Ammo casings...what's the diff?

Millie

Millie

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In looking at ammo on various sites, I've seen all kinds of casing descriptions. I was sold steel casing ones for the revolver. I seem to have brass casing ones for the other 2 guns. I think one I was looking at said blazer brass, or brass blazer?? WTH?

So what are the pros and cons of different casing materials?
Do I need to google all this stuff and get confused by a bunch of articles written for people who know all the "shorthand", or will you guys tell me in wording I can understand?

Thanks!
 
Steel and aluminum cases are cheaper than brass. But they are not reloadable. So if you aren't going to reload it really doesn't matter.

Some people frown on using steel cased ammo but some people swear by it.
 
rantingredneck said:
Steel and aluminum cases are cheaper than brass. But they are not reloadable. So if you aren't going to reload it really doesn't matter.

Some people frown on using steel cased ammo but some people swear by it.
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Now turn the page. Everything after this is just Blah, Blah , Blah!
 
Brass "should" always work in your guns, there are exceptions to everything.
So if you try some steel or aluminum and have any issues go with brass.
The "Blazer Brass" is just their marketing.
 
rantingredneck said:
Steel and aluminum cases are cheaper than brass. But they are not reloadable. So if you aren't going to reload it really doesn't matter.

Some people frown on using steel cased ammo but some people swear by it.
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Thanks.
 
ronn47 said:
Brass "should" always work in your guns, there are exceptions to everything.
So if you try some steel or aluminum and have any issues go with brass.
The "Blazer Brass" is just their marketing.
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CCI Blazer was/is CCI's economy line aluminum cased ammo.

When they started marketing an economy line brass cased ammo they called it "Blazer Brass" to differentiate it from the aluminum cased stuff.
 
rantingredneck said:
Steel and aluminum cases are cheaper than brass. But they are not reloadable. So if you aren't going to reload it really doesn't matter.

Some people frown on using steel cased ammo but some people swear by it.
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Thanks.
 
Unless you reload there is no need to buy brass if you can get steel or aluminum cheaper.
 
One really important difference, some indoor ranges will not allow you to shoot steel or aluminum cased ammo.
 
JimB said:
One really important difference, some indoor ranges will not allow you to shoot steel or aluminum cased ammo.
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Yes, I saw a sign in one range about some ammo called Tula, they didn't allow it to be shot there. Not sure why.
 
My issue with steel and alum ammo is not that it does not work or that it is not accurate enough in concept. It is that the ammo companies use it to save cost which also means the use the cheapest primer, powder and projectile. You are getting the absolute lowest common denominator.

This does not mean it won’t work. For plinking it is perfectly acceptable for most tasks but it still is what it is. If it was just the case that was different and used the same quailty components that they use in brass cased ammo I imagine that the results would be similar but most the people producing steel cased ammo are doing so to hit a price point not make high quality ammo.
 
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wvsig said:
My issue with steel and alum ammo is not that it does not work or that it is not accurate enough in concept. It is that the ammo companies use it to save cost which also means the use the cheapest primer, powder and projectile. You are getting the absolute lowest common denominator.
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Truth in that.

I've got 12,000+ rounds of steel case 9mm through my G34, and in that time I've had at least a few dozen rounds that did not go off on the first hit. In all that time, I've not had any that haven't gone off on the 2nd strike, and none that have been over sized, or over length, or not fed/extracted OK. I have had mag feeding issues in Magpul glock mags, and in my factory mags after about 10k rounds, but cleaning all the junk out of the factory mags and replacing the worn springs made them run again.

I also run steel case in my AR, and my .45s. The only place I won't run it is in my 357. The steel cases stick HARD in that gun, to where you can't eject them by hand and have to use tools or really hammer the ejector rod. For the volume I shoot 357 (not much), it's not worth it. For everything else, I shoot steel.

Now I would never carry steel case ammo though. I'm not that cheap.
 
Jayne said:
Truth in that.

I've got 12,000+ rounds of steel case 9mm through my G34, and in that time I've had at least a few dozen rounds that did not go off on the first hit. In all that time, I've not had any that haven't gone off on the 2nd strike, and none that have been over sized, or over length, or not fed/extracted OK. I have had mag feeding issues in Magpul glock mags, and in my factory mags after about 10k rounds, but cleaning all the junk out of the factory mags and replacing the worn springs made them run again.

I also run steel case in my AR, and my .45s. The only place I won't run it is in my 357. The steel cases stick HARD in that gun, to where you can't eject them by hand and have to use tools or really hammer the ejector rod. For the volume I shoot 357 (not much), it's not worth it. For everything else, I shoot steel.

