Last weekend I was at a buddies house, and we were talking about stockpiling 223, 7.62x39, 308,,,,, various types of ammunition.
I told my buddy that I was stockpiling Monarch 223 and Monarch 7.62x39 from academy sports and outdoors. Its steel cased ammo, but it only cost $4.89 for a box of 20.
My buddy replied that he did not like to shoot steel case ammo through his rifle. So he was buying the little more expensive American Tactical brass ammo.
In fact, my buddy offered to give me a 30mm ammo can full of wolf to bring to the bug out location. I declined his offer, but I might take him up on it later on.
In my FN/FAL I only shoot remington core-lokt 150 grain - at this time. I am thinking of getting some American Tactical brass ammo or some American Eagle for target shooting.
The question is, what kind of ammo are you stockpiling? Are you buying the cheap steel case stuff, or are you paying a little more for brass casing?
I only buy brass. I had horrible luck with a box of steel case ammo and will never use it again. Plus I can reload brass or if it was SHTF I could possibly barter/trade with the empty casings.
Plus if you look around you can usually find the brass for just a couple bucks more than the steel case.
For example Cabellas right now has American Eagle 223 for 5.99 for 20. I bought a couple hundred rounds.
Most places too will give you a deal if you buy 500 or 1k rounds so if I know I need 9mm I will ask a couple buddies if they want to split 1k rounds.
If you're in the physical store, you can get the internet price of $5.49 for 20 on the American Eagle .223. Picked up 500 rounds this weekend. Would've been more if I'd had more cash.
I have some Brown Bear that I picked up cheap but if I can get good brass for under $6/box I'll do it.
I have a mix bag. My ar shoots wolf good but not that crap russian bear. But my ak shoots it all good. My sks and 92 shoots it all to. So i mix. My hp and hunting loads are brass my practuce ammo is steel case. Im getting ready to by some hornady steel case ammo and see how good it is.:thumb:
I have purchased some small quantities of ammo in steel (especially when there was a shortage), but primarily only buy brass... But, I have all the reloading equipment for the calibers I shoot, and reload on a regular basis...
If your weapon shoots steel with no problem and money is tight I'd go with the cheaper steel. This is not to say I woundn't pick up brass when it's on sell. I see it more like this: Yes I would prefer the best ammo out there. If I have a choice of 200 rds. of the best or 500rds of steel, I'd go with the steel. Once you have a good stockpile of ammo (for me thats at least 500rds) then I'd start adding the good stuff when on sell. IMHO for many of us it comes down to a little of the best or a lot of the adequate
I have a large stockpile of 7.62x39mm steel case. It is cached "for emergency use only." The ammo I use for plinking or home defense is Winchester brass loaded. I prefer brass for many reasons. TP
All of the gun ranges around me don't allow steel cased ammo, so I buy brass. If not I would buy all steel cased. I have a couple of boxes of steel cased just for stockpiling.
I bought a case of steel 9mm that I shot through a conversion barrel (no stock) and had nothing but on jam after another. It performed the same on different guns with different conversion barrels. Shot fine through stock barrels though. I don't really understand why. But I wont be trusting my life to something that I know might cause problems.
I started out buying just steel cased to get to the quantity I wanted to stock. As time went on I replaced the ammo that I shot during range time with good brass ammo. My thought process was along the lines of something could happen anytime and it's usually better to have too much than not enough.
The three reasons I went from steel to brass cased was :
1.) Rust destroys the steel cased ammo. Even when purchased new some of the casings were already starting to rust.
2.) I want to be able to reload my ammo. Even if you don't reload you can sell the cases an usually make up the difference in what you spent for the ammo.
3.) QUALITY.
This is like gambling with your life, would you rather try something thats had nothing but negative feedback since inception or go with the tried and true stuff? Steel case ammo will damage your breech for one thing, especially if the rim has even the slightest burr in it for one thing. Try to imagine removing a broken or non extracted empy steel casing from the chamber, it doesnt give like brass does, it will feel as if someone welded the casing to the chamber itself. The only positive thing about steel cased ammo is they are tactical in color, thats it.
I know of some yugo brass 7.62x39 ammo that works very good in my friends AK-47. It is slightly corrosive due to their primers but it only cost .22 dollars a round. You do have to spend 280 dollars for a case of 1260 rounds to get this deal. I fired 60 rounds through the AK-47 and never had a problem. It is berdan primed so I don't know if it is possible to reload.
None of my weapons have ever had a problem with steel..(pistols, long guns.......ar's ak's blah blah..got'm all, shoot'm all) ..or brass. I've never had any problems at all with it. I've never had a problem with cartridges rusting, or any of that either. Maybe i'm just living right, i dunno. All metals will get ganked up if you don't show some care in how you handle, store and/or transport them.
i've shot steel case stuff through my 9's, .45's, ar platforms, ak's, sks's, etc... all that and all of'm seem fine with it. I've used Wolf, and the bears. Same Results.
Don't get me wrong, i use a lotta brass too...i like being able to reload'm. And of course that's all i put through the hunting guns...but for the others, i'll shoot anythig they let me shoot. and i've never found anything they just don't like. Maybe it's prep, maybe it's the cleaning, maybe the taking them apart n smoothing things out when i get'm..., hell i dunno.
Anyways.........anyone that has a bunch that doesn't want it....i accept all donations..LOL
i use steel for all of my combloc calibers: 7.62x39, 5.45x39, 7.62x54r, 9mm mak, 7.62x25tok... i generally go with silver bear since it is zinc electroplated and provides great corrosion prevention and smooth extraction, but i have a decent amount of polymer wolf as well... have some steel cased 8mm mauser as well
i reload and hence use brass (or nickel) for all of my other NATO/american calibers: 5.56x45, 7.62x51, 7.63x63 (30-06), 9x19, .40, .45, among others
one of my buddies on a tight budget was actually using CCI's aluminum cased blaser stuff for his g35. he has never had a problem with it, goes bang every time. its not reloadable, so i am not really interested for my pistol calibers, but its an option... just gotta work within your budget.
What I have done is build up my stockpile in steel and rotate brass into it, works for me but do what your comfortable with..... if someone is offering you some free stuff, why not take it but I would prolly try to find something to give them in extange
I only switch to brass for reloading reasons, its pretty cost-effective to stock 1000+ rounds worth of reloading supplies if you shop around. But thats just what works for me.
i got a good deal on some steel case .223 and bought it. i have no plans on shooting it first. but if shtf after all my other ammo is gone, im not gonna care what 250 rounds of steel case ammo does to my rifle. after that ammo is gone i'm switching guns anyway. lol
I don't do any reloading yet, but it is on my list of things to learn soon. However even though I don't reload right now I save all of my brass because I see that as the next choke point from the government. Ammo, they have been after a plan to choke off ammo for a very long time because they know firearms without bullets are expensive paper weights.
I never use steel cased stuff, only brass and only good quality so I can get several reloads out of when I do start doing it.
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