TUL AMMO

[SIRFORDSTER]

Have any of you tried this ammo, and had bad luck with it? I tried some today and had a case split and get stuck in the barrel. What do you think I should do? I still have the case and am thinking of getting in contact with TUL AMMO to see if its safe to shoot the rest of them. I was shootin my M&P .45, and love the gun, it shoots other ammo fine. I bought the TUL AMMO because it was less than $15 a box of 50.

 

[Dragon88]

I personally despise steel cased ammo. While lacquered steel case will sometimes gum up your chamber, you should not have had a split. You may want to contact them and see what they say. You may get a free replacement case of ammo. I have never heard reports about their customer service though.

 

[681ismyfavorite]

ive had good luck with Tul ammo in 9mm and .45acp so far....

 

[David Sinko]

The lacquer coating in and of itself will not gum up your chamber. Steel cases do not expand and seal the chamber as readily as brass does and you will get more powder fouling back into the chamber. This is further complicated by using a cartridge with very little taper. Or if you are shooting a weapon system that is already purposely designed to foul the chamber.

Factory loaded steel cases can split, just like factory loaded brass cases can split too. Your chamber was probably dirty due to the above listed reason, and the fouling plus split case were too much to digest. It's just the nature of the beast when shooting steel case straight wall pistol cartridges.

Dave Sinko

 

[thndrchiken]

The lacquer can sometimes gum up the chamber but it won't happen unless the barrel/chamber is pretty hot and the rd is left in the chamber for a period of time. I personally won't shoot steel cased ammo in anything but my sks and ak.

 

[frank_drebin]

I fired 20 rounds of it through my MK9 earlier this week with only one dud round. Bad primer, couldn't get any of my guns to set it off. My little MK9 was absolutely filthy after that session but she never choked.

 

[Ironhand]

The lacquer can sometimes gum up the chamber but it won't happen unless the barrel/chamber is pretty hot and the rd is left in the chamber for a period of time. I personally won't shoot steel cased ammo in anything but my sks and ak.

It's not the lacquer coming off of the cases, it's the primer and case-mouth sealant. Even if you can find some Russian steel-cased ammo that still uses lacquer on the cases themselves(most have gone to polymer, zinc, or some other treatment of the case)you won't be able to remove it with a torch. The little red flecks, however, get really sticky, and they come from the case mouth or primer pocket.


I've shot many, many thousands of rounds of steel-case ammo, in many different calibers. The only ones that gave me ANY trouble were Wolf .45 ACP through my wife's Sig P/220 years ago. Dead primers, over-length cases resulting in jamming the pistol shut, terrible accuracy from the ones that fired. I trashed the whole box..

 

[LHS]

I bought some and shot about 15 in my Remington 700 .223 bolt action rifle. Had several that was hard to eject and the last one we had to use a cleaning rod after the ejector ripped through the lip on the case. I sold the rest, vowing never to buy it again.

 

[HotRoderX]

I have used plenty of Tula in my Glock 17 never had a issue other then the occasional bad primer. It is dirty ammo but it was cheap like 8-9 dollars a box cheap.

I have heard people say the steal cased ammo will damage the extractor, ejector, and feed ramp of a pistol. I have yet to have a problem with it.

 

[4506517]

I recovered a stolen Glock with this ammunition in it. When I initially cleared the gun, out popped a rusty round of .40 Tulammo......

 

[thndrchiken]

It's not the lacquer coming off of the cases, it's the primer and case-mouth sealant. Even if you can find some Russian steel-cased ammo that still uses lacquer on the cases themselves(most have gone to polymer, zinc, or some other treatment of the case)you won't be able to remove it with a torch. The little red flecks, however, get really sticky, and they come from the case mouth or primer pocket.

I here that, I was shooting a bunch of Wolf out of my SKS and started getting light primer strikes. took the bolt out and soaked it in some naptha and inside of an hour the cup of naptha it was soaking in was cherry red. Got all the gunk cleaned out and lube the bolt/firing pin and have not had issue since. This was after about 500-600 rds of the Wolf.

