Are bimetal rounds harmful to modern handguns?

R

Rich_357

New member
This happened a few weeks ago and I am curious if the range officer was right in his statements.

I took some steel cased rounds that I thought had brass FMJ into the range (brand excuded). I bought them at the same store that has the range. I had an issue in the lane and asked for assistance. The range officer explained that I can't shoot steel rounds in here, they are bad for the gun and can ricochet all over the place. I had noticed sparks at the end of the range but I had seen that before from others . That's their policy so I bought some full brass and carried on my merry way.

Anywho, I came home and looked up the ammo and it is bimetal. I understand that it can damage their back stops and that they aren't making money off of the brass. However is the whole ricochet and being bad for the gun for real?
 
Were they just steel cases or actual steel jacketed bullets?

Big difference. The steel cases, while not the optimum, are not that bad for your pistol. They are made from a soft mild steel. Yes they do wear the chamber a little more, but unless you shoot them by the thousands, you would never notice it.

The normal jacketed bullet is a bi-metal, lead with a cupro-nickle jacket. Those with a copper coated steel jacket over lead will wear your barrel more than the normal jacketed bullet. But again, the steel is "soft" and would take a lot to do much damage. Damage to the backstop of an indoor range would be more significant.

If they are worried about you using this ammo on their range they should either stop selling it or put up a notice when you buy it.
 
Fwiw we've gone through approx 3k rounds of the wolf steel case in our glock19 and I've not noticed any chamber/mag/throat wear. Even handloaded some for use when we were shooting in areas where brass retrieval was inconvenient, sizes ok with sizing wax. (I'm a brass nazi):D
 
"The normal jacketed bullet is a bi-metal, lead with a cupro-nickle jacket."

Modern bullet jackets are almost universally gilding metal, a mix of copper and zinc.

Cupronickel is obsolete and has been for decades.

It was last used for US military ammunition in the 1920s and it never really gained much traction commercially in the United States because it fouled the hell out of the bore.

Western Cartridge Company introduced the first successful gilding metal bullet jackets in 1922 under the tradename Lubaloy.

Most European nations abandoned cupronickel around the same time, but some nations did load it up through World War II.

European sporting ammunition, especially English dangerous game rounds, used cupronickel extensively through the 1930s.
 
"Bi-Metal" refers to the bullets which are jacketed with an alloy harder than gilding metal and then covered(washed) with copper(ish) material to ease passage through the bore(and reduce bore wear).

This is a description I read somewhere. It would likely take a lot of shooting to prove this wears the bore faster than gilding metal jacketed bullets(although I firmly believe it does). I quit using steel cased pistol ammo and sold my remaining stock to a kid whose expectation was lower than mine. He soon had numerous problems related to the steel cases splitting in his rattletrap S&W 9mm.
 
I wonder about that Facebook expert who says it makes no difference.
If he thinks that Rockwell hardness comes out in Brinell numbers and that barrels are as hard as tool steel, I wonder what else he is getting wrong.

The Luckygunner trials concluded that steel cased ammo was only slightly tougher on the guns but that steel jacketed bullets cut the barrel service life about in half. That for a rifle in rapid fire.
http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/brass-vs-steel-cased-ammo/

Elmer Keith reported that when he was wringing out the .45 auto, his buddies on a battleship would send him a case of ammo and a new barrel every time they were in port. He considered barrel life to be 5000 rounds. I bet he was getting steel jacketed ammo out of that deal.

Trio Metal is a Norma trademark but goes back before they made an advertising point of it. It is steel plated on both sides with gilding metal. Inside to reduce wear on the drawing punches, outside to protect from rust and give a bit of lube going down the barrel.

There was a lot of that cupronickel ammo that was really plated steel. Which did not reduce hard metal fouling.
I have READ that hard metal fouling did not become a serious problem until the .30-03 pushed velocity above the Krag level.
I once undertook to suggest to a military SF author that his characters might have done better to go to gilding metal instead of cupronickel as they modernized their planet's infantry rifles. He said cupronickel must be ok, that RWS was still making hunting bullets with it.

I think it is cheesy for a dealer to sell ammo he will not let you shoot on his adjoining range.
 
"I wonder about that Facebook expert who says it makes no difference."

No different than any TFL "expert" really.

