Steel Cased Ammo?

grdad45

I recently got a Palmetto PA10 308 cal with a stainless barrel, and was offered some steel cased ammo at a very good price. Will it damage the rifle in any way? Would make for some cheap plinking.

charliemeyer007

For the most part steel cases can be hard on extractors, depends on the cases and designs.

I wouldn't do it good firearms. If you want cheaper and better ammo consider reloading.

grdad45

Thanks for the opinions. I will probably pass on the ammo.

Mobuck

There's some decent prices on surplus 7.62 NATO ammo right now. Some is Berdan primed which is fine since you're probably going to lose a fair amount of your brass anyway. Much better ammo and easier on your rifle.

gunnut505

Steel case doesn't mean cheap, out of spec, dangerous ammo.
Hornady and others are turning out steel case ammo by the millions without damaging guns.

I reload, so there's no way I'll use steel cases in anything but my SKSs and AKs and Mosins. That's why they keep running as well as they do.

beantownshootah

Really excellent extended answer to this question here: https://tinyurl.com/yasmf78d

I think the answer is that it depends largely on what you're using this gun for.

For a variety of reasons I won't get into here, steel case ammo is harder to extract and can wear out your guns extractor faster. So that's basically the problem here. You're break an extractor or (maybe worse) get a critical failure to extract.

Does this matter? Maybe, maybe not.

If this is a range plinker, or a practice gun, probably not. If you get a stuck case, you unstick it, and if you break an extractor you can replace it. Maybe you'll have to clean your gun a little more often or more thoroughly. Cost savings from running lots of steel cased ammo will more than offset the cost of a new extractor every so often and it well may be worth it.

Problem arises when you have this type of failure in a firefight. . or in a competition. . .or maybe in a hunt. For a gun you're trusting your life to, I wouldn't run steel case ammo. . .unless its one of those guns designed to operate on steel case ammo.

Note the Russian 7.62x39 (AK/SKS) and 7.62x54R (Mosin) rounds. Those cartridges are designed with cone-shaped walls specifically to make extracting steel case ammo easier.

62fuelie

RE: the Berdan primed 7.62X51. The Radway Green British loads are corrosive, so take the necessary time and care to clean properly after use.

rsnyder55

Depends on the steel cased ammo.

The Russian imported ammo that is steel cased often comes with a bimetal bullet jacket that is extremely hard on rifling. With 5.56, barrels would wear out twice as fast as shooting copper jacketed ammunition.

mjrfd99

I've shot plenty. Had an ejector break on the 1911 but There was 30 years and 1000's of rounds thru it.
Our S&W AR don't like it when the chamber gets real hot. sticks.
HK 91 eats it fine.
All my 9mm- fine