Folks...
I have had very good experiences with both the
"TCW" (Tula mfg'd, which is the source for Wolf ammo) 55gr and the Barnaul mfgd 62gr. While these are not official "Wolf brand", I am sure
Wolf is just a repackaging of these ammo types,
and their performance is similar.
I have several ARs with Colt chromed barrels.
The Russkie ammo performed just fine in them (except for 1 session, covered below). It also worked just fine in a new J&T kit gun that had a non-chromed barrel/chamber, as well as my preban Ruger Mini14 (stainless, folder, 1989 vintage).
The only problems I had were feed & extraction related - and when I used Federal and PMC ammo, the results were about the same. This was on a nearly-new Colt HBar 20" flattop I'd purchased for a song and only cleaned lightly before test firing. Turns out that a good chamber brushing
and bolt-face, extractor & ejector cleaning cured all ills. Not using an Orlite magazine also helped (my Orlites will need some shim work for proper seating level). Also, I had
one round early in the session that didn't
fire - reusing it, it worked fine.
I would suspect JUST THE OPPOSITE of what some of the above posters have written about chromed barrels: I think there are probably more problems with such ammo in non-chromed, non-M16 milspec "SAAMI" chambers that are known for their tightness.
I'm not really partial to the argument that "I won't put this cheap ammo in my nice gun for fear of damage." I don't see soft steel cases
such as these wearing out a hard steel barrel appreciably faster than normal. And even if it's true that extractors wear a little faster,
these are only $5 parts. And a new barrel - even chrome-lined - is $170 - $200. So (and I'm actually serious) after a few cases of ammo you can afford a new barrel and extractor with the money you save. A box of Russkie ammo is $100 while other brass-cased stuff is usually $150 or more.
I believe a very knowledgable list member, Chuck Santose, temperature tested the varnish
with a blowtorch and found no melting or charring, etc. of it. at temperatures expected
in an AR chamber.
Accuracy? Not quite Federal, IMI or PMC. But great plinking ammo.
Dirty? Yep, suspect lotsa phosphate anticorrosive. PMC is fairly dirty too - both PMC and Russkie ammo have the strongest ammonia odors.
So after hundreds of rounds of the Russkie ammo in each of several ARs and Mini14s, I am really quite pleased.
Regards, Bill
wiese [at] jps [dot] net