Brown Bear 115gr Bimetal FMJ Lacquered Case

[Hot Sauce]

Consider whether you get longer barrel life and longer accuracy with gilding metal (copper, zinc and nickel) rubbing and blasting past your steel rifling or if you think steel doing the same down your barrel is better. It's a fairly easy choice. You can buy cheap or you can buy good. My experience with Russian ammo is to use it in Russian guns (which aren't very refined or accurate).

I understand what you're saying, I just hadn't heard/observed that so few rounds of having a serious impact. The again, I'm not good enough yet to squeeze ultimate accuracy out of my guns yet. For what it's worth I don't go out of my way seeking Russian ammo either, but have used it in a pinch when ammo supplies were a problem during a previous election.

[TiroFijo]

Not correct. Bimetal projectiles wear throats and rifling much faster than standard gilding metal and the lacquer on those cases can and does build up in chambers.

Just check the barrel more often, and run a bore snake a couple times every 100 rounds or so.

500 bimetal bullets in 9x19 are not goind to do any harm to the barrel. The glock barrel is CHF and the rifling quite strong.

This is not premium ammo to be sure, but dumping it because "I wouldn't drink their water" is

[Jeep]

I found Brown Bear to be mediocre but basically acceptable ammo. As for wearing down barrels, perhaps, (I don't know of any studies) but my view of the math is this. If you shoot nothing but Brown Bear for 50,000 rounds, and if the barrel is worn out at that point, you will probably have saved something like $20 per thousand at today's prices, which will come to $1,000. With that, you can buy not only a new barrel, but you can get a new Gen 5 Glock plus three more cases of ammo and have some cash left over.

Now, would I run much Brown Bear in an expensive pistol like a Brig Tac? No. And I also thoroughly clean barrels and chambers after shooting Russian stuff. But my experience is that most Russian 9mm works ok and is fine Glock fodder.

Finally, for those who obviously don't know, the last hard Ranger School classes were in the 70's, when the instructors were all mean ex-SOG types who were being hidden from the Army bureaucracy, which thought that all such Neanderthals should be forced out of the Army. Everything after that was pure cake.

[holmes168]

I found Brown Bear to be mediocre but basically acceptable ammo. As for wearing down barrels, perhaps, (I don't know of any studies) but my view of the math is this. If you shoot nothing but Brown Bear for 50,000 rounds, and if the barrel is worn out at that point, you will probably have saved something like $20 per thousand at today's prices, which will come to $1,000. With that, you can buy not only a new barrel, but you can get a new Gen 5 Glock plus three more cases of ammo and have some cash left over.

Now, would I run much Brown Bear in an expensive pistol like a Brig Tac? No. And I also thoroughly clean barrels and chambers after shooting Russian stuff. But my experience is that most Russian 9mm works ok and is fine Glock fodder.

Finally, for those who obviously don't know, the last hard Ranger School classes were in the 70's, when the instructors were all mean ex-SOG types who were being hidden from the Army bureaucracy, which thought that all such Neanderthals should be forced out of the Army. Everything after that was pure cake.

Never thought I'd get three pages on a Brown Bear thread- I've still got it sitting. May shoot some of it as the last part of the G-19.5 2k testing.

I wondered when I'd get a couple comments on my last hard class byline.

[Jeep]

Never thought I'd get three pages on a Brown Bear thread- I've still got it sitting. May shoot some of it as the last part of the G-19.5 2k testing.

I wondered when I'd get a couple comments on my last hard class byline.

The class before mine, which was in Florida when the panhandle was hit by a Cat. 1 hurricane, insisted that they were in the last hard class, but since the storm went north after that and caused it to rain buckets every day we were in the mountains, and we then went to Florida to find the Yellow River far over its banks, we insisted they had it easy. My view is that every class that went through SERE training with all the "enhanced interrogation techniques" (that we may not use on terrorists) was a pretty hard class.

By the way, too bad about that Enemy Marksmanship Badge. I knew a lot of guys who had those and they were pretty much unanimous that they would have been just as happy not earning it. That's one of the problems with pop-up, shoot-back targets.

[pangloss]

May shoot some of it as the last part of the G-19.5 2k testing.

Don't do it! Please, don't do it. I'm a happy Brown Bear shooter, but I regret using it during the 2K round challenge on one of my G19's.

Yes, steel jackets will theoretically cause barrel wear faster than copper. I'm not convinced that the difference between the two projectiles has any meaningful difference on Glock pistol barrel life, but if it does, you can buy a G19 factory barrel from Brownell's tonight for $116.99 (free shipping!). They are on sale right now.

[LittleLebowski]

It’s fine ammo.

[Hot Sauce]

Yes, steel jackets will theoretically cause barrel wear faster than copper. I'm not convinced that the difference between the two projectiles has any meaningful difference on Glock pistol barrel life, but if it does, you can buy a G19 factory barrel from Brownell's tonight for $116.99 (free shipping!). They are on sale right now.

Brownells needs to hire you as a sales rep.

[Nephrology]

I've shot tons and tons and tons of Wolf/Brown Bear/Silver Bear through my Glocks. Many tens of thousands of rounds. Zero issues with function aside from hard primers, and zero issues with barrel accuracy that I can appreciate.

[Nephrology]

The only issue I have had with Brown Bear, or other cheap Russian ammo, is the occasional hard primer. Usually fires on the second strike. Maybe that could be good tap, rack, & fire training for you? It should not be bad enough to throw off your training.

As far as increased wear, the bimetal bullets will cause more wear.But not enough to cause concern particularly with free ammo. Even if you were paying for it, the normal discounted purchase price would more than make up for buying a new barrel. This is true even with the accelerated wear of a 5.56/.223 barrel, let alone a 9mm.

Lucky Gunner even did a test quantifying the difference in wear and came to exactly this conclusion. In my totally amateur opinion, the minimal wear shown by the test using a 5.56 carbine is probably substantially more than anything you would see in a handgun, where the projectile is going far slower. If I do manage to wear out my Glock barrels shooting wolf, I will definitely have saved many times over the cost of a replacement barrel by the time I need to buy one.

As an aside, the LG test is easily one of the most thorough and scientifically done "torture tests" of a firearm I've ever seen. Hats off to them.