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Silver Bear has a zinc plated case. Brown Bear has a lacquered case.

Quoted: Silver Bear has a zinc plated case. Brown Bear has a lacquered case.

And how does the zinc act vs the lacquered ( features and benefits ?) ?

It's been my expereance that the laquered cases leave a film in the chamber(s) and really kind of gum up the gun where as the Zinc ones don't. That's it.

There is no difference except for the type coating applied to the steel cartidge case. It is just what is taught in basic marketing 101 class.  The consumer will pay a higher price for the same product with the "bling-bling"(shiny).
The Silver Bear cases are galvanized = plated with zinc just like steel roofs on buldings commonly called tin roofs,steel buckets,power line towers,etc.... The only difference is the cases are polished after being galvanized so they are shiny and don't have that dull grey look.
The type coating on the cartridge case really makes no difference as far as function in a AK/SKS rifle goes as the chambers are chrome plated in all but the Yugo SKS's. So the chamber is slicker than all get out to start with.
The laquer coating on the Brown Bear cases leaves no residue in the chambers of rifles but the red bullet/primer sealer does. The bullet/primer sealer has no effect on the function of rifles with military specification chrome lined chambers.

Quoted: Quoted: Silver Bear has a zinc plated case. Brown Bear has a lacquered case. And how does the zinc act vs the lacquered ( features and benefits ?) ?

The zinc could oxydize long term, white powdery coating cant be good, though properly stored it should never be a problem.

Some of the Silver Bear states on the box that it is Nickle plated, see the AIM ammo page, picture of Silver Bear Match grade. 1000 Rds for $94.00

Thanks Guys, appreciate it.

You can figure out how to post an avitar, but you can determine the difference between Silver Bear and Brown Bear? Kidding dude.

The folks here set you straight.

I like to use the Silver Bear ammo because of what SchlaffTablett stated about the film left behind when shooting Lacquered cased ammo (Brown). On one ocassion I fired a couple thousand 5.45x39 Russian rds through my Romanian rifle without cleaning it. After a while, i was getting failure to feed issues...but no failure to extract problems. I took the rifle home and ran some Sweet 762 and some other cleaners through the bore and cleaned the rifle up nice...  and I can tell you the bore was Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasty... After I got her all cleaned up I took the rifle back out the range and shot a bunch more of the 5.45x39mm and after a couple of thousand it started to happen again.  I ran a bore snake and brought out a bunch of brown looking crud... went back to shoot and the rifle shot fine. So, there is a degree of residue left behind when shooting lacquered ammo.


The ammo that I used was some of the first Romanian and Russian 5.45x39 imported into the US back in 1997 or so... Ther Russian 5.45x39 was packaged in 20 rd white boxes with TCW marked on the box (Tula Cartritge Works)... maybe the recipie has changed since how its made.

As far as zinc oxydizing after long term storage leaving a white powdery coating... wow... I am going to have to try that out. I'll create a time capsule and store some 5.45x39 Silver Bear in it and see how it turns out after I am cyrogenically frozen then brought back 150 years into the future.

Hope this was somewhat helpful to someone.

Take care,

Y-

Quoted: You can figure out how to post an avitar, but you can determine the difference between Silver Bear and Brown Bear? Kidding dude. The folks here set you straight. I like to use the Silver Bear ammo because of what SchlaffTablett stated about the film left behind when shooting Lacquered cased ammo (Brown). On one ocassion I fired a couple thousand 5.45x39 Russian rds through my Romanian rifle without cleaning it. After a while, i was getting failure to feed issues...but no failure to extract problems. I took the rifle home and ran some Sweet 762 and some other cleaners through the bore and cleaned the rifle up nice...  and I can tell you the bore was Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasty... After I got her all cleaned up I took the rifle back out the range and shot a bunch more of the 5.45x39mm and after a couple of thousand it started to happen again.  I ran a bore snake and brought out a bunch of brown looking crud... went back to shoot and the rifle shot fine. So, there is a degree of residue left behind when shooting lacquered ammo. The ammo that I used was some of the first Romanian and Russian 5.45x39 imported into the US back in 1997 or so... Ther Russian 5.45x39 was packaged in 20 rd white boxes with TCW marked on the box (Tula Cartritge Works)... maybe the recipie has changed since how its made. As far as zinc oxydizing after long term storage leaving a white powdery coating... wow... I am going to have to try that out. I'll create a time capsule and store some 5.45x39 Silver Bear in it and see how it turns out after I am cyrogenically frozen then brought back 150 years into the future. Hope this was somewhat helpful to someone. Take care, Y-

I'll be waiting for you thaw out and tell us how it went.  

Or I suppose we could just leave some silver bear outside in the weather for a few weeks.