Shooting cheap steel ammo question.

Dave in mn

New member
Does shooting the cheaper steel rounds affect the accuracy of a rifle? I'm looking at a Windham Vex with 20" barrel that has about 100 rounds of that stuff thru it. Also is this a good choice for coyote hunting? or should I keep looking? This would be my first AR!

Dave in Mn
 
Give that upper a thorough cleaning, and go buy some 50gr vmax fiocchi rounds. They are cheap, accurate, and brass cased.
Where abouts in central mn?
 
No on the steel case my RRA 16” carbine has shot the crap out of steel case. It still shoots brass case ammo just as good as new when needed. It has has a couple stuck cases with a certain brand of steel case. Not wolf or Tula. But that is caused from my research of the gun unlocking early and the steel case not shrinking back down in the Chamber fast enough. A poke with a cleaning rod has cleared it
 
Steel cases are not recommended in the AR platforms. Yes, some chambers are loose enough that they will work. But most are too tight and you get broken/separated cases or cycling issues like Steve said.

It really has more to do with the bullet/powder combination than it does with the case as far as hunting coyotes is concerned. As far as the rifle for coyotes, yep, just about any length .223 AR will get the job done.
 
steel case is for rock and blasting ammo. herters was the stuff I had issues with. in any event take a cleaning rod with you. I carrying one anyway in the back under the seat of my truck. its a good practice to carry one with any of your AR shooting, regardless of the ammo. I don't think it hurts the gun one bit, I shoot steel case and will continue to do so. Its not ammo I would shoot at coyotes or anything like that, just desert blasting.
 
Originally Posted By: steve garrettsteel case is for rock and blasting ammo.

I picked up some Tula last week for blasting rocks. It was cheap and I don't have to look for the brass.

We wanted to check our zero before attacking the rocks. The Tula grouped about 6 inches at 100 yards. I shoot Tula a lot and it usually groups about 2 inches give or take. I have never had any that shot that bad.
 
Originally Posted By: steve garrettsteel case is for rock and blasting ammo. herters was the stuff I had issues with. in any event take a cleaning rod with you. I carrying one anyway in the back under the seat of my truck. its a good practice to carry one with any of your AR shooting, regardless of the ammo. I don't think it hurts the gun one bit, I shoot steel case and will continue to do so. Its not ammo I would shoot at coyotes or anything like that, just desert blasting.

We had some limited success with Hornady steel match. We could get one or two off just fine, but the third one would stick, or we would have cycling issue. Let the chamber cool off and we could get one or two again. The lacquer seemed to get sticky when it got hot. Definitely not something that I would rely on or use for hunting. But we had to try to know.
 
Gey Guys,

I think I took you guys down the wrong path.

I don't plan on shooting cheap ammo I'll be lucky if I shoot 100 round a year. What I will use is something fur friendly and most likely will be reloaded.

What do you guys think off the Windham Vex? The Vex I'm looking at has had about 100 rounds down the tube and all of it was cheap stuff. Does the cheap ammo cause a barrel to go south sooner that a barrel that was properly broke in?

My apology here for my fist post in this thread.
Dave In MN
 
Dave,
Howdy from Litchfield! As was stated earlier, give it a good cleaning and rock n roll. I have shot some steel through mine and mainly keep the remaining around in case shtf. 100 rounds isn't gonna kill it.
 
If you didn't know it'd been shot with it you would never know it. I'm not up to speed on the idiosyncrasies of that model but if it feels good in your hands I'd go for it. Feed it some good quality varmint ammo and get to killin'

Greg
 
Looks like a good ole' fashion Minnesotan gathering here, how's the weather been?
lol.gif


I have read some articles about steel case ammo wearing out the throat of a barrel quicker.

I did a quick google search on steel cases on barrel throats and this article/in depth scientific study was the first that popped up. https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/brass-vs-steel-cased-ammo/

I will need to take a day off to read through all of it but they sure seemed to have done their homework from the skim through I did. Almost half way through the article they talk about accuracy and the steel cases seemed to do more damage than I would have guessed.
 
I did a lot of researching also when I got into AR's and the military did a lot of testing on different bullets, steel core vs copper jacket and found that the burning powder is what eats up the throat and not the kind of bullet. Keep looking, you will find it.
Tarey
 
You are right on the throat stuff. Further down the tube the steel CORE is far different than steel jacketed bullets like we see in the 7.62X39. The big thing to me is that most of the cheap stuff with the coatings jam things up and the lack of case retraction post firing is hard on the extractors. Plus since I reload the idea of not getting to reload it just makes me cringe..LOL

Interestingly though in the steel venue I do have some cutting edge bi-metal cased reloadable ammunition headed my way as a Beta tester for the company. I see some potential in the idea for widlcatters but will first shoot some of the loaded stuff the send me. They will also be sending me the special dies later to evaluate also.

Greg
 
Originally Posted By: Dave in mnGey Guys,

I think I took you guys down the wrong path.

I don't plan on shooting cheap ammo I'll be lucky if I shoot 100 round a year. What I will use is something fur friendly and most likely will be reloaded.

What do you guys think off the Windham Vex? The Vex I'm looking at has had about 100 rounds down the tube and all of it was cheap stuff. Does the cheap ammo cause a barrel to go south sooner that a barrel that was properly broke in?

My apology here for my fist post in this thread.
Dave In MN

Dave,

I agree with Greg. If it's only seen limited use with the steel case stuff, then it probably won't show excessive wear and will probably be within minute of coyote. You don't exactly need a tack driver to drop coyotes. There is a flood of guys that have bought "off the shelf" mass produced rifles that had certain expectations and when those didn't pan out they try to off the rifles on the used market. I see guys that get frustrated about the steel case stuff having issues in the AR platform and they want to sell off the rifles. That is great for a savvy predator hunter who can snatch it up at a good price. I giggle when I hear guys talking at Cabela's about needing a 300-500 yard gun to kill coyotes. It takes every bit of self control I have to just walk away and not show them the coyotes I kill inside of 25 yards.

As far as "fur friendly" that is entirely dependent on caliber and bullet selection. We all hunt coyotes for different reasons. Me, I am a population control guy. I want them down and down hard, no concerns about fur friendly here. But if you are interested in keeping it, that can be challenging, fun and frustrating to find the right combination. Personally, we have found that the 45gr SP's in the 204 are fur friendly and very effective at dropping them. That being said, maybe something in the 55-60gr SP family with similar velocity and energy to the 45 SP in 204 might work for what you want. I would stay away from poly tipped as they tend to expand too fast and may cause damage going in. I would look at SP's or even hollow points to get the bullet in deeper before expansion, but that expands VERY quickly once it's at depth.
 
I'll reply on the VEX, I have one, accurate without a doubt. But to be honest I don't use it much. Around here a 20" is just more than I want to sling around. If we had pdogs or a few more woodchucks I would take it out more.
It is a blast banging steel at 400y with..
 
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