Will Wolf ammo hurt my guns?    Just kidding!  Sorry...

I'm a Wolf fan, but underpowered/short stroking is an acknowledged issue with Wolf.  Here's what I don't understand, maybe someone has the answer.

I don't know how much powder is in a Wolf cartridge, but let's say they load it with 25 grains, and get 2800 fps.  These are arbitrary numbers I simply thought up to illustrate my question.

Why can't they simply bump the powder quantity up by perhaps 5% to achieve velocities on par with military 5.56?  Let's say you go with 26 grains, a 4% increase.  If the powder accounts for 20% of the cost of the ammo, the cost of a case of Wolf will go up only 3 or 4 bucks, and AR shooters everywhere will rejoice.

I'm guessing they load the cartridge to a lower pressure so that firearms not chambered/designed for military 5.56 will have no problems whatsoever.  Wolf, I'm guessing the AR market accounts for 95% of your buyers.  The other 5% are varmint or target shooters and will be using some serious target ammo.  

If you don't want to raise velocity across the board, how about a 5.56 steel cased, polymer coated load?  Label it 5.56mm, standard disclaimers "Use only in firearms chambered for high-pressure 5.56mm cartridges" etc.  I'd buy it, and I think a LOT of guys would also.

ya know, I could almost swear that some Wolf ammo I have that is about 4-5 years old says 5.56x45 on it.  I'm gonna have to look through my stock.  I know it all now has .223 Rem on it.

Wolf has claimed it is going to be producing 5.56 quality loading for a while, so I'm waiting. I hope they weren't referring to their M193 ammo, but I do seem to remember they responded to a member with an email alluding to increased loadings in their standard stell-cased ammo.

Here are my thoughts.

Maybe the steel cases themselves are a limiting factor on the pressure allowed?

Quoted: Because more powder = more money. When you load a few thousand, it doesn't make much difference. When you load millions and millions, those grains add up to some serious cash.

Most likely this is the case.  Ten million rounds, increase the powder used by 2-3 grains per round, you are looking at 1.5-2.5 TONS of powder you have to buy or have made.

It could also be that using less powder, they still meet a lower velocity spec and can load more cases on a lot of powder without having to change any machines and do less testing.

Quoted: Will Wolf ammo hurt my guns?    Just kidding!  Sorry... I'm a Wolf fan, but underpowered/short stroking is an acknowledged issue with Wolf.  Here's what I don't understand, maybe someone has the answer. Why can't they simply bump the powder quantity up by perhaps 5% to achieve velocities on par with military 5.56?

They just did.  It's called Wolf M193.  There's a couple threads about it.  In general, it works nicely in carbines, not so nicely in rifles.

+1

Quoted: It could also be that using less powder, they still meet a lower velocity spec and can load more cases on a lot of powder without having to change any machines and do less testing.

My money goes with this theory.  I think it's mostly a matter of self-insuring against bad or non-existent Q/C and the resulting spurious high pressure rounds.  They're building in safety the easy/inexpensive way.  

Next most likely reason relates to the use of relatively inelastic steel cases.  

Adding 5% more powder won't get the total cost of a round up even 1 cent.  

Frankly, inasmuch as Wolf poly is blasting ammo for my RR 16s I hope they never increase the pressure/velocity specs.  All I care about is that the stuff goes bang (it does), cycles all my uppers (it does), and shoots Minute of Dynamite Sticks (it does).

Sam

I guess Im in the minority. I have never had a problem with Wolf shortstroking in any of my rifles. My Armalite and my Bushmaster eat it up with 0 problems.-

I've never had any issues with Wolf either  - 2 bushmasters (1) 20", (1) 16"  and 2 J&T DS-4 kits.  All I've shot is 55 gr FMG, a little of the lacquer coated and at least 3000 rounds of the polymer coated stuff.  Never one short stroke or dud.  Last trip to the range I decided to box up the rest of my SA and Federal XM193 and save it for later, so now I guess I'm a 100% Wolf Man.  Can't believe the prices on  the brass cased (Federal, SA, etc.) stuff these days.

All of mine are, of course, chrome lined and I clean the bolt and swab the barrel at least every other trip to the range.  Sometimes after every trip if it's been wet or a lot of rounds that day.

Mine will short-stroke about once out of every 2 mags or so.  FWIW there is about 22grains of powder in the case.