Why not steel casings?

I have one handgun that I do not reload for. A P-64 in 9mm Mak. I tried shooting brass from it. It makes brass dissappear. I just use Wolf Military Classic in it. It shoots just fine, and is not corrosive. Also it is cheap, and even during the ammo drought was available online. I also use the steel cased stuff as carry ammo in the gun. I have never had a round fail to feed, fire, or eject. To me prety much all cheap handgun ammo is dirty. My reloads are dirty. I clean my gun when I get done shooting anyway. Spray with BreakFree before leaving the range, and clean them when I get home.
 
The main reason people don't shoot steel case (not steel jacket - a different thing) ammo is because most ammo makers don't use steel for cartridge cases. Shooting a few rounds is not going to wear out a rifle or handgun chamber, but loading ten million rounds will sure as hell result in a lot more wear to the factory dies. It doesn't matter when a government is picking up the bill or when brass is unavailable in wartime, but in normal civvieland, any cost savings over brass is eaten up by the cost of replacing all those dies at the factory.

Jim
 
Steel is more brittle than brass or nickle. If it is factory load it's just fine if your range allows it. Our indoor range does not allow steel casings. Brass is also more easily sized because of its softness.
 
Thanks everyone for all the info/opinions. I almost never shoot at a range, so I can shoot whatever I want, and I don't get to shoot enough :( for some of the concerns mentioned to come into play.

Tulammo at the Walmart by me (9mm) is $3.00 cheaper per box than the other ammo I would buy there, so I plan on giving it a shot.
 
I shoot lots in my AK but that’s about it, and for one major reason.
You can’t reload them. With that said I would never shoot them in my Gold Cup, I have no idea if it would hurt it or not, just don’t want to take the chance
 
I don't have a high opinion of steel cased ammo. A young guy on a limited budget needed 1000 rounds of 9mm for a training camp and asked me for the cheapest I could find. Out of the 1K, he had 10-12 no bangs and 3 split cases which tied up his pistol each time.
I'll do the work and reload my own 9mm and save even at the lower cost of steel cased.
 
Steel does work (when done right) but Brass is best

And that's it right there. Brass cases work better. Steel works acceptably well, if done right. The problem is that since its the cheapest stuff, its not always done right. Steel cased ammo isn't just the cheapest ammo because steel is cheaper than brass. I believe they save costs in other ways as well.

I'm a reloader, and I don't even use Berdan primed brass, if I can help it. I don't shoot steel cased ammo. I don't shoot aluminium cased ammo. And most of the time, I don't shoot lower cost factory brass ammo. I also don't shoot anyone's reloads, except mine. And that includes professional reloading companies.

I'm cheap about somethings (clothes, cars, food, etc...) but not about what I put in my guns. There is low(er) cost, and then there is cheap. MY reloads are lower cost than factory ammo, but they aren't cheap ammo. Cheap ammo is false economy, to me.

Brass cases have the best combination of all the factors needed, better than steel, better than copper, or iron, or any of the other materials that were used when cartridge cases were being developed. Steel cases came about basically as a wartime production stopgap, something that would work acceptably well (particularly in high volume arms like machineguns) and was a way to save brass for more important things than small arms ammo.

Since it does work well enough, usually, several nations (notably communist ones) adopted steel as the standard for small arms. No longer communist, those countries are now selling steel ammo to the rest of the world. Cheap.

There was virtually NO (cheap) steel cased ammo in the US before the fall of communism. Today its everywhere, and competition being what it is, price matters to many people, for some things, its the overridding factor.

Note the dominance of steel cased ammo in ALL calibers!??? Go ahead, take a look....
I don't see much steel cased ammo in non-military calibers (ours or theirs). Where is the steel cased .44 Mag? Where is the steel cased .32acp? .357 Mag? (and where is the steel cased ammo in commercial sporting rifle calibers?)

Steel cases are NOT superior to brass in anything, except cost. You can run a Porsche, or even a Volkswagon on 70 octane fuel, and it will still get you from point A to B, and (hopefully) back again. But it will run better on the more expensive fuel it was designed for....
 
I use it in guns that have probably never seen brass rounds in their service life. I have shot some brass Winchester Soft Points out of my SKS, (Dropped a nice deer with it too.:D) My P-64 I shot 2 boxes of brass cased ammo thinking I would save brass, and maybe reload for it. I did not find a single piece of the fired brass. Then I came to the conclusion that I only shoot a box of 50 every other month or so anyway. So I will not reload for it. My 91-30 has only had corrosive old steel cased surplus ammo shot out of it. It shoots good enough. If I am gonna reload for a rifle it will be one that I can not find ammo for that cheaply, and shoot a whole lot more.

Steel cased ammo in the old ComBloc surplus works just fine.

I have also fired some of the .45 ACP steel cased it shot just fine. I have a couple of boxes saved for those times when I am somewhere they give you a hard tiem about pick up your brass, or where I know I am gonna loose it anyway. After it is gone I will not buy anymore. I can handload for that cheaper than I can buy the steel cased stuff for with my cast lead anyway.
 
Whoa, there! Corrosive priming, Berdan primers, and failure to fire have NOTHING to do with the case material, and to condemn steel cases for those reasons is plain silly.

Steel cases can be reloaded, although it takes more work than with brass cases, and steel cases have certainly been made in the U.S. to the tune of millions of rounds of .45 ACP and .30 carbine during WWII. Steel .30 cases were made but not in quantity because the U.S. never figured out how to make them, even though the Germans did.

With the cost of copper in a steady upward climb, I suspect we will see more domestic ammo made with aluminum or steel cases, so the problems of steel case ammo can't be blamed on some dirty, sneaky Commie plot :eek: .

Jim
 
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