Actual experience shooting two "non-toxic" 9mm loads:
I never succeeded in buying non-toxic primers. Canada Ammo said that they could/ would bring them in - on request (in this thread) but then failed to respond when i emailed them repeatedly on this. Another person said that hey had the necessary permits to bring them in but never followed through. I abandoned my idea of reloading my own non-toxic ammo when the indoor range where I belong changed the rules to say that only factory non-toxic ammo would be allowed - not non-toxic reloads.
I ended up buying a few boxes of factory non-toxic ammo to try out. I found two types on the shelves in Eastern Ontario. SFRC had some Wolf non-toxic RELOADS at about $19 per box while That Hunting and Fishing store had a few boxes of
Sellier & Bellot nontox 9mm at about $20 per box.
I shot this stuff on a nice summer's day at an outdoor range. The differences were like night and day. Maybe tomorrow I'll post the results. Meanwhile, can anybody guess?
Actual Findings/ Possible Conclusions:
Here is what I discovered. Both types of loaded, nontoxic ammunition shot well - just the same as any other factory ammo or my handloads.
The big surprise came on inspecting the fired brass - and the gun - after its use.
My first experience shooting this nontoxic staff involved shooting a magazine of the
Sellier & Bellot NT ("Nontox") stuff, then another mag of the Wolf NT reloads (both in the same 9x19 gun). The fired cases from the Sellier & Bellot ammo looked like virgin unfired brass after shooting. The insides of these cases were gleaming brass colour with
zero residue of any kind -
actually kind of creepy!
The fired cases from the the Wolf NT reloads looked like any other brass case you ever saw - with that fairly ugly gray/ blue/ black heavy residue covering all internal surfaces of the case.
The other surprise was that the primers on the Sellier & Bellot fired cases were totally flattened - and even showed signs of some punctured firing pin marks and surface scrapes - all things we would associate with a very hot load;
yet the ammo did not shoot hot, per se.
About a week are so later I ended-up shooting another two boxes of Sellier & Bellot 9x19 Nontox ammo in a gun that had just been cleaned. That ammo was the same type as what I use before but presumably came from a different lot. I say that because the issue of the flattened primers completely disappeared.
I took the gun apart and inspected after two boxes
and was amazed. The gun looked as if it had not been fired. This ammo is wildly clean. I have to assume that most of the crud that ends up in your gun after shooting conventional ammo comes from the normal non corrosive (but toxic) primers and/or the interaction of the burned lead containing primers and the propellant (creating some dirty residue byproduct).
Putting all health issues aside, if like a really clean gun and
really clean fired brass you might want to shoot Sellier & Bellot Nontox - just for that reason - indoors or out.
As for the weird flattened primers on the first occasion when I shot Sellier & Bellot Nontox ammo, I have since read that "With lead-free DDNP primer compounds is that the initial primer pressure impulse is greater than normal primers" (source:
the Oct 2011 HANDLOADER magazine by Charles E. Petty entitled "HOW GREEN IS MY PRIMER"). Since the load itself didn't seem at all hot, the suggestion, to me, is that if you ever shoot some nontoxic ammo and get flattened primers, you can probably just ignore that - i.e. no issue (as long as there are no other signs of excess pressure).
As far as I can see, shooting the Wolf NT reloads
requires that you are a trusting person - as it is your RO - if you shoot at an indoor range which requires only lead-free/ nontoxic primers.
Why? Because the only thing that serves to convince anyone that this stuff is, in-fact, lead free/ nontoxic primed is a tiny, really faint "nt" scratched on the surface of the primer itself. The cases are just any old, previously fired brass of any brand, WIN, FC, etc.
The second that the Wolf NT cartridge is fired, it looks like any other crappy, fired 9mm case. Dirty inside - with apparent normal primer residue - and that faint "nt" scratched on the surface of the primer itself has completely disappeared. So ... if the RO comes up and picks-up these cases, there is NOTHING to support your story that it is non-toxic; except for what remains in the box and maybe in your magazine (and your honest face - if applicable).
As for why these cases end up just as dirty as any other fired case, inside, I can think of
two possibilities. The first is pretty innocent. Specifically, that Wolf is obtaining once-fired cases that already have lead primer residue in them (from the first firing) and they make no effort to clean this out. That could have the effect that, when
genuine non-toxic primers are seated in a case and it is then loaded and fired, the original residues of lead compounds, etc. remain in the fired, Wolf NT ammo cases.
The second
possibility is that Wolf NT ammo
doesn't actually use lead-free primers - and that a scam is involved (somewhere in the supply chain); where someone just arranges to have NT scratched on normal toxic primers - and no one has figured that out yet. Please note that I
don't have a suspicious mind but, on the other hand, there are many known scams involving the supplies of shooting products.
Wolf apparently will not tell people where they get their NT primers (which are otherwise unattainable in Canada); and they will not sell any of the ones they have to others (wholesale or retail). One could guess that they are getting these NT primers (if applicable) from Russia; since they seem to repackage a lot of different Russian-sourced ammunition products. Tula does make nontoxic primers but they have a bad reputation and don't have NT scratched on their surface.
I actually bought a home lead testing kit from Home Hardware - for $21 - and was going to test my fired Wolf NT cases with it. That never happened because, by the time I got the kit, the Wolf NT cases could not be identified - since, as I noted, the second they are fired, a look like any other fired case. Besides that, I suppose they would test positive for lead anyway; because of the use of once-fired cases, in the reloading process.
Who cares right? Well actually this could be a big deal if there is a scam involves somewhere in the supply chain (perhaps someone in Russia is selling Wolf fake NT primers - to get back at American for faking the Moon landing, or Donald trump is involved somehow, or whatever). Regardless, the implication is that a whole bunch of supposedly lead free/ nontoxic indoor shooting ranges are being contaminated with lead. Probably not, but it would be good to be sure.
