So I was at a carbine shoot this weekend. First one I ever did, and what a blast. I'm the noob, so I pay attention to what the guys who obviously are serious about this are doing. I shoot a LOT in general and in High Power, but this is a new game - I've never done run and gun carbine short range shooting like this, and never formally in competition. All rifles are AR based. Most of the serious guys are shooting steel cased ammo. Hornady, Wolf, Tula, etc. I was surprised they were all shooting steel, I thought that stuff would jam. Accuracy is crap too, but it's all like 10 yards anyway. I set up a camera to video some of the obviously better guys, so I can compare how they do it - so I can learn. First guy starts, bam bam JAM! Well... that guy just jammed on the steel (badass looking rifle too). After clearing it. fire fire JAM! Jammed again. Ok.... I'm the new guy in this game, so maybe I don't know what I'm doing and there's just something amiss with his gun?
Next guy shoots, all is well. Ok, there we go.
Next guy goes up - again, this guy look really good, obviously someone to watch and learn from. Bam bam - look at that steel fly. JAM!
Same standard steel jam every time - failure to extract because the cases stuck in the chamber. You know what, that's all the confirmation I needed. I was already plenty sure that steel is less reliable than brass (yes, I'm sure someone will immediately post that they never jam), and every single malfunction that day with .223 was with steel.
None of the guys shooting brass jammed. I came home with a huge sack of brass after the match (I left the steel). There was a lot of ammo fired that day - none of the brass jammed.
As to price, You know, I'll shoot steel, when it's back down to ~15 cents a round and brass is stuck closer to 30 cents. But for the marginal savings for steel, no way in Hell would I recommend that over 30 cent Wolf Gold. Unless folks really shop and buy in bulk, you'll be paying close to that for retail steel! I suspect the bottom is going to fall out of the market for steel in a couple months (<$200/k), and then maybe I'll pick up a couple practice cases, But even then, guns that shoot steel, often jam on brass shortly after. In theory, because it's not melting lacquer at all, but the poor seal causing carbon build up, gumming up the chamber.
It's really got to be cheap AND brass has got to be expensive, for me to ever recommend steel for anything, and never for anything that matters. That time is not now.