Steel cases and long-term accuracy.

[Religious Shooter]

I can see it temporarily degrading accuracy due to gumming and/or dirtying the chamber, but does steel cased ammuntion cause permanent accuracy loss?

PS: I'm talking about the "brass" and not the projectile.

[ErikW]

Do you mean, permanent damage to the rifle or barrel that degrades accuracy?

[Religious Shooter]

I know it will get dirtier faster due to the coating. But you can clean that out and it's temporary.

I'm asking if it actually does any permament loss, FASTER than brass cased ammo (I'm sure shooting brass ammo also, eventually, makes the barrel less accurate).

[ErikW]

Well even if you had caseless ammo it would eventually make the barrel less accurate.

As I understand it, most barrels wear out in the throat area (due to the hot gas eroding it) before they wear out their rifling (due to the bullet friction). I haven't heard of cases wearing out a barrel.

[Religious Shooter]

I use Wolf on my other two guns and they run great. But I have no idea as to how accurate they are since I practice on steel and don't do much group shooting.

I asked 'cuz I just got a new upper and I remembered two big dogs not liking the idea of using Wolf.

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?...&hl=steel+cased

I wanna baby the new one since it will be my match gun. But man... I must have spent an hour or two to prep 150 freakin' .223 cases today.

[kurtm]

I don't think steel versus brass makes a darn bit of difference in barrel life, for the case. As long as the projectile is copper, not copper washed steel, it should be the same life either way. As to the fowling attributed to the case coating, I think it is a bit more on the urban legand side. We could get the varnish to burn, or not burn, but it NEVER got gummy and then rehardened. That said, we did find that the case necks weren't expanding as fast as brass so there was more gas leakage back as compaired to brass. This caused more chamber fowling than brass, leading to some extraction problems in tighter chambers. Since Wolf has changed thier powder formula this is less of a problem, as the newer powder seems to fowl less and sure smells a lot better. KURTM

[Ross Carter]

Steel cased is ok in a military type rifle but I've seen accelerated breach face wear in some pistols using steel cases. I wouldn't use it in a pistol of any value.

[Carlos]

The Russians did not invent .45 ACP cases made of steel; WE did. They were military issue & are rather rare these days. I have a couple of vintage USA made steel .45 ACP cases & a vintage reloading manual that talks about them. Though old, the manual dispels the old wives tale about steel cases that "they'l break your extractor!!" Pure bunk! USA made steel cases are just fine for shooting & reloading & I can't see a reason that .45 ACP cases made of soft, mild steel in Russia would be any different, save the coating.

Now if the goo that used to come on Wolf brand steel cases is causing these cases to stick, then that is another matter altogether. Wolf has changed that recently. As I have said here before, both the US made & Russian .45 ACP cases are reloadable and I have reloaded them several times. My extractor is still in one piece.

[TBF]

The Wolf cases ARE reloadeble in 45acp, they actually work pretty well, once.

I have not tried to reload them twice.

The steel is soft, dang near soft as brass.

Can't see how they would cause any damage to gun parts.

Travis F.

PS. You can say what you want about reloading these.

But, free is free.

And, lost brass is lost brass.

Just watch for tight primer pockets.