barrel wear from steel jackets?

C

Crankgrinder

New member
Hello folks, I have been thinking of the russian ammo i have. (monarch and tula which i believe are the same thing under diff. names) We all know this is steel cased,and steel jacketed. Im not worried about the steel cases at all they work fine in all my guns, all im wondering about is the projectiles themselves. The copper jackets on them are said to be .005 thick with a steel jacket beneath 1/32 thick and the rest lead inside. One would think the copper jacket would need to be at least .030 for the lands to cut into without contacting the steel thus wearing out the rifling. Has anyone done any testing on this? any experience? thanks again.
 
I used to build and shoot almost only AKs. I only ever shot steel cased Russian/Eastern European/Combloc ammo through them.

I shot on average 3k rounds a year then. Still shoot a lot now but I reload now so its all brass. That is irrelevant tough really so onward. I shot probably 40k rounds of Russian steel cased and bimetal jacketed ammo through my AKs. One AK in particular was in my possession for nearly 10 years and as such had the majority of that ammo shot through it. I'd safely say half the ammo I shot went through that one AK. In the end barrel wear was minimal - you could tell it'd been shot a lot but it still held just as tight of groups as a rifle just built from a flat receiver and parts kit.

I wouldn't be too concerned about excessive barrel wear. I'd say actually that by the time you've put enough rounds through a barrel to wear it (with the Russian bimetal ammo) you'd have also put enough ammo through it to wear it out with regular copper jacketed ammo (or darned close). Not a big enough difference for me to worry or care about.
 
Id have to say 40k is more rounds than ill probably shoot through this one, ammo cost and all. still thats an awful lot of shooting and no worse results? thats great news. thanks alot. I may slug the barrel before and then later in a few years and save the slugs as a test still.
 
You will, never in your life, hear of a barrel with lands .030" high or anything close. .005 is big, most are .003-.004.
 
Most US WW-2 stuff was the same deal and it never killed the things. Its just a copper plate on the things to ward of rust is all and the soft steel is no more wear than copper is.
 
Th ecopper doesn't have to be deeper than the rifling. The steel is quite mild and is pushed into the lead bullet. The copper is more of a metallic lubricant the bullet slides down the barrel on.

I've shot a lot of steel jacketed M2 ball and 9mm ball. I wouldn't hesitate to buy more if I thought the ammo was good otherwise.
 
Most rifling is 3-5 thousands deep. Example .30 caliber.........center bore is .300 in diameter and groove diameter is .308. That means the the rifling is .004 deep.
 
Im glad you say that id hate to be asking stupid questions. And it is good news that in a 308 the lands as measured are found to be .004 thick on each side,which would give a clearance of .001 to the lands for lubrication purposes. I find it would be tough to plate something evenly all the way around but here we say an inch may as well be a mile in some cases. And with the bhn of copper around 35 and of mild steel around 120 and of hard chrome plating 1000 the popular consensus must be right that this stuff is quite harmless. Thanks alot folks I searched some but did not find much discussion on this topic, mostly just the steel cases and such.
 
The steel they use is a very soft steel. My understanding is that the steel is about the same hardness and copper. The swiss used steel on their k31 ammo. I tell people they are silver bullets:D
 
It doesn't matter how hard or soft the material is, it matters how abrasive it is.
I had a conversation with Speer about this years ago, as they have an interesting propitiatory jacket material, which is not pure copper.

Take a Scotch Bright™ scouring pad and rub on the blued finish of a barrel. look at the scratches you just put on it through a jewelers loop. What is a Scotch Bright pad made of?

Copper has an uncanny ability to slip over itself similar to graphite, and is used in some lubricants because of that. Steel does not possess this property.

I'll not put steel/bimetal through my rifles, when there's an alternative.
-SS-
 
Pure copper jackets are uncommon. Guilding metal is usually used, so Speer using non-pure copper jackets shouldn't surprise you too much. In any case, what did the Speer people say?

What does scratching your barrel up with a Scotch Bright pad prove? That it's not as hard as the corundum abrasive in the pad?

Do you have an example of a lubricant that incorporates metallic copper?
 
@Tythagoras... not surprised by it...

