Today I went out for a shoot with 3 buddys from work. Neither of which has ever shot an AR.
I provided them with 3 unused Thermolds and about 300 rounds of Wolf 55 grain ammo. I've put close to 1000 rounds through this Bushmaster postban M4 A2 w/mini y comp brake since I bought it in February of this year. I haven't shot using the Thermold and Wolf combo. These guys didn't care about accuracy at 50 yards, they just wanted to rapid fire. "Hey Jason, how fast can I empty this mag?" asks my friend Bobby. "You tell me," I responded. This behavior quickly became the norm among the three of them. Not one single malfunction of any kind was experienced during the day. We ended up firing over 500 rounds of Wolf ammo without a hiccup. I've heard some erie tales about Wolf ammo, but I am impressed with its consistent ability to perform.                  Is it accurate?
No problem ripping apart silhouette targets at 50 yards with rapid fire six round bursts from a single 30 round thermold. Before today, my M4 has only been fed Winchester 55 grain 40 round value packs from Wal-mart and some Federal 62 grain m193. So this was a couple of steps down the ammo ladder. I worried about the thermolds, since I had never used them before. My Bushmaster ate that shit up no problem. It was indeed an interesting experiment. It's nice to know my American carbine eats Russian food, 'cause I've never  eaten it before. What has been your experience withthis ammo and mag combo, i'm curious?

Thas is so strange.  I guess different guns even from the same manufacturer like different ammo.  I couldn't feed more than three rounds of the stuff through my 20" bushmaster without one not ejecting.  

The most common problem that I have heard and seen witht he Wolf ammo is this:

Wolf ammo is covered in a green laquer.  this laquer is on tehre becasue it makes it closer to water rpoof, and the cases are steel and would corrode (rust ) quickly without it.  This laquer will melt and liquify when it gets hot (under firing conditions) Then when the gun cools it solidifies again.  this causes a gunky crappy green mess which can be a pain to get out and then causes failures.  Olyarms will not cover problems on guns that use Wolf ammo.  they have had too many people send them uppers that are gunked up and then have to take them apart to clean them.  Here is what Oly says about it:

Lacquer Coated Ammo
If you plan on using lacquer-coated ammo in your Olympic Arms AR-15, please be aware of the following. We have received many recent phone calls, as well as some rifles sent in for repair, complaining about reliability problems in their Oly Arms AR's. The first question usually asked is, "What ammunition are you using?" The answers to the question, as well as seeing the chambers of the rifles that were sent in are showing us that lacquer coated ammo is clogging the chambers badly.

What we are seeing is that once the chamber in the rifles gets hot, it is melting the lacquer off of the casings, and leaving a gelatinous goo in your chamber. Under continuous fire, this is usually not noticed, but once you stop, the barrel cools, the lacquer sets and you now cannot chamber and/or properly extract your ammunition. You will experience this in AR-15's much more frequently than other rifles such as the SKS and AK/MAC variants. In most cases the 7.62x39 rifles have chambers cut to the large end of the safety spectrum so that feeding and reliability is uncompromised by the type of ammunition or the consistency of the case dimensions. AR style rifles, and especially those from Oly Arms will have tighter chambers so that you can experience a greater level of accuracy that these rifles are capable of performing. Olympic chambers specifically are cut to 5.56 NATO specs via Clymer reamers in all button rifled barrels, and minimum SAAMI spec .223 Remington on all SUM Ultramatch barrels. Our rifles will provide superior accuracy, partly based on that fact.


Major brands of lacquer coated ammo we have seen are Wolf, most Russian ammo (even if it has the Remington head stamp), Norinco (or most Chinese) and most all former eastern block countries.


Our recommendations: DO NOT USE LACQUER COATED AMMO. Otherwise, be prepared for the consequences. Additionally, most lacquer-coated ammo utilizes steel cases instead of brass. BAD FOR YOUR CHAMBER.


The Consequences: Poor feeding, poor extraction, poor accuracy, and an impossible to clean chamber possibly resulting in a rifle that simply does not work.


