I'm not sure if anything has been posted about this, but it looks like Palmetto State Armory is going to try and set up to manufacture steel case ammo in the US.

PSA Tooling Up For Domestic Steel-Cased Ammo Production - Gun Digest

I was always under the impression that the lower cost of steel case ammo was more a function of where most all of it came from - The old Soviet Block - than it was the slightly higher cost of brass as a case material?

I guess PSA's efforts would appeal to high volume shooters who's guns can handle steel cased and who have no desire to reload.

Larry

Back around 2012-2014 Hornady marketed steel case match grade ammo.

The intent was to use it at matches where you'd leave the cases on the ground instead of spending the time to pick them up. Discontinued around 2014.

Hornady still makes steel cased ammo.

The whole idea of steel cased ammo is that it's cheaper than brass. The only way this will be successful is if they can make it at a lower price point. I'm sure PSA knows that and has factored it into their decision. Demand isn't going anywhere so I'm sure that's driving this too.

I picked up in the neighborhood of 65k rounds of that Winchester USA forged 9mm ammo around the end of 2019 from my Walmart who had em on clearance, it was 115gr fmj 150 rounds per box I paid $12.50 per box, also picked up about 300 rounds of 338LM for 5 bucks a box and around 250 boxes of Winchester brown box 00 12ga ammo for 2.50 a box. My biggest regret from that day is not taking the 3030 ammo they had at 2.50 a box.

Yes, WalMart did sell some Winchester steel-case 9mm around that time. I bought several boxes when WalMart abandoned the ammo business, don't remember the price, but it was fairly cheap, else I wouldn't have bought it.

According to the article PSA is planning on producing steel cased 7.62x39, 5.45x39 and 7.62x54r. PSA has a vested interest in seeing that there are supplies of 7.62x39 and especially the 5.45x39. With the ban on Russian imported ammo, 5.45x39 ( ak-74) will be most adversely affected. PSA has a large investment in their PSAK-74 project, so it certainly makes sense for them to ensure an ammo source. Their hope is to have production underway by 2023. For those of us who shoot these calibers and like to support American firearms companies, this is a win-win.

It would take a very substantial capital investment to set up a basic ammunition manufacturing operation. Making their own cases and bullets is very costly as opposed to merely loading purchased components. I wonder how PSA plans to finance it, unless they have a deep-pockets partner already in the business, like one of the eastern Europe ammo manufacturers? I am sceptical.

The article says they are buying the equipment from an "undisclosed" European manufacturer. So it's not hard to imagine the Russians backing the deal. Now they manufacture the Russian ammo in the US. They avoid any executive action on imports and get the added bonus of shortening their supply chain and they can still export the ammo out of the US. You have to figure that in a business that generates the amount of money that this one does, they are not going to just lay down because a demented, hack, politician makes a fiat.