Tulammo 357 Magnum problem

[JackOfAllTrades]

Stuck Casings

I recently tried out some TulAmmo .357 magnum steel case, non-corrosive ammo in my S&W 686+. I filled my 7-shot cylinder and was able to fire the first two rounds fine. Upon trying to rotate the cylinder for my third shot, the cylinder stuck. I was able to open the action and rotate by hand and fire the next shot. The sticking continued through the rest of the shots. When I went to eject, the ejector wouldn't budge an inch, I had to pry each round out with my knife, fortunately all rounds were spent. I then proceeded to test one round at a time then two and so on to diagnose the problem. When I loaded and shot one round, no problems, and ejected fine. Even when I loaded two consecutive rounds they both ejected fine. When I loaded a round, skipped a chamber, and loaded another round, the casings would not eject. As I continued this approach adding the next few rounds, it resulted again in failure to eject casings, which were stuck tight in the chamber; as well as failure to rotate the cylinder. Upon my last attempt, I had to use a screwdriver through the front to force the casings out. Not sure if the steel-casings possibly expanded after firing which caused them to stick in the chamber or if the size of the flange of the rim of the casing was too big and wedged against each other preventing the ejector from moving? I don't think I made it a third of the way through a box before I concluded I would not be buying this ****ty steel-cased Russian ammo again.

 

[JayFramer]

Keep in mind this steel cased ammo garbage was originally designed for some Cossack to carry around to shoot political dissidents with in the back of the head and to do it as cheaply as possible for the benefit of the Soviet.

It is not good ammunition. Shy from it, and carry American.

 

[rwsmith]

Rather than buy crummy ammo....

I like to shoot a lot and there's no way I could keep paying for commercial, so i reload. More expensive rounds like revolver and rifle save a tone of money.

Several times I've take the opportunity to buy cheap ammo and I've been disappointed every time.

 

[Frank46]

A lot of the steel cased ammo being sold today may have a coating on it
that sometimes builds up and you get stuck cases. I will not use steel cased ammo in any of my rifles or handguns. The only exception is using Royal Tiger steel cases 7.62x39 in my Chinese sks. And even then will do a serious cleaning of the chamber to remove any coating buildup. So far so good. Paid less than $100 for the sks. Frank

 

[Tyrod]

Don't leave polymer coated cases in a hot chamber. The polymer softens and will nearly weld itself inside the chamber while cooling. Chrome lined chambers are more resistant to this effect.

 

[stantheman86]

Sorry to "zombie" this thread but I had to chime in........I tried the TulAmmo .357 today for the first time in a DA revolver, one of my range beater Ruger GP100's......fired fine, very accurate, but I had to tap the ejector rod against a piece of wood to get the shells out.

Normally I HATE doing this as the risk of breaking the ejector star makes my skin crawl but I had nothing else left but this ammo, no cleaning rod, and I was determined to get some range time in. Plus the ejector star on a GP100 is like 1/16" thick.......after 8 cylinders of having to use moderate tapping to get the cases out I called it quits and just fired some .22 before leaving.

This same revolver worked beautifully with over 1,000 rounds of TulAmmo .38 last summer , must be the increased pressure causing the cases to stick. Oh well, there's always the next range day.

That said my .357 Blackhawk loves the TulAmmo stuff, and sticky cases aren't an issue for plinking with a single action.

I have a 1,000 round case of the TulAmmo .38 left, $240 is too good a price not to keep buying the .38 stuff. However it does not get used in anything but "range blaster/training" revolvers.