Although Olympic Arms only warrants their firearms when used with new production brass cased US manufactured ammo, we would be remiss to think that the bulk of our customers do not use remanufactured, imported or reloaded ammo. We know that they will, and do. The reason that our warranty does not cover the use of this ammo is as much to protect you, as it is our product and our product. If you are using factory US new manufactured brass cased ammo, and something goes wrong and the rifle is damaged, the ammo manufacturer will usually take care of any repair costs. If not, and the damage can be proven to be the fault of the ammo, you have some sort of course of action you can take against that manufacturer to recover some or all of the expenses of the repairs. If you use foreign lacquer coated ammo as an example, you have NO options.


Is your rifle worth it?



I have seen the gunk pile up when I used a single box of it in my Bushy when I first got it.  have not shot Wolf even since.  It is up to you but this is my .02

IIRC, another "feature" of laquered steel cases is the residue they leave in the chamber.
[Edit: I stand corrected]

If I fired Wolf, I'm make sure I gently but thoroughly cleaned my barrel.

According to some reports I've read where some of the members on this board have taken a blowtorch to the case, the lacquer does not melt as is commonly believed. THe lacquer is to prevent the steel case from rusting, plain and simple.

Malfunctions, if anything, could be contributed to the red sealant around the case neck. Wolf has apparently changed this process, as the red sealant is not to be found anymore on newer production. The 55gr stuff I bought also didn't have it.

I'm sure that the quality control of the Wolf is not quite as high as others, letting an improperly sized case through now and then.

If it's for plinking and it works in your gun, I'd continue to shoot it without hesitation. If it were to cause Kabooms or something which could damage your gun on a fairly consistent basis, then I would advise against it. But based on the feedback on this forum, the malfunctions are not that malicious - aside from the fact that it just plain out doesn't seem to work in certain guns (FTE/FTF).

The laquer melting when firing is a fantasy.  It does not.  earlier wolf products had red sealant at the case mouth.  This would gunk up and accumulate causing some problems.  I have put about 7k rounds of wolf through my bushmasters with zero ammo related problems.  It is really all I shoot for practice and plinking.  I use about 60 rounds of black hills a year to qualify for the department, other than that, its wolf or barnaul.  Barnaul is more accurate and consistant however.  Barnaul = XM193 for me in the accuracy department.

Take a fired casing of Wolf, Barnaul, or any "lacquer" coated casing, and try to melt the "lacquer".  Hotplate, Bic lighter, strike anywhere match, blowtorch, whatever heat source..

It.Does.Not.Melt.

Meplat-

I'll state again.  THE LACQUER COATING DOES [b]NOT[/b] MELT!  The red sealant on the neck/bullet is another issue but new Wolf ammo doesn't use it any longer

Im with you guys I use only wolf as cheap blasting ammo out of my pre and post bushmaster,using GI mags brit steel and thermolds,the laquer dosent come off and they stopped putting sealent on the case neck,its a fantasy is right,a good field rifle should eat any thing and if the rifle dont do it there is something wrong with the rifle,problems can be traced to over cleaning a rifle wich in most cases will do more harm than anything the wolf can do,I dont understand some one spendind 2 or 3 hours to clean the AR,I shoot a minimum whole case,1000 rounds when I shoot 20 minutes half hour tops to clean the rifle good and its been functioning fine for the lst eleven years and 18,000 rounds later 5000 of that on a new barrel,it was a fullsize preban turned into a carbine a few years back at least 8000 of that was wolf and my post ban is just hitting the 7000 round mark and thats never had anything but wolf.

I stand corrected, gentlemen.  I haven't shot Wolf in a while, and I am glad they have cleared up that issue.  That said, I value my investements far too much to run Wolf through them.

I've shot close to 1000 rounds of wolf through my bushmaster with no problems.  I always clean my rifle after every time I go to the range.

eh. Wolf SUCKS for accuracy. It IS my favorite plinking ammo nevertheless because its that cheap (9 cent a round? for .223 that damn good)

I dont own an AR, but a Bushy M17s. I get 1MOA and less groups with match ammo with this rifle.
I was re-zeroing a BEC 3-9x42 scope at 50 yards, and afterwards got bored so I started shooting the tall steel posts that protected the wooden posts holding up the targetboard.
Well, I was running groups maybe in the 1.5 inch range there. The stuff did more damage to the steel posts than PMC, too, but I think that because of the considerably thicker jacket.