 

[Jammertime]

Greetings, the wife and I were at the range today and as she was shooting, we had a FTE and chambered another round. We were shooting tula 180gr. out of my SD40. No damage done, but you can see the cracked shell on the spent round.

 

[1911heaven]

Wow.Yeah I bought a box of .45's and 9mm Tul Ammo from wally world to do some range time with because I had never tried the black red and yellow box, plus it was cheaper but I was scared to finish either box.That was some nasty stuff and obviously from your pic there not too safe.I won't be doing any more steel cased ammo period.With Russian ammo,it makes you wonder how in the heck any Russians could even qualify much less become marksman!! I'd rather use Wolf ammo if that were the other choice but neither are of any kind of accuracy but they dang sure are filthy dirty.Glad it didn't hurt anyone or mess up your guns.No more for me!That stuff is just plain trash IMO

 

[Charlie8d]

I don't like nasty ammo & will pay more to get better. I would contact them , immediately, & report the problem. Once, I had the same problem with a different ammo , [ brass ] & checked the new rounds I still had left in the box. 10 out of 40 were already split, before firing. I contacted the manufacturer & sent the ammo back to them at their cost. They replaced it with new ammo & gave me a couple extra boxes.
DON'T SHOOT IT !!

 

[Jammertime]

I contacted them, doubtful anything will happen though. This will be the last time I use this ammunition.

 

[mediumdaddy]

I bought and shot the only box of tulammo i've ever used this last weekend. .380 acp out of my lcp. filthy ammo, but every round went bang, and ejected just fine. Think i'll pay a buck or two more for brass from now on.

 

[Stukaman]

Only problem I've had was with their .45 acp cases were to long for for my Sig P220. Never had a bit of an issue with any Russian Ammo with my West German 226 I figure the Germans made these pistols for combat and as such should have the ability too handle most any ammo thrown at them just my 2 cents. Now I don't make it a habit.

 

[brucev]

Have any of you tried this ammo, and had bad luck with it? I tried some today and had a case split and get stuck in the barrel. What do you think I should do? I still have the case and am thinking of getting in contact with TUL AMMO to see if its safe to shoot the rest of them. I was shootin my M&P .45, and love the gun, it shoots other ammo fine. I bought the TUL AMMO because it was less than $15 a box of 50.

Your experience as described is most assuredly very atypical. I have fired a pile of the Tula 9mm and .45 ACP in Glock, Springfield and RIA 1911 pistols and my S&W 625-2. I have fired the WOLF steel cased 5.56mm in my COLT Hbar with absolutely excellent function and on target accuracy fully equivalent to results obtained with any other ball ammo. I've not ever had a instance in pistols, revolver or rifles of less than perfect function and normal (for that particular firearm) on target results. I'd contact Tula and S&W. Let them know what happened. S&W will likely want to look at the pistol. Tula will certainly want to know the lot number of the ammunition and likely want to recover the remaining rounds for examination and replacement. Over the years I've had problems with case splits, primer pocket leakage, etc. using Winchester ammunition. I have observed Remington ammunition fail leaving another man's revolver with a plugged barrel. In each case, the manufacturer of the ammo replaced all the ammunition. In the case of the revolver, the barrel was damaged. Remington replaced the ammunition and sent a check to cover the cost of replacing the revolver. I encourage you to contract both S&W and Tula as I am certain they will want to know of your experience. They will certainly want to take steps to make to determine the cause of the failure, etc. And doubtless they will want to do whatever is required to correct the situation. Sincerely. brucev.

 

[waffenmac]

It shoots fine in my mak 90 but my dpms ar15 doesnt like it at all.I have heard that it has broken more than a few extractors and this was from people on the Ruger forum.

 

[Old cop]

I ran a box of 50 .380 through my Ruger LCP and it worked just fine. Subsequent to that my range banned steel case ammo and Ruger said not to use steel case ammo in the LCP, but mine suffered no damage.

Some indicated that is was dirty, but again my experience was it was no worse than any other range ammo.