Steel Case Ammo in a 986

[first-model]

Hi everyone,

It's a gorgeous day here in Southern Louisiana, so I decided to get a few hours of range time in. One of the guns I brought with me was my 986. I don't shoot it a lot, but I've always been impressed with it.

I ended up bringing some Russian steel cased 9mm ammo with me, and I had a lot of problems with the ammo being really tough to extract. I also found that the case heads would bulge a bit more than the brass cases, and this could make the cylinder a bit stiff to rotate.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is running steel cased ammo in these revolvers a no-no? It cycles fine in my semi-autos and I never gave a second thought to running it in my wheel guns.

Mike

[stansdds]

Brass is more elastic than steel, so when fired, brass expands to seal the chamber, then contracts and extraction is usually easy. Steel expands, but lacks the elasticity to contract to the same degree as brass, so it seals the chamber, but tends to be difficult to extract. Sticky extraction is less of an issue with chrome lined chambers, the chrome surface provides a smoother and more slippery surface than unplated steel. Personally, I reserve steel cased ammo for weapons designed for it, namely eastern block weapons which usually have chrome lined barrels and chambers are are designed for steel cased ammo.

[Thin Man]

^^^^^This, exactly.
Running steel case ammo in a 986 seems analogous to running retreaded tires on a Ferrari. It may work, but not well... or for long.

[first-model]

Thanks guys. I’ll run brass in it from now on. Had no idea that steel cartridges behaved this differently.

Mike

[gerhard1]

Good to know; thank you.

[quikdraw67]

Quikdraw67's rule of thumb -

If it was designed to fire brass cased ammo, that's what I use.

If it was designed to fire steel cased ammo ( like most Soviet Bloc weapons) that's what
I use.

I cringe when I see people fire Wolf steel case .223 in AR's.

JMHO YMMV