Lucky gunner's 10,000 round test of Brass vs steel cased. Good read.

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Originally Posted by orionz06

If you're unhappy with the rate and time I've spent digging up old stuff and refreshing mysold on this in the last 24 hours you could always search yourself. There were threads here, M4C, WEvo, and a few other forums that have many crossover, as well as their Facebook page. They spent a fair amount of time discussing this when it was happening and even recruited shooters to assist them.

In short: Their "test" shows that they can shoot 10,000 rounds from four guns. Firearm quality, metal choices, and rate of fire will greatly influence the wear they showed. Their rof from all of the guns, at times, exceeded the rof from most reasonable carbine classes even. I'd think you could piece the rest together with some effort in the search bar.

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We were talking about this article back in 2014 in the Keymod vs MLOK thread.

https://pistol-forum.com/archive/index.php/t-14049.html

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Originally Posted by navyman8903

I mean sure, but most people are not buying Colt 6920's. Your run of the mill people are buying cheap AR's and cheap ammo. I can't tell you how many friends I have that "won't spend that much money on that rifle with this one will do the exact same thing."

Plus 10K is the expected barrel life for a carbine gas system from most service literature.

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Your “run of the mill people buying cheap AR’s” are not shooting 10,000 rounds, they aren’t even shooting 1,000 rounds. That costs money. In fact companies like bushmaster / windham are betting on it.

The problem with those cheap AR’s isn’t that they won’t survive the 30 rounds or less a CONUS AR might see actual use, but rather that they cannot hold up to the number of rounds necessary for someone serious about their use to become proficient.

Speaking of, if I recall correctly two of the guns in the Lucky Gunner test had barrels which where loose and not torqued to spec ?

This is intersteing as a year or two ago, Windham released a promo video of two of their assemblers on the production floor which attracted some negative attention. One assembler was using a torque wrench to to torque the barrel nuts to proper spec and the other guy was just winging it. It reminded me of the inmate cooks at the jail “if it looks done, it’s done.” That’s how you get pink chicken, loose bowels and crappy AR’s with loose barrel nuts.

To me there's no real difference in this test and the many other torture tests that get done on youtube and blogs. Small sample sizes in less than realistic environments.

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Originally Posted by Casual Friday

To me there's no real difference in this test and the many other torture tests that get done on youtube and blogs. Small sample sizes in less than realistic environments.

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I disagree. There were more relevant aspects of performance measured, and more care was put into the test. I see people's point for those who broke it down. I get that it's a cheap rifle, and they shot fast. I see that point. However, I think they did a solid job keeping things standardized as well as anyone here would. I don't see someone buying 4 DD M4's or 4 BCM rifles. They bought 4 rifles that are readily available. I don't think the results will be applicable across every single rifle/barrel out there. But I do believe the test did a solid job showing what prolonged steel use will do to these rifles. I think the results are very easy to understand and the depth of data collected was solid.

That's my opinion on this test. Could they have broken the shooting sessions into 250-300 round range trips? Sure. They could have done a few things differently. Hindsight is 20/20. I think this test was fair, and by no means a melt down video or Tim throwing it at steel targets or trees. I think it's fair to say it graduates above the youtube torture test for views videos.

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Originally Posted by navyman8903

I disagree. There were more relevant aspects of performance measured, and more care was put into the test. I see people's point for those who broke it down. I get that it's a cheap rifle, and they shot fast. I see that point. However, I think they did a solid job keeping things standardized as well as anyone here would. I don't see someone buying 4 DD M4's or 4 BCM rifles. They bought 4 rifles that are readily available. I don't think the results will be applicable across every single rifle/barrel out there. But I do believe the test did a solid job showing what prolonged steel use will do to these rifles. I think the results are very easy to understand and the depth of data collected was solid.

That's my opinion on this test. Could they have broken the shooting sessions into 250-300 round range trips? Sure. They could have done a few things differently. Hindsight is 20/20. I think this test was fair, and by no means a melt down video or Tim throwing it at steel targets or trees. I think it's fair to say it graduates above the youtube torture test for views videos.

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Small sample sizes in less than realistic environments. You haven't changed my mind.

Call me crazy, but I remember reading it the first time and thinking "Why not just reload? It would save at least as much money as shooting steel case ammo (and probably more), but without the potential negative effects." Of course, that's the perspective of someone who already reloads 9mm and would only need to add .223/5.56 dies + a case trimmer in order to start loading .223. The math would be different for someone who'd have to buy a full reloading setup, but still probably worthwhile long-term.

