I'm looking for the best deal I can find on steel-cased 55 grain .223. I just started looking, but I have seen is $204/1,000 + shipping.

Are the bi-metal bullets actually harder on a barrel that copper jacketed bullets?

Are all of these loads hot enough to cycle the action with a standard weight buffer?

The rifle I'm planning to use is a KAC SR-15, it was hit and miss with Wolf polymer steel cases years ago.

Thanks, Andy

Wolf poly coated (either the WPA or the Military Classic) will probably be your cheapest 55grain bet right now.  I shoot a lot of laquer coated Brown BEar in both 62 and 55 grain varieties and it cycles fine in all of the ARs in the safe.  The pistol I built recently has only been fed a diet or steel cased and no issues.  

If you think your rifle may not function properly on it buy a 240 round partial case as a test and if everthing works fine buy  more from there.  

If you're a Sportsman's Guide club member they are doing free shipping for any orders over 75 dollars right now till July 15th I believe which may make their price a little more competitive if you have to pay shipping though your usual online source.

On the barrel wear issue, Lucky Gunner did a test and found that it does infact produce increased wear on the barrels, but with the savings compared to brass cased ammo you could replace your barrel twice in 10,000 rounds and still be hundreds of dollars ahead on money.  They also stated in their article that the way they shot the rifles is not typical of what most people are going to be doing.  They maintained a sustained rate of fire so were shooting the rifles with very hot barrels which will increase wear as well.  

To me it's worth the money savings since swapping out an AR barrel takes 15 mins worth of work.  The vast majority of my ammo pile is steel cased with very little brass thrown in.  The lower cost of steel vs brass has allowed me to shoot and do drills far more than if I was spending 300+ dollars per thousands rounds of ammo.  But YMMV.

Lucky Gunner Steel vs Brass ammo test

If I were going with the cheap steel ammo (and I have a few cases stashed) As mentioned Wolf WPA Military Classic is probably the best. I also have a bit of Silver Bear.
Brown Bear smells like cat piss and had a friend who said he had green stuff growing after not cleaning his weapon for a while.

Yes it is harder on the barrel. No, you may not ever shoot enough of it to realize a loss of barrel. You'll save way more than the price of a replacement. Probably in your first 1000 round purchase or two, unless you use very high dollar barrels.
The only thing is steel casings don't expand like brass, so it can make the gun more dirty, but that is rarely a problem either. Clean the thing after a range day.
If your barrel likes it, go for it. I have one that is good with it, but the other groups like a shotgun. Go figure.

It's funny how things go full circle. I used to order Wolf from SG about 10 years ago for $99.86/1,000, delivered. It was too weak to operate some of my ARs, so I stopped buying it. Then SG changed hands and their service and prices went into the toilet. I know Wolf did step up the velocity a few years back. Hopefully it will cycle the SR-15, I ordered 500 rounds of the Wolf, if the SR-15 doesn't run with it, I have other ARs that will.

Right now, I am running a 5.45 x 39 AR using 7N6 that I bought years ago from R-Guns at 10 cents a round, but now that I have quit my part-time job I am shooting a lot more and the pile of 7N6 is going down pretty quick, I want to plan ahead.

I will say the brown bear ammo is hot.  Like 1300-1400 FPS out of a GLOCK 17 hot.  Their rifle ammo seems like it has more oomph than the WOLF as well but I haven't chornoed those back to back.

Bi-metal bullets should cause more wear. How much more - depends on barrel. I have seen (at SG Ammo I believe) a copper coated bullet in a steel case from Wolf. I think it was $10 more for 500 or 1000.

Great read

Had a similar question about being dirty etc and came across this article. I have shot a couple K of Silver Bear but always shot regular m193 at same time in different mags. The article basically says mix a couple brass cased rounds in with a mag full of steelies to keep chamber "clean".

Here ya go...

Wolf copper jacket

I got a few K of the Barnaul mil-spec for deep storage. Supposedly the polymer coating can scratch and cause cases to rust esp in humid areas.


Barnaul mil-spek @ SG Ammo


I have found the Tula to be the cheapest (a couple weeks ago anyways) but A LOT of people say it's no bueno... primarily under powered

Thanks for the replies. Like I said, I have 500 Wolf (bi-metal) on the way. I should get it in time to try it out this weekend. I have the parts sitting around, so I may throw a Vltor A7 receiver extension on the SR-15 before I go. That will be interesting, I love Golden Tiger 7.62, it is unbelieveably accurate of of an abortion ban-era Arsenal AK that I bought from a guy moving to Cali. Literally, if I told you how well I shoot that thing with Golden Tiger and iron sights, you would raise the flag on me.

That copper Wolf looks very interesting, if Wolf polymer/bi-metal will cycle in the SR-15, that's what I'll try next. Thanks!

I shoot large quantities of Wolf poly coated steel 55gr.  This year probably fired 3-4000 so far.

I've been using it since it hit our shores.

I've never had a single problem...even when using it in classes.

Well I made it to the rain yesterday, but unfortunately it was family fun day. So there were a bunch of non-Shooters and kids running around so I could only bust a few caps. I went through 120 rounds and I just had one failure to feed, it got hung up on the feed ramp. Other than that it ran perfectly. I installed the vltor A5 receiver extension in with the lightest, 5.4 ounce buffer it ran like a sewing machine in the SR-15.

If I get the shed that I'm building complete, or if the weather goes south on me I'll head up to the range again on Tuesday.

ETA: zeroed at 50, because that's what I've been shooting clay pigeons at lately. With my Aimpoint T1, which gives me the horizontal Figure 8 dot, because of my old eyes, I got an awesome group I was amazed how accurate this stuff was.

