Brown Bear ammo - 9mm

U

Uncle Ben

New member
This seems to be the cheapest ammo I can find for target shooting w/ a 9mm handgun (this is not what I would keep loaded at home).

Are there any negatives that I should be aware of before buying?
Feed problems, inconsistent loads, etc?

(I will not be reloading the cases)
Thanks for your input
 
I have shot a lot of Brown Bear, several thousand rounds. Had one batch that must have been a bit oversized as I had a lot of rounds failing to chamber, requiring a push on the slide. As mentioned previously, clean the chamber to prevent build up of the lacquer.
 
I thought you were asking what Ammo in 9mm to use for Brown Bear. My response was "throw the gun at the bear and run like a little girl"

Brown Bear/Wolf all that stuff is dirty and the lacquer can gum up the works. For 8 dollars/50, I would shoot it all day long and clean all night though.
 
Thanks guys, good to know.
It is about $8 for a box of 50, so MUCH less than anything else I can find.
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$8/50 translates to $16/100.

Walmart sells Winchester White Box for $20/100.

WWB is brass-cased rather than steel cased and doesn't use a gummy lacquer.

Steel cases are only suitable for cartridges that are designed to have a tapering slope to the chamber, such as 7.62x39. In other chambers (.223, 9mm, etc) with straighter chamber walls, it contributes to failures due to stuck cases.

Brass is softer than steel. When brass begins to stick to the chamber, you get into a tug-of-war match and the brass always loses... meaning the brass ejects.

Steel-on-steel is more likely to do something called "galling."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galling

You don't want steel-on-steel galling in your firearm's chamber. It doesn't go away easily. The lacquer on wolf/brown bear and such is "supposed" to stop that. It doesn't stop it 100%.

If you're worried about cost but still want to properly maintain and protect your firearm, shoot WWB brass ammunition and collect your brass. When you have 500 or 1000 cases, sell them to a reloader. You'll get the price differential back and then some.

Friends don't let friends shoot steel cased ammo in anything not chambered in Soviet Combloc cartridges.
 
Brown Bear dirties your gun up like no other and I've experience some FTEs with it. I discounted the brown bear ammo issues as "the ammo" and not "the gun" when I fired it. In my Sig P6, at least once a magazine I'd have a double feed or stove pipe. A couple of rounds took two strikes to fire. And the cleaning afterwards! OH GOD! The patches have never come out so dirty after so few rounds!

I also shot a box of Blazer that day and had no problems with those.

I've heard that the Brown Bear work great in some guns, but others: not so much. Steel won't wear out your ejector like people say, that's just a mix. And the laquer? Might have been the issue with my Sig, but I know it's the issue with my Mosin. Occasionally my Mosin locks up on a round of Brown Bear because of the laquer expanding.
 
The only real problem I've had with Brown Bear is I don't like how the lacquer crap gets all over your hands, particularly if you're loading the ammo into a mag that's rather stiff. Yeah, it's dirty, but I've fired it through Mak's, P-64's, CZ-82's, AK's, Mosins, without any reliability issues at all. Haven't yet tried it in any "Western" calibers but probably will within the next few weeks. I suspect it will be just fine.
 
To respond to an earlier post, I agree that the little extra cost of WWB in 9mm for $20 for 100 rds would be worth it and would make more sense overall....problem is, my local wal-marts that carry ammo never have them in stock (or hardly anything else for that matter).

Big 5 sporting goods carries them locally, but a 100rd box is $36!!! (robbery)

Maybe the situation at Walmart will get better for me, or maybe I'll visit one day that they have just stocked up :confused:
 
Lacquer build-up

Don't know if anybody else has had this problem but, I found that shooting it in a automatic tended to cause a buildup of Lacquer and caused jams. Friend of mine was using it in an AR-15 (.223) and as the barrel heated up, the coating on the bullets melted into the chamber. Caused sticking problems as you can imigine. I don't kow if all the Bear ammo is coated!
 
Rick, I've never had that problem and I've shot the stuff through a variety of semi-automatics.

All Bear casings are coated with something, but not always with lacquer. I believe Silver Bear is steel-cased but coated with nickel or zinc and Golden Bear is steel-cased but coated with brass.
 
Somewhere over on AR15.com is a thread about lacquer & polymer coated steel cartridge cases and the myth that the coating melts and gums up your gun.

Basically, it isn't the lacquer. It's carbon.

When brass cartridges are fired they expand easily to the chamber wall. Steel cases, not being as elastic, do not completely expand. This allows a buildup of carbon around the case mouth that you won't see with brass.

If not completely cleaned, this carbon will affect chambering and extraction.
 
WWB for $22

Just yesterday was the first time I bought WWB 9mm for less than $32.00 in Walmart.....$22.00 for a box of 100 had to buy 2 box's wanted more but wife said no.
 
I would pass on the Brown Bear (or any other Bear brand in non-Russian calibers). I tried Silver Bear 145grn JHP in my CZ-75 once. One round failed to completely chamber and upon further inspection I found that it was stuck fast in the chamber and couldn't be ejected. I had to very carefully disassemble the gun in order to remove it. After that little adventure, I threw the rest of the box away and have stuck with WWB, UMC, S&B, or Blazer for practice 9mm ammo ever since. Commie ammo for commie guns I always say.
 
Just ordered a thousand rounds of it off of Aim Surplus. Five hundred rounds of Silver Bear HPs also. We love it in our CZ82's.

Beentown
 
I tried a box of Brown Bear, it smelled like a goat fire.
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You must have got the good stuff.
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