Why is steel cased ammo bad for AR's?

Hornady manufactures steel cased ammo....and it is very much assembled right here in the good ol' USA. It is far from "crap ammo".
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I have yet to use that Hornady steel ammo, but I highly doubt the OP was asking about it; besides, what I've seen of it tends to be priced right up there with brass cased ammo, so I'm really not sure why somebody would bother if saving money was the objective.

Hornady ammunition is usually high quality, but using it to say that steel ammo is great stuff is ignoring that the bulk of the steel case ammunition out there is cheap Russian imports.
 
It is garbage, and if you come to the range I shoot at I think it even worse. Due to the fact that I can not pick it up, and reload it.

That said it works just fine in all of the rifles I have shot it out of.
 
I have shot a lot of bear brown and silver out of my XCR and it does fine

Local shop shoots a lot of the brown full auto, does just fine.

Maybe my XCR is just better than those picky ARs! (grin)
 
CPTMurdoc,

Did you pay more than $600 for a Gunther? Not worth it. Costs less than 2 bits down here. Sunday mornings can be a beast, eh?
 
As posted above, any problems you experience with steel-cased ammo are problems with the firearm, not the ammo. And accelerated wear is a fable.

By the way, Russia and all it's former communists satellites are/were considered Second World, not Third.
 
Because the .223 Remington is a wildcat created by a bunch of guys at Bob Hutton’s Ranch in California.

They wildcatted the 222 Remington to push a light weight bullet to a certain velocity. I think it was a 55 grain bullet to 3000 fps, or it was distance/ velocity goal they were going for.

They did not have the time or money to test difference case materials, different primers, different powders.

The round was ballyhooed in the press and by the high velocity proponents of the period, Armalite picked it up, as is, and used it in the AR15.

Weapons/rounds that went through a proper development cycle: testing case/weapon sensitivities to case materials, case dimensions, case taper, powders, primers, etc, function just fine with steel cases.

The 7.62 X 39 is an outstanding example of a well developed round. Functions just fine brass or steel.

The .223 is what it is.
 
if you come to the range I shoot at I think it even worse. Due to the fact that I can not pick it up, and reload it.
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Yeah, that torques me too! Dang cheapskates that won't shoot brass cases that I can pick up for free. :D

I can reload for $4/20, and I enjoy reloading, so no real reason for me to try steel cased ammo in my ARs. Not much choice in 7.62x39 so 99% of mine is steel cased for that. If I did not reload I would give steel cased ammo a try in the AR.
 
BTW, I really like the bit about the brass cases being a "heat sink"---I haven't smelled anything like that since last I was down on the farm.
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I can't see why you argue about cartridge cases carrying heat away from the rifle....anybody who ever scooped up a case the moment it ejected will tell you it is damn hot!

That is heat carried away from the rifle, so "heat sink" is a reasonable term for the effect on the gun. Heat is removed.

As far as there being a difference between brass and steel in the amount of heat removed, I cannot tell you.

OBTW, one reason that caseless ammo hasn't yet been adopted by our military (it is being developed and tested) is that there is no removal of the heat since there is not a hot case flying out of the receiver. So the military weapons heat up faster, compared to the ones firing traditional brass cases.

Bart Noir
 
DPMS says that the coating of the steel case rubs off on the neck of the chamber and it can built up. After a lot of rounds, the chamber is too tight and the case may not release resulting in a stuck case. If you have a tight chamber, then it might be a problem. A loose chamber like an AK, then no problem.

I am not sure because I don't shoot the stuff steel, doesn't seem worth the price. It used to be way cheaper but not any more. I am talking about the most common rounds, 223, 308, 9mm. For about 2 cents more per round, you can get brass, why would anyone buy steel? Shop around and you can get 223 brass for less than 30 cents a round. Brass is always going to be better. You can sell the brass for more than the 2 cents a round you are saving, making brass cheaper.
 
I can't see why you argue about cartridge cases carrying heat away from the rifle....anybody who ever scooped up a case the moment it ejected will tell you it is damn hot!

That is heat carried away from the rifle, so "heat sink" is a reasonable term for the effect on the gun. Heat is removed.

As far as there being a difference between brass and steel in the amount of heat removed, I cannot tell you.

OBTW, one reason that caseless ammo hasn't yet been adopted by our military (it is being developed and tested) is that there is no removal of the heat since there is not a hot case flying out of the receiver. So the military weapons heat up faster, compared to the ones firing traditional brass cases.

Bart Noir
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I believe the bit about caseless ammo heating up the chamber but find the first part hard to swallow.

If the problem with steel is it's lack of ability to transfer heat, wouldn't that mean the heat would be trapped inside the cartridge keeping the chamber cooler? After all, the heat source is inside the cartridge to begin with.
 
Has anyone had to change out a barrel prematurily due to steel cased ammo? Some of our members report shooting 5k rounds or more a year. Certainly that would be a real world test to all this rumor and internet hype.
 
Come on, guys, we're talking about semi-auto fire in an AR. If the steel cased ammo works well enough for you, then use it. If your AR doesn't like it, then don't use it. By the time you get 55K rounds through your semi-auto AR, you will be bored with it, have moved on to a laser rifle or be long dead.

I shoot Wolf in my carbon-15 pistol. If I want it to feed reliably, I need to clean the chamber with a spray-cleaner about every 3 magazines - about 79-90 rounds. PITA? Yes. Cheap? Yes. So far, Wolf hasn't destroyed my plastic-fantastic Carbon-15.

I know that the Carbon-15 is state-of-indestructo-techology (:D), but I know some of your AR's have to be at least as good as my Carbon-15!
 
If the problem with steel is it's lack of ability to transfer heat, wouldn't that mean the heat would be trapped inside the cartridge keeping the chamber cooler? After all, the heat source is inside the cartridge to begin with.
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Bingo.............;)
 
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