#SteelCase

Palmetto State Armory sub-company AAC is officially a player in the steel-cased ammunition game. After some previous teases at the SHOT Show, their Soviet Arms steel case 7.62×39 ammo is finally shipping. Let’s see what it offers.

Magtech Ammunition is introducing new, lower-priced Steel Case 9mm pistol ammunition. Developed over a two-year period, this Magtech should be better than traditional steel case offerings as Magtech will handle production in-house using proprietary machinery and will incorporate the same Boxer primers and the same powder and projectiles used in Magtech’s standard brass case 9mm.

Wildfires have long been a feature of life in the western states. Unfortunately, target shooting starts some of those fires. The good news is that target shooting fires are preventable, so let’s discuss how we can keep them from happening. Public lands make for some of the best shooting spots, but they are at risk of closure every time a negligent shooter starts a wildfire.

There have been a lot of numbers thrown around with regards to the Russian ammo ban. Many of them are unsourced or unattributed, and as near as I can tell, wrong. So what are the actual numbers? What is the actual impact of this ban going to be?

Occasionally the guys over at Bear Creek Arsenal will come out with beautifully designed infographics that they will then post to their website. As they have done in the past, Bear Creek has graciously allowed us to share their infographics here at The Firearm Blog. This time the subject of focus is brass vs steel cased ammunition and the pros and cons of each when it comes to the AR-15 platform.

If you shoot suppressed, you like the quieter experience that a silencer provides. Hearing-safe shooting is the main benefit to a can, right? One issue that may arise is that most common ammo isn’t designed to perform at subsonic levels. This means that even though your suppressor will help in containing the rapidly expanding gases propelling your bullet – and thus the flash and sound this creates – if and when that projectile breaks the sound barrier in flight, it will make a popping noise that is actually a tiny sonic boom. The quietest suppressed shooting typically requires the use of subsonic ammo. 300 Blackout was designed primarily intending to do just this, although supersonic .300BLK options like Barnaul‘s 145-grain loads do exist.

Barnaul recently released a new, reasonably priced, steel-cased .30-06 Springfield load with a “mysterious” feature. It is probably already pretty obvious from the title image, but let’s first see what the company says about it.

Next up for  the Big Freakin’ Cartridge Test is Vympel’s budget 55gr FMJ load in .223 Remington, made in Amursk, Russia. This ammunition features a lacquered steel case, bimetal jacketed 55gr FMJ bullet and purple neck sealant. This is one of my favorite practice rounds due to its environmental toughness.  Continuing on from the last installment, we are now looking at the velocity test results for the 20″ barrel (more on the 16″ later). The test procedure was as follows:

Next up for  the Big Freakin’ Cartridge Test is Vympel’s budget 55gr FMJ load in .223 Remington, made in Amursk, Russia. This ammunition features a lacquered steel case, bimetal jacketed 55gr FMJ bullet and purple neck sealant. This is one of my favorite practice rounds due to its environmental toughness. The test procedure was as follows:

During the height of the Vietnam War, the famed US Lake City Army Ammunition Plant made steel-cased 5.56mm M193 ammunition for the US Army, as part of an effort to conserve valuable copper. This ammunition did not make it past the testing phase, as the project was abandoned in 1970, but it remains an interesting might-have-been today.

The AK has a problem as a defensive rifle. Rifle projectiles that do not yaw, fragment, or expand tend to produce wounds that are little more severe than those produced by pistol bullets. In 7.62x39mm, this problem is compounded by its relatively low velocity, when compared to 5.56mm, 5.45mm, or full power rifle cartridges like 7.62x51mm. Some 7.62x39mm FMJ does yaw reliably, but even the good stuff, like Yugoslavian M67 or Golden Tiger 124 gr FMJ, does not yaw until it has penetrated four inches or more. More common FMJ like Wolf, TulAmmo, or any of the differently colored Bears tend to yaw even later, if at all. There are a great number of “hollow point” loads available in 7.62x39mm from the various Russian brands but, with very few exceptions, these projectiles behave exactly like full metal jacket in tissue. There are a few American loads that have excellent terminal performance, but these are far more expensive.There are Russian 124 gr and 154 gr soft points available, and these do generally tend to expand well, but they are not reliable and some users have reported feeding problems with soft points. What’s worse, Russian ammo makers seem to change components more often than Bruce Jenner changes his mind. You never really know what projectile will be loaded in the ammunition you buy, unless it is actually labeled with the specific projectile design, like Western ammo.

Freedom Munitions, known for their affordable direct-to-consumer reloaded and new ammunition has released their new steel cased American Steel line of ammunition. Looks are a bit deceiving, as the case does look to be brass but it is only brass-plated.

I heard on the grapevine that Hornady’s steel cased V-Max 5.45×39 and 7.62×39 ammunition has since the beginning of this year been loaded in lacquered steel cases, versus the polymer-coated steel cases that had been the basis for Hornady’s ammunition in those two Russian calibers previously. Sam of SG Ammo confirmed this rumor, and I promptly put in an order for some 5.45×39 V-Maxes.