iirc, those steel cases are lacquered too and the lacquer can build up in the chamber and cause failure to eject also...
Posted on 05/27/2012 5:48:19 AM PDT by FLAMING DEATH
We've all been there...walking around the local gun store (or, as I like to call it, the Magic Goody Shop) and seen Russian-made steel cased .223 ammo selling for quite a bit less than the brass versions of the same rounds. And, many of us have fallen to temptation and bought scads of the stuff, thinking of how much money we'll save, and how we can plink 'til our heart's content for pennies on the dollar.
And then, many of us have faced the bitter disappointment of repeated malfunctions and losing money when we give away a large pile of ammo that simply won't function properly in our guns.
I've seen quite a few stories of people trying to shoot steel cased ammo out of an AR-15 rifle with less than satisfactory results. The most common issue is the dreaded "stuck case", where the case wedges itself so firmly in the chamber that the extractor simply doesn't have the "oomph" to move it. In fact, most often, the only remedy is to put a cleaning rod down the bore of your gun and whack it with a hammer.
That's what I had to do. My AR was particularly finicky, barely firing 50 rounds of Wolf or Tula before hanging up completely, bringing an early ending to a day at the range. The thing would run like a champ all day long on brass, even crappy brass, but a couple boxes of Tula would bring it to its knees.
I began reading about this on the Internets, and it is a common problem. Many have the completely WRONG idea about what causes this, however.
First, it is NOT caused by a "lacquer coating" cooking off and leaving its residue in the chamber. If you don't believe me, get a spent shell and hit it with a blowtorch. Nothing's coming off of that sucker. If you've bought your ammo in the past few years, it doesn't even have lacquer on it.
Second, many people believe it is because the steel expands, and, being less flexible than brass, wedges itself in the chamber. That's not true either. But, steel being less flexible that brass does contribute to the problem.
The answer is simpler (and fortunately more correctable) than either of those.
Steel doesn't expand like brass does in the chamber. This allows a slight gap around the cartridge case upon firing. That gap admits powder residue and carbon into the chamber, which begins building up on the sides. Pretty soon, the dimensions of the chamber are too small to allow the casing to move freely in and out. The next time the bolt slams a round into the chamber, it wedges there, unable to be moved without physical intervention.
"Well," you might say, "the 7.62 x 39 rounds that I shoot are steel cased, and they don't have that problem". No, they don't. But, it is not because the blowback of residue into the chamber isn't happening. It is because of the shape of the round itself. The sides of the 7.62 x 39 are tapered enough that they can still overcome friction with the sides of the chamber. The .223 is far straighter, and so it is far more difficult for the extractor to overcome the frictional forces of the now smaller chamber that has a good hold on the straight walls of the shell case.
This is the problem I had with my rifle. On multiple occasions, always after firing less than 50 rounds of steel cased ammo, I have had a major stoppage with my AR. It always involved a spent case hanging up in the chamber, it always was impossible to clear without jamming a cleaning rod down the barrel and knocking it out, and it almost always put my AR out of action until I could take it home and work on it.
Once, while in the presence of a buddy of mine, I experienced the problem and he said, "You need to run a little brass in every mag to keep it cleaned out."
That didn't make sense to me. How did brass keep the action clean? Besides, common knowledge was that you never mix steel and brass when shooting...that mixing the two would only make this problem worse.
Then I read this article on the Box O' Truth http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu18.htm about steel case and brass cased ammo. Although their hypothesis confirmed my friend's statement that brass ammo could help clean the chamber, they stopped short of recommending (or figuring out) that running steel and brass together can make a gun run more reliably.
I figured it was up to me to test it.
I started by cleaning the chamber thoroughly and soaking it down with CLP. I then loaded my mags with one round of brass case for every 9 of steel. Then, I headed to the range.
Fully expecting to get a stoppage before the end of mag number two, the AR kept eating the steel case well past that point. The brass coming out eventually carried a considerable amount of black deposit on the outside of it. It was rock hard and couldn't be scraped off with a fingernail. I did a variety of shooting, including slow firing (shooting once every 20 seconds or so), sustained slow firing (shooting once every five seconds), fast firing (shooting as fast as I could pull the trigger) and even some bump firing (near automatic rates of fire).
The AR had two hiccups, probably attributable to the Russian ammo's lower power. On the first, the round didn't quite come all the way out of the mag. I gave the bottom of the mag a whack and it kept going. The next, the bolt didn't appear to come back far enough to grab the next round. A quick pull of the charging handle fixed it. The gun seemed to run fine otherwise, and most importantly, no casings were getting stuck in the chamber. After five mags and nearly 150 rounds, I was running out of time and would be late for another engagement, so I packed it up to continue testing later. Besides, the gun showed no signs of slowing down. I was satisfied.
I have seen other options recommended, such as changing uppers or barrels to get a chromed chamber, or using a chamber reamer. Both would probably work, but for the occasional use of steel cased ammo, both seem to be overkill. A 100 round box of cheap brass cased ammo should let you shoot 1000 rounds of steel case, if this method works for you. You might even be able to tweak the ratios and get away with 1 for 20 or 1 for 30.
If you have an AR that doesn't like steel ammo, but have a stockpile of it or have a source where you can get it for cheap, it's worth a try to mix some brass in with the steel and see if your AR will run it.
iirc, those steel cases are lacquered too and the lacquer can build up in the chamber and cause failure to eject also...
