Just had a random thought about copper washed steel jacketed ammunition and was wondering if the steel jacket is hard on a barrel or not since it should be essentially steel on steel. I'm guessing a chrome bore would hold up better but the question still stands as the copper plating wouldn't provide much barrier between the rifling and steel jacket. Things like steel core ammunition don't seem like they would have this issue at all as the steel should be surrounded by lead. Thoughts?
Steel Jacketed ammo - hard on barrel?
- Thread starter Freyr_255
- Start date
The jacket on steel jacketed ammo is soft, wont have much effect on barrel. chrome lined or not. Rapid fire+heat will do way more damage to a barrel.
Joce
Blastattack
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Winnipeg MB
Wrong answer. Steel jacketed ammo does an incredibly large amount of wear to a rifle barrel. I'll dig up the study and post it.
Blastattack
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Winnipeg MB
After 6000 rounds of Bi-metal bullets (steel kaceted, copper plated), barrels were worn to a smoothbore. After 10,000 rounds of federal, the barrel still had "plenty" of rifling left and maintained it's accuracy.
http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/brass-vs-steel-cased-ammo/
http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/brass-vs-steel-cased-ammo/
That's a really interesting study, thanks for posting it. Quote:
Why Did The Barrels Wear The Way They Did?
...
The first answer to this question is, “Because we shot them until they got hot, and then we kept shooting them.”
/endquote
Just like Joce said. The bimetal only accelerates wear after the barrels are super hot (far beyond what you'd do in regular use). I bet there are users on here who will chime in saying that they shot tens of thousands of rounds of copper-wash-steel-jacketed without issue. These users probably didn't abuse their barrels like was done in the test.
Why Did The Barrels Wear The Way They Did?
...
The first answer to this question is, “Because we shot them until they got hot, and then we kept shooting them.”
/endquote
Just like Joce said. The bimetal only accelerates wear after the barrels are super hot (far beyond what you'd do in regular use). I bet there are users on here who will chime in saying that they shot tens of thousands of rounds of copper-wash-steel-jacketed without issue. These users probably didn't abuse their barrels like was done in the test.
People don't seem to get that X39 Is completely different than .223. .223 rifling is narrow and shallow, X39 rifling is not. X39 can handle very high round counts of steel jacketed ammo. .223 cannot. You can dump cases of X39 steel jacketed surplus through your SKS, 858, AK, whatever without any worry. Chrome lining does very little for barrel life in this caliber and mostly helps with corrosion resistance and speeds up cleaning. If it was as hard on X39 barrels as it was on .223 I'd have some seriously wrecked SKS's by now. But nobody has shot one out that Ive ever heard of. Shoot all the bimetal you want in X39, keep it away from your .223.
Blastattack
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Winnipeg MB
This is true and is a fair point. Regardless, it does show that steel jacketed bullets do increase the wear done to a rifle.
LordEvilPepper
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Under a rusty barge in BC
one create of steel jacket norc ammo did in my russian non crome lined SKS, last 5 inches of the barrel were smooth. could see sparks coming out the barrel when firing.....
"...steel jacketed ammunition..." Designed for use in military battle rifles. The issuers of said rifles didn't care about wear and tear. Neither did the illiterate conscripts who were issued the ammo.
"...nobody has shot one out..." Shot out generally means the accuracy has gotten really bad. Hard to do with a rifle that wasn't made for great accuracy.
"...nobody has shot one out..." Shot out generally means the accuracy has gotten really bad. Hard to do with a rifle that wasn't made for great accuracy.