I just wanted to add a couple of pictures. One is 30 rounds at 50 yards at a fast rate of fire. I know it's not 1 MOA or anything, but considering that the 4  MOA dot on my old Aim point T1 is a horizontal figure 8 blob, I'm pretty happy.

The second pic is a round from the batch I shot. I don't think a cracked neck is a big deal.

Attached File


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Have you considered Wolf Gold with a cost of around .28/round instead?

No, not really, paying more per round doesn't make me a better shot. More, good practice with ammo that is accurate enough for me will make me better. Right now, what I am doing is setting up 15 clay pigeons up on a 50' wide berm at the range and seeing how fast I can break all of them. I start with a mag with 10-12 rounds in it so I need to incorporate a reload and movement. It's a ton of fun and it forces me to focus on the fundamentals to keep my times improving. So, if I shoot 270 rounds each time the difference between brass and steel is $21, so that adds up if I go twice a month.

My Daniel defense mk18 upperloves the stuff no issues

5000+ rounds of nothing but steel case in my AR never any issues except a few hard primers from Golden Tiger (most current lot so there are still issues). Mostly Brown Bear, Silver Bear and Tula. I prefer Silver Bear as my go to for every day shooting. I have yet to notice any decrease in accuracy from my Nitride barrel. When I do need a barrel down the line the savings on the ammo will easily make up for it.

I much prefer the brown bear lacquered to polycase... better protection from rust, looks meaner and loaded hotter than others

Keeping in mind that Wolf is an importer, NOT a manufacturer, it shouldn't be too startling to know that the "bad old" Wolf was manufactured by Tula.  Of all the Russian-made ammunition out there, Tula has the worst rep, and apparently for excellent reasons.

Current Wolf WPA is NOT made by Tula, so it would be much better than what most people think of as "bad old" Wolf.  

Wolf Gold is made by the Taiwanese state ammunition factory, and while it's a few pennies more expensive than the steel stuff, it is Boxer primed, which is a plus.  It also has traditional jacketed bullets, another plus.

Bimetal bullets MAY be harsher on barrels, but Lucky Gunner's tests in no way isolated the bullets from the effects of the nasty (and often smelly) Russian powder used.  To me, if the wear in their tests was really due to the bullets' structure, all of the steel-case barrels should have worn out similarly.  They did not; the Tula barrel died a quick death.  And Tula uses the smelliest, and apparently hottest burning powder of the bunch.  Research done by US military ammunition plants indicates that flame temperature is the most significant factor in barrel wear, so this is a subject that "needs" further investigation.

If I had nothing else to do and about $15,000.00, I would do a comparison test with a sort of "Mexican Match" technique: break down a metric butt-load of Tula, Wolf, Barnaul, etc., then reload it with US, canister grade powders.  Then I'd see how many rounds it took to cook a barrel (with a far less insane firing schedule than Lucky Gunner used).

With all that said, I really like Barnaul's products.  They make the "Monarch Steel" line of ammunition sold by Academy Sports, and I've run a bunch of that through my ARs (and a bunch of their pistol ammo through various other guns as well).  It's been consistent, reliable and "training rounds" accurate for me.  If I'm correct in thinking that some current Wolf is made by Barnaul, then that stuff should be good as well.

I bought some Federal AE for about $280/1,000 from SGAmmo, before Federal's $50/case rebate.  I'm rethinking the advantage of Russian ammo.

If you used a slower firing rate, you might be at it for ages . . .

The Army tests fired 500 rounds in 4 minutes then cool to ambient, then repeat until 5000 rounds were fired, clean, lube and inspect, and start all over again.  That's pretty aggressive.

The barrels still lasted between 12,000 to 18,000 rounds . . .

Thanks for typing that out GH. The 55 grain Wolf Military Classic that I am buying is made by Barnaul. It seems to have good velocity, going by feel, I would say that it is equal to some old IMI WWB that I have, but not quite M193 hot. I went shooting yesterday and I am again, VERY impressed with it's accuracy. I was shooting clay pidgeons at 30 yards on the shot timer and if I missed it was because I was rushing the shots.

Now that I have my old KAC SR-15 dialed in I am going back to my 5.45 rifle using 7N6. Once that is gone I'll switch to the SR-15 with Wolf, which is set up with the standard 16" mid-length barrel, an early  Battle-Comp FH and the Vltor A5 receiver extension/buffer system. It is such a smooth shooter. I will also take the Aimpoint T-2 off of the 5.45 upper and put it on the SR-15. It seems to me that the T-2 is marginally better than the T-1s that I have as far as dot distortion, it is also a 2 MOA dot where all of my T-1s are the old 4 MOA version. I can easily move further out with the T-2.

That's how the gunsmith I got my first AR from put it when I asked him that question.  I've got about 4,000 rounds through that one and ~90% of that was Wolf steel cased 55gr.  Other than the occasional dud primer, I've been happy shooting that stuff (it's a good value).

Yeah, but Lucky Gunner essentially tried to go through as many rounds as possible without a cooling protocol and without more than a hint of cleaning.  It was intentionally harsh on barrels, but high flame temperatures without any cooling breaks is almost certainly the culprit with the LG Tula barrel.

Of course, unless someone steps up and funds this experiment, it's all theoretical.  I don't know what sort of lab would be able to test the stuff Tula uses in their .223 rounds, but it would be interesting to find out what kind of burn rate, burn temperature, and so on that powder generates.  Most complaints of Tula being "wimpy" are really people noting that the gas pressure curve of this stuff is weird.  If it were really wimpy, it wouldn't chrono in the same velocity range that it does (so far nobody's shouted from the treetops that Tula's factory velocity claims are ludicrously inaccurate).