Here is an example of a copper lubricant. There are many, and it's not a new idea. I remember my neighbor using it on towing gear when I was a kid. It's designed to provide lubrication under extreme pressures where a liquid lube will evacuate.

Speer told me that their proprietary bi-metal jacket is designed to slip and seal without deforming the core of the bullet. Hornady jackets are very "coppery" in comparison and almost pure copper. The first thing I do when considering a bullet is to destroy/crush/file one down to see how hard it is... or isn't. Speer bullets are way harder than Hornady in my opinion. They have also been more accurate for me.

I mention Scotch Bright™ because it illustrates how materials can have a surprising effect on steel with a given pressure/application. There are some bench shooters who won't put nylon brushes through for that reason. I'm not necessarily agreeing... just sayin'.

The carbon in the bore after a few rounds is way more abrasive than nylon. Some say leaving some copper in there isn't a bad thing either as long as the carbon is removed, from time to time.

-SS-
 
Thanks for the link, Sweet Shooter, I learned something new.

It should be noted that Scotch Bright is not straight nylon. It includes an aluminum oxide (corundum) abrasive. That's what does the scratching. As far as carbon fouling being as abrasive or more so than synthetic sapphires, I would be very interested in seeing that evidence.

If it is true, then the jacket material wouldn't matter. The abrasive would embed in the jacket and be scraped down the bore anyway, particularly with softer jacket materials.

As far as steel jackets go, I find it hard to believe that they would significantly accelerate barrel wear. The thing that gets me is that many people say that the problem has been studied by governments and private interests alike. I never see links to the studies or even the abstracts. I did a quick search and didn't see any published studies, but I didn't wade through the myriad of discussions just like this one.

Not that I think that we should stop arguing. If we are arguing then we are thinking. Adding some hard test data would make it that much more interesting.

Having said that, I won't be putting steel jacketed bullets through my barrels, but not because I think they will cause undue wear. Steel jackets tend to be on bullets that are cheap and imprecise. I don't like imprecise bullets. If someone made a match bullet with a steel jacket, I would try it, and if it worked well, I would use it regularly.
 
@Tythagoras...
If it is true, then the jacket material wouldn't matter. The abrasive would embed in the jacket and be scraped down the bore anyway, particularly with softer jacket materials.
Click to expand...

Good point.
-SS-
 
Take a Scotch Bright™ scouring pad and rub on the blued finish of a barrel.
Click to expand...

Don't do this!

Certainly not to a gun you care anything about. The abrasives imbedded in the plastic of a Scotch Brite pad can cause permanent damage to the gun's finish. Scotch Brite pads are like sandpaper they are not all the same and some are very course.

Let's be careful out there.
 
Ive had a mini 30 that digested well over 10k of wolf steal jacketed ammo and the bore looked as good as new when i sold it. My ar15 in 762x39 has done about half that and again theres no sign of wear. Id say maybe a gun shooting steal bullets might give a few thousands less rounds of barrel life in the lifetime of the gun but that woud be a very small percentage of the total barrel life and heck with a ar you can buy a new barrel for a bit over a 100 bucks. Kind of silly to pay double for ammo because your worried about a bit of barrel life.
 
Id say if paying double for your ammo all for a little more barrel life does seem silly, especialy if you end up with more $ in your ammo than you have in your gun ( which is almost inevitable anyway) but for the $ half as many rounds?
 
check the price of wolf ammo compared to hornady 762x39. Its alot more then double the price. Even winchester is more then double. A couple years back i picked up 6 1000 round cases of wolf for 140 bucks a case. Works out to about 2.50 a box. I know you cant find it for that anymore but i still see it around 5 bucks a box.
 
Tula ammo!

My wife bought for me for Christmas this year a Ruger Ranch Rifle in .223/5.56. The dealer sold me a case of Tula ammo. The first 2 round the primer did not go off.I drilled out the case no powder. That is when I noticed the copper wash on the bullet that was steel.

I called Ruger and asked them about Tula Ammo, Their quote, Do not use Tula,or Warranty will be void. They also said the manufacture of that ammo does not meet our standards. I myself do not like the idea of putting a steel bullet down a barrel. If it works for go for it.

I returned the ammo and got some Federals. BTW, this Ruger Ranch Rifle ,581 series,is awesome! :) Cliff
 
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