Long Term Effects of Shooting Inexpensive, Steel-cased .223 Ammo

[dk.easterly]

You know there are lots of other steel cased ammo besides tulammo?

Tulammo has QC issues. Some batches are great while others can be not so great.

 

[twentythree]

The only issue i have had with Tula is that its severely under powered. Good for plinking and all but dirty as hell . Shot it out my tavor and watched the sparks fly with it. Some other rifles it wouldnt even cycle enough to get the bolt to hold open on . I dont see how anyone got around 1 moa on that with the inconsistencies ive had with them. But like with anything results may vary from person to person . Only long term effect for me and any steel is the amount of cleaning. Ive always heard stories on how they r harder on extractors and all, but have yet to have one give me issues.

I think the bottom line here as noted above is that individual results may and actually do vary. It has a lot to do with what rifle / barrel you are trying to run which ammo in. I had a Sig AR that absolutely hated the stuff, cycling issues, the ones that worked produced the types of groups you guys have experienced. I believe the Sig is a good rifle probably manufactured to tighter tolerances than most of my other guns which I believe contributed to the malfunction of the steel cased ammo. A few years back I bought a case of first run Federal rounds that would not stay on an 8-1/2X11 target at 50 yards, so bad I thought there was a major malfunction of the weapon. Just a bad lot of ammo my dealer traded it out for another brand that shot fine. When you get into reloading for accuracy you learn there are tons of ways to make a bullet go sideways, it's all trial and error to find out what the perfect load is for your particular weapon.

 

[noob]

No way. TulAmmo steel cased is not capable of consistently shooting MOA groups, much less sub MOA.

I'm going to have to agree.... The ammo itself is not capable of CONSISTENT MOA groups, so saying someone shoots sub-moa with that ammo is kinda far fetched. But I would love to see it happen. I shoot steel through my cheaper rifles, and can get decent groups, but not sub MOA. My nicer rifles only see brass. Kinda like putting premium in a truck or 89 octane in a premium car, they may be able to tolerate it, but it isn't optimized for it.

 

[machinedrummer]

When I shoot steel it's not for "groupings" it's for volume down range. Last class I went to it seemed the whole place was covered with steel cases. Obviously it's being used frequently. I will be using tulammo 9mm this weekend. It's always gone bang.

 

[twentythree]

I'm going to have to agree.... The ammo itself is not capable of CONSISTENT MOA groups, so saying someone shoots sub-moa with that ammo is kinda far fetched. But I would love to see it happen. I shoot steel through my cheaper rifles, and can get decent groups, but not sub MOA. My nicer rifles only see brass. Kinda like putting premium in a truck or 89 octane in a premium car, they may be able to tolerate it, but it isn't optimized for it.

Man, you guys are like a dog with a bone about this. No one said that you were gonna sit down at the bench and fire a five gallon bucket of the stuff through the same hole at 100 yards. My point was that in my experience I have shot several cases of it through my weapons with no negative effect on the receivers or barrels. While at the same time yielding some impressive (IMO) groups. Are they all perfect? No. But I have shot dime size groups with two or three of five touching and through the same hole. To say that it just can't happen is just crazy... ever heard of Jerry Miculek?

 

[Jasarii]

When I shoot steel it's not for "groupings" it's for volume down range. Last class I went to it seemed the whole place was covered with steel cases. Obviously it's being used frequently. I will be using tulammo 9mm this weekend. It's always gone bang.

Same here. I don't shoot high volume of steel case, but when I do run it in my AR's, it has run 100% and hits 8" steel plates @ 100yds with a red dot sight....Plinking ammo.
Maybe I'll put it on the chronograph one day to see how consistent a batch is.

 

[dk.easterly]

Use a scale to weigh each round. There was a guy on another forum who did this with all types of ammo amd had very good results.

 

[Sulzer]

Man, you guys are like a dog with a bone about this. No one said that you were gonna sit down at the bench and fire a five gallon bucket of the stuff through the same hole at 100 yards. My point was that in my experience I have shot several cases of it through my weapons with no negative effect on the receivers or barrels. While at the same time yielding some impressive (IMO) groups. Are they all perfect? No. But I have shot dime size groups with two or three of five touching and through the same hole. To say that it just can't happen is just crazy... ever heard of Jerry Miculek?

You said in the second post you get sub-MOA groups with TulAmmo. Stating this in your recommendation for it is insinuating the OP can expect these results. No one is arguing that given enough rounds of TulaAmmo, eventually you may come across 5 in a row that were loaded consistently enough to produce a sub-MOA group. No one is saying that it is not accurate enough to ring 10" steel plates at the range consistently. What we are saying is that TulAmmo steel cased is not loaded consistently enough to produce CONSISTENT sub-MOA groups. A great shooter, barrel or rifle can produce excellent results. But if the ammo is inconsistently loaded there is no shooter, rifle, barrel, trigger, etc. that can make the ammo perform consistently. Like i said before, Tulammo steel case is probably a 2 MOA round at best. Is that result fine for plinking at the range? yes. Will it shoot consistent sub-MOA groups? No.

 

[twentythree]

Right.


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[Brawny]

As far as steel 9mm Walmart has 150 rd boxes for under $30. I still opted to get some perfecta that they must have just gotten in recently.

 

[buttanic]

I just bought some Tula steel 55 gr. and when I opened the box the bullet was silver not copper. I sectioned one and the base is lead with a jacket made of something other than cooper, the nose has a tiny steel rod in it and is magnetic. No description on the box other the 223 55 gr. Has anyone seen this ammo. I have shot a ton of Tula steel and brass and the bullets were always copper jacket.

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[dk.easterly]

Zinc coating ^

 

[geoney]

No long term affects as long as you clean your gear appropriately in my experience

 

[buttanic]

I have been told that the Tula steel case bullet has a copper or zinc (silver appearance) plated mild steel jacket. That would lead me to believe it it harder on barrels then a pure copper jacket.