AR 15 ammo: brass vs steel

otter6412

I've got 500 rounds of Wolf steel case 223 to use in my Bushmaster AR 15. I was told to dump the steel case and only use brass. I will definitely only use brass in the future, but in the meantime will 500 rounds of steel damage my gun?

Nwcid

I shoot it all the time.

It can cause more wear on the extractor. Extractors are very cheep and easy to replace.

ammo guy

I don't believe shooting 500 rds of the ammo will do any harm to the gun. Many of the folks on this site say they have fired 1000's of rds of steel case ammo without any problems in a AR.

Wehrmacht_45

keep the gun clean and well oiled and it will shoot both fine. IMHO a true military grade firearm should be able to easily shoot both.

chumchum

I shot about 4000 round of Wolf in my Bushy and never a problem

beantownshootah

It won't hurt your gun, but see here for an instructive lesson on one potential drawback of steel cased ammo in AR-15 platform guns:

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu18.htm

dbain99

Shooting steel wont hurt your rifle, other than a little more wear as stated. When you start shooting brass behind steel is when you will run into problems. The steel casings will not expand as much as a brass casing will, leaving room in the chamber for carbon to build up. Following steel with brass will cause the brass cases to get stuck.
CLEAN THE CHAMBER OFTEN AND CLEAN IT GOOD.

midnightrunpaintballer

if you're still worried you can give the remaining 500 rounds to me seriously, you won't have any problems