I should probably bring my chronograph with me next time and check the velocity on that Herters. I’ll bet I find some pretty wide swings in min/max.
I should also run a couple boxes through Mrs. L’s Mini 14 for comparison purposes.
They don’t use lacquer any more.
As the article stated, “...it is NOT caused by a “lacquer coating” cooking off and leaving its residue in the chamber. If you don’t believe me, get a spent shell and hit it with a blowtorch. Nothing’s coming off of that sucker. If you’ve bought your ammo in the past few years, it doesn’t even have lacquer on it.”
The older green stuff was lacquer coated. The newer gray stuff isn’t.
Your screen name is hilarious.
Ditttos.
I’ve got a Czech CZ82. Of course it was designed to eat commie bloc steel case ammo.
Thousands of rounds through it and the chamber and barrel look new.
Yeah. Probably several hundred FPS at the extremes. Like I said, it’s just for practice.
I’d be interested in seeing what it would do in a Mini. When I started having problems with steel-cased in my AR, I was tempted to get a Mini, and if I hadn’t discovered the “one round of brass for ten of steel” trick I probably would have.
From what I’ve read, Minis do well with steel cased. If it doesn’t, I’d be interested to see if you have the same results mixing the brass and the steel.
My (borrowed) mid 90’s Norinco SKS is the same way. Looks exactly like it did the day I bought it, with almost zero maintenance.
Sorry, I won’t be loading any AP black tip anytime soon. To each his own, you got the money to spend on commercial ammo, great but us poor folk need to roll our own to have fun plus never needed to call glock for warranty even after 40K rounds of plinking reloads I put through it or Rock River after putting 35K reload rounds. Reloading doesn’t make shooting any cheaper, it just lets you shoot more.
I have thought of a 5.45 x 39 (to take advantage of the super cheap Russian 7n6 surplus) upper, but it is always the same thing; Something has to be modified, like the special magazine, or the spring for the harder primers, and still...
You can get a cheap Saiga in 5.45x39 and a couple cans (with 1080 rounds each) for a lot less than an AR.
I guess I spent too much of my youth trying to get a Ruger Mini-14 to work. Accuracy mods, magazines that didn’t quite work, as well as the malfunctions which never ended.
Finally I just got an AK. It worked.
Then I got an AR, which I love to shoot, and it worked, but I started to have Ruger Mini flashbacks when I used the ammo it wasn’t designed to shoot. If I use brass, it never fails me.
If it gets you out shooting more, then God bless and good luck, and when the US Army starts using steel I may consider it, but I just don’t have time to trouble shoot any more.
I picked up a couple of those little Czech CZ pistols. What a fantastic bargain they are. Well built, reliable, accurate even with that crappy Russian ammo.
They’re in our vehicle “go bags”. They’re also a lot of fun to shoot!
And for only 200 a copy, well you can’t beat that with a stick.
I’ll give it a try and let you know what I find out. Thanks for the post, FL.
I’m not ragging on reloading....I just have enough trouble collecting. My problem is I don’t have enough time to shoot. Until January I was working continually and I’ve had to work half time since then...with that, all the crap I left undone at home for a decade and the time my daughter now demands of ‘retired grandpa’ for her girls, it seems I have less time than before. I’d absolutely love to be able to push 40K rounds through some of my stash.
I have a friend that bought a surplus CZ52 for he and his wife (a pair) to protect themselves in the car....they love them.
Yep.
We’ve got guns twice as expensive as the CZ82. None of them are as accurate or easy to shoot.
I’m not a reloader, although I would like to get into it just for the savings.
But, when I saw this, I thought it was cool as heck.
“How to cast your own jacketed soft-nosed .223 bullets”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkAU5ekbPLA
Thanks. I appreciate it and will look into that; Youtube here I come!
I’ve heard nothing but good things about them. Thought about getting one, but I ended up getting a Zastava M88 instead, because 9mm is cheap and easy to find here.
Very accurate and nice to shoot, even with a heavy trigger; compact and flat, with Tokarev internals.
It seems like a nice gun, but it has a nasty case of “hammer follow” that I just can’t seem to iron out. I thought replacing the disconnector and honing the sear would do it, but no dice. As of right now, though, it’s like a single action revolver. You have to pull the hammer back with every shot.
If I can’t get it to work, maybe I’ll trade it for one of those CZ’s instead. I came really close to getting one a few years back and have regretted not buying it ever since.
That’s awesome, never got into casting but have been meaning to give it a try. I want to buy a new aftermarket barrel for my glock and try 45 ACP lead rounds though it. Man there is always 22lr hulls laying everywhere at the range too.
If you were having issues with rounds sticking in the chamber, I’d definitely see if this doesn’t solve the problem.
Like I said, I never would have believed it, because I always heard never to mix steel and brass, but it seemed to work beautifully.
New Lee 223 progressive loadmaster for $200 - $230 if you shop around. The kit comes with full size, powder measure, bullet seat and crimp dies. Ancillaries like bullet puller $14.00, zip trimmer and 223 trim length gauge, pocket reamer and debur tool are fairly cheap too. Case decrimper for military brass is a little steep though for $100.00, I went with dillon. I use a case catcher for my AR so no scrounging for brass on my hands and knees and I use the boys for the pistol brass. The Lee 45 ACP press is the same price and you don’t need all the case prep tools for pistol brass as well.
Happy shooting guys
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