot several hundred rounds of steel cased Herter's 55gr ammo through my M&P 15 in 5.56mm. It has not presented any problems in feeding, but I experienced one event where the rim was too small to extract and the case had to be removed with a cleaning rod. The bad part was that it happened during a tactical carbine class - at least it was only embarrassing. In the future if I am shooting for fun, I would use the cheap foreign ammo, but if it was really important (life or limb) I would stick to brass cased (LC, Federal, PMC, etc.)