I won a box of Wolf .45 ACP in a raffle tonight. My only .45 is my 457, so I'd like to know if steel cased ammunition is okay to use in it.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Steel cased ammo
- Thread starter GaryS
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There is a current thread on steel cased down in the "other brands" area. You might check there. I don't think one box would do a lot of harm.
Now that is what I call a low rent raffle.
Couldn't they have at least made it something brass-cased? 
Fired a pile of Wolf .45 ACP steel cased ammo in Glocks, Springfield Armory as well as my S&W 625-2. Advantages are price, excellent function, accuracy typical of common domestic/foreign ball ammo and no need to be concerned about recovering the casing. Disadvantages are that Walmart will soon not be selling it. Would imagine your pistol would do fine w/ the Wolf ammo. JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.
Now that is what I call a low rent raffle.
Perhaps the ammo was a donation to the raffle from a store owner?
... who wanted to get rid of it.
Makes sense. 
But if I knew GaryS was so desperate for .45 ammo for his 457, I would have given him a couple boxes of brass-cased stuff just to hold him over.
Friends don't let friends fire steel-cased Wolf ammo in their beloved 3rd Gens.
AR's & AK's... okay, that's another story.
Jeppo
SWCA Member
... who wanted to get rid of it.
But if I knew GaryS was so desperate for .45 ammo for his 457, I would have given him a couple boxes of brass-cased stuff just to hold him over.
Friends don't let friends fire steel-cased Wolf ammo in their beloved 3rd Gens.
AR's & AK's... okay, that's another story.
What would you do for another friend who’s desperate for Shorty45 ammo?
OP
It came from a member who sold his only .45 and donated it to the club.
I was at the club to talk to the Board of Directors about doing a presentation on the laws being considered in the current legislative session. Which turned into a presentation by me and the guy who donated the ammo. He did a similar presentation, as it happened.
At the end of the monthly meeting, they have a raffle of some sort for people who show up. The ammo was an add on.
I joked if there were 25 boxes and 26 people there, I'd be #26. The guy who donated the ammo had his ticket drawn.
My ticket was actually picked as well, so I got a box of free ammo. As long as it doesn't break the extractor, I'm okay using it. As it happens, I have plenty of .45, at least for my needs.
BTW, TTSH, I'll be out in Mendon later this week and plan to buy a box of 9mm from the shop there. Good price on decent range fodder.
But I digress.
I was at the club to talk to the Board of Directors about doing a presentation on the laws being considered in the current legislative session. Which turned into a presentation by me and the guy who donated the ammo. He did a similar presentation, as it happened.
At the end of the monthly meeting, they have a raffle of some sort for people who show up. The ammo was an add on.
I joked if there were 25 boxes and 26 people there, I'd be #26. The guy who donated the ammo had his ticket drawn.
My ticket was actually picked as well, so I got a box of free ammo. As long as it doesn't break the extractor, I'm okay using it. As it happens, I have plenty of .45, at least for my needs.
BTW, TTSH, I'll be out in Mendon later this week and plan to buy a box of 9mm from the shop there. Good price on decent range fodder.
But I digress.
Now that is what I call a low rent raffle.
robertrwalsh
SWCA Member
It was probably donated by the Russians to undermine our election system.
I'll take 10 cases please.
I would be more concerned about the steel jacketed bullet than the case, it excellels the rifling in the barrel faster than copper jackets or lead.
I have used steel cased 9mm in a variety of pistols with success. The exception was a S&W Pro9 M&P, I don't know why.
Daniel Howe
US Veteran
I use steel case in my Thompson M1. When you have to pickup 1,000 cases at a time the magnetic ones are nice
Most of the imported steel cased ammo these days has either a regular lead core FMJ bullet or a steel core bullet, which I believe is wrapped in lead and then either a zinc or copper jacket.
I don't think anyone even makes the stuff with an all steel bullet that is jacketed with either zinc or copper - do they?
Not steel core, they're lead cored, with a "bi-metal jacket"--
copper over mild steel for most.
Lucky Gunner did an exhaustive test on wear and found the
bi-metal jackets did wear barrels faster than conventional
bullet jacketing, and that (with ARs), the cost-savings more
than offset the cost of rebarreling. Note that their test
methodology was essentially full mag dumps, as fast as
the trigger could be pulled, through dozens of mags.
That type of firing likely worsened the wear effect of the
bi-metal jacketing.
A saner rate of fire would probably reduce the wear effect.
From my recollection, they found no significant wear
caused by the steel cases.
Thanks for clearing that up.
My other thought would be that it will take years for me to ever shoot enough to damage the barrel enough to have any appreciable effect. FWIW, I just ordered 500 rounds of Wolf Polyformance ammo, that they list as being loaded with "FMJ" projectiles. The photo shows them as copper colored, so I'll have to check them out to see if they are steel under the copper. For a total delivered cost of only $0.21 per round that is a savings of at least $0.06 per round. So I can see where the savings will more than pay for a new barrel after only a couple of thousand rounds - long before the barrel will actually need to be replaced due to accelerated wear.
I can't address that for the 45ACP, but of the online reviews I read of the .223/5.56, the consensus seemed to be that it was relatively clean.