Simple truth of the matter is, though, that the Europeans loaded and used billions of rounds of steel cased/steel jacketed ammo, and there are few, if any, reports coming out of those nations regarding enhanced wear, etc.

I've read the Frankford arsenal tests and supporting materials. The conclusions were that steel cased/steel jacketed ammo was fine, but that there was absolutely no sense in adopting it wholesale to replace copper-based cases and bullet jackets, the supply issues that were seen during World War II not withstanding.
 
"Elmer Keith reported that when he was wringing out the .45 auto, his buddies on a battleship would send him a case of ammo and a new barrel every time they were in port. He considered barrel life to be 5000 rounds. I bet he was getting steel jacketed ammo out of that deal."

It would be interesting to know when Elmer was doing this, because:

The US loaded steel cased .45 ACP ammo only for about 2 years during the middle of World War II.

To the best of my knowledge, the US never issued that ammo for combat use -- it was reserved for stateside training only. (Edit In: that may have been the intent, but apparently wasn't the practice, out of necessity).

Steel cased ammo was made by one company, Evansville Chrysler, from late 1942 until early 1944.

The US NEVER loaded steel-jacketed .45 ACP ammo.
 
Confusing thread ! Are you talking about case or bullet ? Let's use proper definitions !
Cases are normally brass [cartridge brass, 30 %zinc, 70 % copper] sometimes nickel plated .Some military cases have been steel .
Bullets are normally lead ,sometimes jacketed .Jackets may be gilding metal , copper with up to 10 % zinc. Steel jackets are usually coated with a gilding metal. Norma used to have a tri metal jacket [ ~ 1970 ] with very soft special steel [almost pure iron] with gilding metal on each side IIRC. They were made especially to minimize any barrel wear !
One difference with steel cases is that they don't expand as much as the brass.There may be more wear and tear of extractors etc. The lacquer coating may gum up your gun also:p
 
Typically, they are referring to lead rounds, with a steel jacket and a thin copper coating. They tend to spark in indoor ranges or when they hit rock..ect. I think the whole ricochet thing is a bunch of crap but they could damage the backstops. The article below has a very good discussion on the subject. Technically, copper is softer than brass and can wear through while transversing the barrel; this could leave part of the steel jacket exposed. I'm not judging it either way but it's probably not as good as shooting solid brass.

https://www.uspsa.org/front-sight-magazine-article.php?Should-I-Buy-BiMetal-Ammo-8
 
If we didn't load steel jacketed .45s, then Elmer must have been seeing something else.

Along the same lines, Phil Sharpe said steel cored AP was hard on rifle barrels, which nobody else seems to have noticed.
 
Given that by late 1943 black-tip AP M2 ball was the defacto standard ball ammo issued to just about every GI for the duration of the war, you'd think that someone else would have noticed...
 
Doubt many GIs were shooting target rifles like the one Phil wore out with AP.

He was a bit on again off again on steel jackets, but concluded the European Trio Metal with very mild steel and rolled or pressed copper coating was ok.
 
Which means that the military would have noticed a lot sooner were thousands of rifles being worn out in quick order with AP M2.

But, given that doesn't seem to have entered the narrative, either stateside (where a lot of ammo was being fired through test guns to look for things like this) or in the field...

I think the secret to the Sharpe issue lies in the word target... I'd be he was using a very tightly gauged barrel. And worn out means no longer delivering target accuracy to his specifications.
 
Yes, and it is also hard to square with reports that when matches were resumed after the war and before anybody had tooled up for target loads, and the Army used "selected lots" of service ammo, that AP was found to be more accurate than ball.

So was it an isolated instance? A rifle with 1000 rounds fired was already fading?

It doesn't matter much to me, I seldom do the sort of "centerfire plinking" that cheap surplus - or imported ammo loaded in the plant that made the surplus to start with - is suited for.
 
Sparks at the end of the range indicates steel jackets. Yes, they can ricochet, but so can lead if the backstop isn't angled correctly. They shouldn't bother your pistol though. However, some steel cased ammo can give extractors grief.
"...their policy..." That'd be the important part. Their range. Their rules.
 
"Sparks at the end of the range indicates steel jackets."

Or mild steel cores from cheap Eastern European stuff from years ago. A guilding metal jacket, a lead tip, and a mild steel insert in the base.
 
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