Steel cased pistol ammo

[Mitchell, Esq.]

I've heard the rumors and myths about steel cased ammo being bad for guns, and how it can cause accelerated wear, be unreliable and all that...

Well, now that hornady and black hills are starting to use it, I'd like to know more.

What is the story with steel cased pistol ammo?

Good, bad?

[orionz06]

Generally speaking the steel is actually as soft or softer than brass. I use it without worry. It is not as accurate and certainly has more smoke and there is less of a savings for carbine ammo though.

[jetfire]

Right now, I have 2500 rounds of steel cased ammo in my house, including some the Hornady stuff. I've also shot 450 rounds of the TulAmmo 45 acp, with another 5k on its way. I'm only a few rounds into the testing process so far, but I'll be shooting a mess of steel cased ammo this year.

With regards to the Hornady and Black Hills products, I know that the Black Hills cases are purchased from Hornady. The Hornady steel cased stuff right now is all loaded with their stupid accurate HAP bullet. I post weekly updates on Gun Nuts if you want to see how it's going.

[RoyGBiv]

I would be surprised to find that the raw material used in a brass cartridge isn't softer than the raw material used in a steel cartridge. That's why you use a brass brush to clean your barrel and not a steel brush. However, if you use thinner steel, you could engineer a cartridge that would impact against the extractor/etc in a similar way as brass.. (Imagine a steel tube with a thickness approaching that of aluminum foil compared to a solid bar of the same steel). So to answer the question empirically you'd need to know both the material and the gauge.

The reloading supplies places I checked don't tell you what material grades they are using for their brass or steel.... Anybody know? C33000 Brass? 1010 Steel w/ zinc plating? If you know what grades it would be easy to look up hardness (www.matweb.com) but that still wouldn't tell you enough without knowing the difference in gauge.

With copper prices skyrocketing, I'll bet the copper content of brass cartridges is pushing the lower limit of design requirements these days. Less copper = harder cartridge.

[Mitchell, Esq.]

Are we going to see steel cased premium defensive ammo?

Terminal performance aside, would you trust the black hills steel case JHP for carry?

[jetfire]

I imagine that we will eventually see steel cased defensive ammo from Hornady at the very least. Right now I wouldn't carry the Black Hills JHP because I don't have any data on it. That's not a knock on the round, it's just that I won't carry something that I've not personally shot through my carry gun and mags. I would imagine however that the Black Hills stuff will run just fine.

[Nephrology]

Depends on the gun. The only time i've had an issue with steel case ammo had to do with the catridge OAL and that was just because TulAmmo sometimes gives you lemons.

Ive also found that some Wolf is underpowered and occasionally causes FTRTBs.

Really though all of thish as more to do with the powder load and bullet seating than the material of the case which has never caused problems.