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Originally Posted by navyman8903

I disagree. There were more relevant aspects of performance measured, and more care was put into the test. I see people's point for those who broke it down. I get that it's a cheap rifle, and they shot fast. I see that point. However, I think they did a solid job keeping things standardized as well as anyone here would. I don't see someone buying 4 DD M4's or 4 BCM rifles. They bought 4 rifles that are readily available. I don't think the results will be applicable across every single rifle/barrel out there. But I do believe the test did a solid job showing what prolonged steel use will do to these rifles. I think the results are very easy to understand and the depth of data collected was solid.

That's my opinion on this test. Could they have broken the shooting sessions into 250-300 round range trips? Sure. They could have done a few things differently. Hindsight is 20/20. I think this test was fair, and by no means a melt down video or Tim throwing it at steel targets or trees. I think it's fair to say it graduates above the youtube torture test for views videos.

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I'm not sure going slower is a "hindsight is 20/20 thing." Heat kills things pretty damned fast. Treat an AR like a 249 and you'll get that. And being standardized is only great if the rest of your testing closely follows the usage you wish it to represent.

As an engineer I look at the test and see useful info. For the given barrel type/spec, I'd expect similar wear for a similar firing schedule. I'm inclined to assume the basic premise of steel jackets create more wear than copper jackets given different barrel specs and different firing rates. I would not assume the delta in barrel life remains the same, or has a linear reltaionship, when you change barrel steel specs, coatings, or firing schedule. But, still, I'd expect the conclusion of steel creates more wear than copper to remain the same. This shouldn't be a huge surprise; this is (one reason)why you commonly see bushings and bearings made from brass, bronze, copper, etc.

These guys made a good effort at running a test and analyzing the result. I won't fault them for that and I value the data they've brought to the discussion. It's not comprehensive but it's still more valuable than 99% of the publicly available "testing" that I can find on the web.

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Originally Posted by orionz06

I'm not sure going slower is a "hindsight is 20/20 thing." Heat kills things pretty damned fast. Treat an AR like a 249 and you'll get that. And being standardized is only great if the rest of your testing closely follows the usage you wish it to represent.

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They didn't use it like a 249. There's once again a difference between melting down a barrel and doing a test. Some classes are 500-750 rounds a day. Over an 8 hour ish period sure. Some require you to bring 2K rounds to a class. Having high volumes of fire isn't out of the realm of possibilities. Now I will grant you 10,000 rounds in a few days is aggressive. There's no two ways about it. But everyone who is criticizing the volume/speed of fire has yet to recommend or agree on a testing protocol with daily round totals, and shooting session limits. Just "Do it slower and do it better." Which doesn't do anything for anyone. That's where my hindsight is 20/20 thing comes from. If you were doing the test, there'd be a massive group of people criticizing how you did it, what you did with it, and why you chose what.

I think they did a good job. Not perfect, but good and provided data after the test.

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Originally Posted by navyman8903

They didn't use it like a 249. There's once again a difference between melting down a barrel and doing a test. Some classes are 500-750 rounds a day. Over an 8 hour ish period sure. Some require you to bring 2K rounds to a class. Having high volumes of fire isn't out of the realm of possibilities. Now I will grant you 10,000 rounds in a few days is aggressive. There's no two ways about it. But everyone who is criticizing the volume/speed of fire has yet to recommend or agree on a testing protocol with daily round totals, and shooting session limits. Just "Do it slower and do it better." Which doesn't do anything for anyone. That's where my hindsight is 20/20 thing comes from. If you were doing the test, there'd be a massive group of people criticizing how you did it, what you did with it, and why you chose what.

I think they did a good job. Not perfect, but good and provided data after the test.

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I've never seen or heard of a normal carbine class where rounds were cooking off, have you? The only time I've seen cook-off was with multiple mag dumps or suppressed guns with a mag or two less on the same mag dump line. I was unaware I needed to suggest a different course of fire in this discussion...

Since you seem to be bent on it, I would base everything off of temperature in order to compress the timeline of 10k rounds. We know steel will wear faster than brass but we also know that the higher the temp the faster the wear. In order to get a solid basis for temperature guidelines I'd have someone measure the temps during an average carbine class. Get the readings from a few people for each drill, start temp and end temp, and try to keep things within those ranges during the 10k round test. I'd also choose a better gun to start with but also try and throw in a Noveske N4 and perhaps one of the S&W melonited barrels, if those are still produced.

That's not 20/20 though, I'd think that's common knowledge.

My guess would be that the steel case guns wouldn't see keyholing within 10k and the accuracy degradation wouldn't be nearly as bad. I'm basing this off of personal experience with my brass and steel case guns, and that of friends I shoot with who have greater steel case round counts than I do from a few guns. I do know that my steel case N4 barrel has been stellar with Wolf and Brown Bear only. It's been some time since I've A-B'd it with the brass case upper that closely matches.