Steel Cased Ammo for AR

[erwos]

Well lets see, you are using a flawed comparison. First the numbers are artificially inflated by the recent M855 panic.

Steel cased ammo was also inflated by the panic. A spread of 8-10c is pretty normal.

Second Geco ammunition is much closer to match ammunition (even among their non match lines) so that introduces another flaw into your comparison.

Can you find cheaper? It's irrelevant what the brand is. I chose the cheapest brass and steel-cased ammo I could find on gun-deals' ammo tracker for the comparison. If Geco is good stuff, well, that's great, but again, doesn't really matter for this comparison.

You can try and protest by using current inflated prices, but that isn't an honest comparison.

This is an extremely honest comparison. You just don't like the results. Calling me dishonest because my real numbers don't line up with your imaginary numbers is ludicrous.

 

[IMBLITZVT]

Are you really telling me that the price ~1 month ago is inconsequential? Which is likely the price the ammo will go back down to until the 2016 elections draw closer/or barring another political scare like what the BATFE just attempted.

If you are shooting high volumes of ammo, then there really isn't any reason not to load your own ammunition.

Yes its meanless because we can't compare them. I remember the Brass being a lot more back then too. I don't know where you are getting numbers putting them anywhere near equal. Steel case is always 10-25% cheaper for shooter grade.

Yes there is. Time, Squibs... effort for little price savings. If you are shooting MGs, a mistake in reloading can blow a very expensive gun up quickly! More MGs are damaged by reloads than about anything else.

The one thing you aren't getting from your economy steel case ammunition is accuracy. And that is all that matters. With wolf and other economy steel case ammunition, you are unlikely to see anything better than ~3.5 inch ten shot groups at 100 yards. Even with certain kinds economy brass case ammo you could see groups in the 2.xx inch range and as low as ~2.5 inches. Now granted that isn't so great either, but it is much better than what can be achieved with economy steel case ammunition.

I am not a target shooter. An extra inch at 100 yards means little to me. At 900rpm, I am not good enough to keep 2.5" groups anyway. Not everyone is a target shooter.

Well lets see, you are using a flawed comparison. First the numbers are artificially inflated by the recent M855 panic.

Is there no brass 55 grain? Why all brass inflated and no steel is?

I ran the numbers using luckygunners assumptions with the pricing for steel/brass case ammo before the M855 panic and the numbers didn't add up for steel case ammunition.

How do they not add up. Its cheaper. Its always cheap. Its always been cheaper. The little extra wear is not an issue here if even real.

You can try and protest by using current inflated prices, but that isn't an honest comparison

I have been watching every penny when buying bulk ammo for years. I paid the extra for brass before I questioned any of these internet rumors. I knew I was paying more than too. Its just more expensive to shoot brass or we would all be shooting brass over steel. If you are fine with paying more, its fine with me. However there does not need to be something wrong with brass case to justify it to yourself.

 

[engineerbrian]

Just to settle this, I checked the prices just now:
Cheapest steel-cased shipped: 25.3c/r (Wolf)
Cheapest brass-cased shipped: 35.6c/r (Geco)

That's $412 bucks of savings over 4000 rounds, which is roughly the worst case scenario in terms of barrel life. In reality, you will not be doing continuous mag dumps out of a white hot barrel in horrible weather, so you are going to have even more barrel life than that. Assuming you could eke out another 50% of barrel life (6000 rounds), that would be $618 of savings for 6000 rounds.

Cost of a White Oak / Shilen match barrel is $275-$310. An entirely new PSA upper w/ CHF chrome-lined barrel and no BCG/CH is only about $330.

The raw economics here are completely against using brass. The math does not lie. You will still save substantial amounts of money by shooting steel-cased ammo.

Great comparison, thanks

I found brass at .32c/r, but that's still to much compared to the .25c/r for steel all day long.

 

[erwos]

Great comparison, thanks

I found brass at .32c/r, but that's still to much compared to the .25c/r for steel all day long.

You found brass at .32c/r shipped? Where?

 

[ericoak]

Steel cased ammo was also inflated by the panic. A spread of 8-10c is pretty normal.


Can you find cheaper? It's irrelevant what the brand is. I chose the cheapest brass and steel-cased ammo I could find on gun-deals' ammo tracker for the comparison. If Geco is good stuff, well, that's great, but again, doesn't really matter for this comparison.


This is an extremely honest comparison. You just don't like the results. Calling me dishonest because my real numbers don't line up with your imaginary numbers is ludicrous.

+1

Brass is always more expensive.

 

[erwos]

And, let me note that there are times when buying brass is called for. On a gun that has an irreplaceable barrel, you don't want to be dumping steel down it by the case load. If you really care about accuracy, most steel-cased rounds aren't going to be what you want. But as a plinking round on your average AR-15, steel is the way to go.

 

[engineerbrian]

You found brass at .32c/r shipped? Where?

Not sure about shipping, but I used my Wiki Arms app and found it at ammo fast.

http://www.ammofast.com/collections...-precision-223-rem-55-grain-fmj-1000-rnd-case

 

[erwos]

My point is, that's not shipped. My comparison uses shipped costs because those are the most "real".

 

[bkuether]

Today, at AGC I shot a bunch of steel, both Tula and some Wolf.

Both of my ARs ate it up, no issues, no bumps, no jams. Accuracy wasn't bad either.

ON the price side, I get my Tula at Walmart for 5.47 a box or something close to that. At one point I found bulk tin Tula there for .235 a round. I bought one, wish I had bought more. Cheapest steel I could find today was, .25 a round, even in bulk. It should be cheaper, but it ain't. Brass is out of control. I also found a LOT of OOS on Gunbot, thinking that tool doesn't worka so good no mo.