tula 45acp case wall blowout.....

What in the world are you talking about? Most modern cartridges have plenty of room for thicker walls. Very few get filled to the brim with powder... that's why it's possible to have them over/double charged causing the issues that we have been discussing in this thread. The 45acp uses barely half of the available space - hence the development of the 45GAP.
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Have you seen the bulge on 9mm, 40sw, and 45acp factory ammo? When the round is seated into the casing, the casing slightly bulges out where the base of the bullet would be. There is NO ROOM for a thicker case wall, unless you're talking about rifle ammo, then I agree.

but to say barely anybody shoots Hornady is laughable.
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Nobody shoots Hornady steel cased ammo as much as tula/wolf/barnual/etc.....


I also just came back from the range. I fired 200rds of tula 40sw in my M&P40 with no problems, for what it's worth......
 
Have you seen the bulge on 9mm, 40sw, and 45acp factory ammo? When the round is seated into the casing, the casing slightly bulges out where the base of the bullet would be. There is NO ROOM for a thicker case wall, unless you're talking about rifle ammo, then I agree.
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The thicker walls are below where the bullet seats. This is actually a pretty common thing. For example, 45acp brass was thickened up in order to support 45 super. Same thing with 40 super.

I also just came back from the range. I fired 200rds of tula 40sw in my M&P40 with no problems, for what it's worth......
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The reason I don't shoot steel cased ammo isn't because of the steel case. I could care less about that - other than it's tolerances often suck. I had a big batch of Tula 45 some 5 years ago or so and the rounds wouldn't even load into a P220 magazine.

The reason I don't shoot steel case is because of the bi-metal jacketed bullets. They are not copper jacketed and wear out the rifling much faster than copper jacketed bullets. There is not enough cost savings in that junk for me to justify it. It's often MORE expensive than a place like Freedom Munitions who provides brass cased, copper jacketed bullets.

For example:

bulkammo.com sells Tula 40s&w 180gr for $135(plus shipping) for 500rds

freedommunitions.com has 500rds of 180gr 40s&w for $116 (with free shipping over $199) - actually on special today for $106!

With prices like that, why are you shooting Tula?
 
They are not copper jacketed and wear out the rifling much faster than copper jacketed bullets. There is not enough cost savings in that junk for me to justify it
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ehhh.........the jacket is soft steel. M&P40 barrels run under $90. It would take like over $1,500 worth of ammo before the barrel became crap. I aint worried about it.

With prices like that, why are you shooting Tula?
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because of wal mart.:p
 
Tula is crap ammo and not good for your gun.

I don't shoot Tula in my firearms because I respect my firearms and try not to screw them up.

Your mileage may vary.
 
"They are not copper jacketed and wear out the rifling much faster than copper jacketed bullets."

Hum....

Gilding metal, the alloy used for "copper jacketed" bullets, has a Brinell hardness around 114.

Mild steel has a Brinell hardness in the range of 120.


That's not a lot of difference, and in the environment of a firearms barrel, you're going to be able to shoot a LOT of either kind of ammunition before you wear out the rifling.
 
That's not a lot of difference, and in the environment of a firearms barrel, you're going to be able to shoot a LOT of either kind of ammunition before you wear out the rifling.
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Take a look at this test.

Granted, they are doing the tests with ar-15 barrels, but the results speak for themselves.

As indicated by accuracy testing, the steel cased/bimetal jacketed ammunition caused accelerated wear to the inside of their respective bores. While the barrel of the Federal carbine had plenty of life left, even after 10,000 rounds at extremely high rates of fire, the Wolf and Brown Bear barrels were subjected to the same rates of fire and were completely “shot out” by 6,000 rounds.

At the end of the test, the chrome lining of the Wolf and Brown Bear barrels was almost gone from the throat forward, and the barrels had effectively become smoothbores, with the rifling near the muzzles acting only as a mild suggestion on the projectiles. A throat erosion gauge could be dropped into the bore from the muzzle end with absolutely no resistance.

throat-erosion-table-sunday-e1357505951456.png
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No thanks.
 
The results speak for something, but there's absolutely no conclusive proof that the results speak for mild-steel jacketed bullets being the primary wear factor.

The type of propellant could have also been a significant contributing factor. Some propellants have much higher flame temperatures and are much more errosive. Early Cordite is a good example. It had a reputation for washing out barrels in short order, which required a change in not only the rifling type (from shallow Metford rifling to deeper, traditional Enfield rifling) but also in the barrel steel being used AND the Cordite formula to reduce its flame temperature.

In order to remove that concern, you'd need to do a whole new round of testing and swap bullets.


But, we're also talking about handguns in this thread, vs. rifles. That's a whole different class of propellant being used in cartridges that are operating at, in some cases, 1/3 the chamber pressure of rifles.

I have a funny feeling that few of us are going to be shooting a particular handgun enough with steel-jacketed ammo to wear out the barrel.
 
Fair enough.

I think my point still stands that I just don't see any reason to shoot the steel case stuff, even if it's only mildly more abrasive - when you can get good quality brass ammo for cheaper prices.
 
"the steel case stuff"

Remember, we're talking primarily about ammo with BULLETS with mild-steel jackets.

Steel-cased ammo with gilding metal jacketed bullets? I don't think those would be an issue at all.


"when you can get good quality brass ammo for cheaper prices."

Well yeah, but remember, we're coming out of (hopefully) a long stretch when we've not had the opportunity to be as choosy as we'd like to be.

That said, I've got probably 5 to 7 thousand rounds through my Chinese SKS, with 99.9999% of it being surplus military ammo from Russia and China, and most of it with mild steel bullets.

It's still humming along, giving the same accuracy it always did.
 
Steel-cased ammo with gilding metal jacketed bullets? I don't think those would be an issue at all.
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I would tend to agree with you.

The only 2 guns that I have had issues with steel case ammo with are my P220 Stainless Elite because the rounds simply wouldn't load into the magazine. the OAL was simply too large. I could cram them in the there with the UPLULA, but loading by hand was nearly impossible. Once loaded, it would FTF about 50% because of the friction it just would load the round in time.

Additionally, my Daniel Defense will not cycle Wolf or Tula about 75% of the time. It will fire and eject the the spent casing but it does not have enough power to push the bolt far enough to the rear to catch the next round. From what I understand, this is because DD uses standard diameter gas tubes while the majority of commercial AR manufacturers use oversized gas tubes and as such tend to over gas the gun. I don't know if it's true but it makes sense to me. My DD has been absolutely 100% reliable with anything brass cased, but steel cased is a no-go in that gun.

Now, you may have seen the Geco ammo from Switzerland. It comes in a red and black box. This ammo is brass cased but still has a bimetal jacket. I have shot quite a bit of it and it has been 100% reliable for me. I don't shoot it all too often though because my normal range is an indoor range(Scottsdale Gun Club) and they do not allow any bimetal jacketed bullets due to sparks and (supposedly) it's more damaging to the backstop.

If I could find cheap steel cased ammo that ran regular copper jackets, I would give it a shot. If it was reliable, I wouldn't be too concerned about it. The Blazer aluminum I've tried runs quite well.
 
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