polymer coated vs laquer coated steel case

[Chrispy]

i know, old arguement..

ill start with my EXPERIENCE

I built my AR, nothing special, just a new frontier armory plastic lower with a DPMS Oracle A3 upper... yea, the $600 special.

Ive put 1000+ rounds of .223 Tulammo steel case lacquer coated ammo down the pipe in the past 3 months.

what Ive discovered:

- If i pump a whole mag through, i have no issues. in the 1000+ rounds, ive had maybe 4 click-no fire issues, manual eject, next round fires no issue.

- IF i leave a round in the chamber while hot, it WILL get hot, melt the lacquer and fail to eject the case. ok, so i learned, if i dont fire a complete mag, drop the mag, eject the round, and let it cool off. were not talking 10 seconds, but 30 seconds or more between shots will cause this to occur. solution when it does, punch the tube with cleaning rod, until it forces out... again, something i can deal with to save $100-$200 every 3 months.

ive fired the steel cased tul in 9mm through my glock, and in 7.62x39 through my SKS with zero issues whatsoever... im not really interested in hearing how Russian ammo 'sucks'... after firing roughly 6000 rounds in 6 months of the stuff, i cant cost justify brass.

reloading: i don't reload, i shoot in the woods, and dont want to police my brass in grass and weeds. i don't have time (or patience) to spend reloading, and i don't have the 'stuff' to reload.

Baseline Pricing: I buy TulAmmo in 20 round boxes from walmart for $4.97 a box + tax. this works out to about 26 cents per round, after tax.

NOW THAT SAID:

its time to buy more ammo:

seems i cant find a 'definitive answer' on polymer coated ammo in an AR platform. some folks say it gums up their shit, while others say it shoots great.

Anyone have any true experience with BOTH lacquer and polymer coated steel cased ammo in an AR platform? not really interested in 'my buddy had... ' first hand experience please... if any.

thanks!!!

[Great-Kazoo]

Most of the WPA (wolf ) and tula offered is polymer steel case. I run both in the AK's polymer in the AR's.
What can you say when Hornady is offering it only head stamped Hornady instead of wolf or tula. If an ammo works across the board for the caliber's you are shooting, buy it, if not shoot something else.

[Circuits]

i know, old arguement..
- IF i leave a round in the chamber while hot, it WILL get hot, melt the lacquer and fail to eject the case. ok, so i learned, if i dont fire a complete mag, drop the mag, eject the round, and let it cool off. were not talking 10 seconds, but 30 seconds or more between shots will cause this to occur. solution when it does, punch the tube with cleaning rod, until it forces out... again, something i can deal with to save $100-$200 every 3 months.

...

seems i cant find a 'definitive answer' on polymer coated ammo in an AR platform. some folks say it gums up their shit, while others say it shoots great.

Anyone have any true experience with BOTH lacquer and polymer coated steel cased ammo in an AR platform? not really interested in 'my buddy had... ' first hand experience please... if any.

The lacquer does not melt, but leaving a steel round in a hot chamber will cause that round to heat up and expand some, which may be leading to the hard extraction you're experiencing in that situation.


So on to your question, I've fired tens of thousands of rounds of lacquered steel, and nickel-plated steel, and polymer-coated steel. The coating basically does not matter, it's how well your rifle likes a particular make of ammo. I will shoot nothing but brown bear, because my tens of thousands of rounds fired show that's the only inexpensive steel that my dozen-plus rifles all function well with, and I don't need stoppages on the line when I'm doing MG rentals.

I get a case of Wolf, Tula, WPA and the like once a year or so, and run it through all my guns side by side with the brown bear to see if anything's changed. As of the most recent run, WPA and Tula both still suck for my purposes, and the brown bear keeps right on going.

If you're having problems with the Tula, then Tula polymer (if they make such a thing) probably won't work any differently, and if WPA polymer works better, it's not because of the polymer vs lacquer, but that WPA is a better quality round, and your gun likes it better. As always, the best advice is to buy small quantities and TRY some to see what works well for you, before you go buying cases of it.

[Chrispy]

Thanks... my last case of 9mm was brown bear (best price at the time) and i haven't had any issues with it.

so what im hearing is that its not the coating, but the fact that steel expands more than brass and gets stuck. this is good because all the best deals right now are on polymer coated steel...

thanks for the info so far!

[nisils14]

I believe it's dependent on the gun, I have a BCM that I have fed a hundred or so rounds of Tula with no issues, but my buddy's AR won't cycle a round of it without jamming. The stuff is dirty as hell though, took me a lot longer to clean out just a hundred rounds of tula vs. couple hundred of PMC or American Eagle I usually put through mine. Which isn't too much of a issue if you like cleaning the crap out of your gun.