Now I would never carry steel case ammo though. I'm not that cheap.
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So for my EDC I should use brass case, and for practice I can use whatever is allowed at the range?
 
You can run into issues switching from steel back to brass. When a brass cased round is fired it expands to seal against the walls of the chamber. Steel cases do not and allow a little blowback of the hot gazes back into the chamber so the chamber eventually gets dirty. This is OK if you continue to shoot steel, but when you shoot brass again the expanding cases can grab the fouling in the chamber and stick hard.

No permanent damage though, just give the chamber a good cleaning before shooting brass again.

Edit: This is more of an issue with rifles, I'm not sure I've heard of this happening with the short cases of handgun ammo, but I'm assuming it's possible. If I shot a bunch of steel in my carry pistol I would clean the chamber (really easy to do on a pistol) and verify operation with my carry ammo afterwards, or at the very least the verify operation part.
 
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Millie said:
So for my EDC I should use brass case, and for practice I can use whatever is allowed at the range?
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That's basically what I'm doing.

I shoot my competition gun about 10x what I do my EDC though, so if start breaking parts it should be in the competition gun first.
 
My $.02. I just looked at Target Sports for ammo pricing. 380 ACP is 24 cents per round for brass case, 20 cents for steel. If you are buying ammo in 1,000 round lots for practice, steel case saves you $40. If you are shooting 10,000 rounds for practice in the next, say, year you're saving $400.

If you're going to shoot a few hundred practice rounds (or even a thousand) in the next few months, buy the brass and don't fret about it.

You have to spend some extra $$ on the EDC ammo to make sure your gun will cycle it. Don't assume because your gun works fine with (just an example) Fiocchi 95 grain full metal jacket on the range that it will automatically work fine with Fiocchi 90 grain jacketed hollow point. The worst that could happen is you discover, should you ever have a need for a gun in self-defense, that you have a single shot pistol, or slightly better a pump-action pistol.

I haven't followed your threads much about your pistol buying decision, so this might have been covered. Many guns, perhaps including a Sig P238, require a break-in period of 500 shots or more to become reliable.
 
dmarbell said:
My $.02. I just looked at Target Sports for ammo pricing. 380 ACP is 24 cents per round for brass case, 20 cents for steel. If you are buying ammo in 1,000 round lots for practice, steel case saves you $40. If you are shooting 10,000 rounds for practice in the next, say, year you're saving $400.

If you're going to shoot a few hundred practice rounds (or even a thousand) in the next few months, buy the brass and don't fret about it.

You have to spend some extra $$ on the EDC ammo to make sure your gun will cycle it. Don't assume because your gun works fine with (just an example) Fiocchi 95 grain full metal jacket on the range that it will automatically work fine with Fiocchi 90 grain jacketed hollow point. The worst that could happen is you discover, should you ever have a need for a gun in self-defense, that you have a single shot pistol, or slightly better a pump-action pistol.

I haven't followed your threads much about your pistol buying decision, so this might have been covered. Many guns, perhaps including a Sig P238, require a break-in period of 500 shots or more to become reliable.
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There is a lot of truth in this post. For me the choice between steel and brass for many should come down to volume of shooting. How many rounds are you going to shoot in a 6 to 12 month period. If you are talking about less than 500 rounds the difference between brass case and steel is not a big deal . $.04 a round maybe and so we are taking about $20. For $20 I would shoot the better ammo. Fiocchi vs Wolf for example.

Now if you are going to 10,000 rounds, like @Jayne does, now that $.04 starts to make a difference.

When I bought a lot of factory ammo before reloading personally shoot the cheapest/best brass cased ammo I can get at a price point I want to pay. Over the years have shot a lot of WWB, Ficocchi, S&B, RWS, AE, PMC, Greco etc... Most of the time I bought whatever was the best deal I could find. If you are going to shoot a lot dollar cost avg your ammo buying. I used to buy in cases. I would buy a case at least every other month. If you do it on a regular you can insulate yourself from pricing swings a bit. If you see a deal buy it in bulk.

Places like SGammo https://www.sgammo.com/catalog/pistol-ammo-sale/380-auto-ammo are good resources to see what the market price is current. Right now $.24 a round is a good price for brass and $.20 is a good price for steel.

For 380 auto self defense rounds I like anything loaded with the Horanady 90 gr FTX or XTP bullet. Their critical defense or the American Gunner are great rounds for 380 auto. IMHO. That is what I carry in my LCP.
 
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wvsig said:
If I was on that side of the state I would buy there too.
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If you buy a lot of ammo, it might be worth moving here. ;)
 
Cases used to be made out of copper in 1852-1880s, but when firing several rounds quickly and the gun heats up like at the Battle of Little Big Horn, rims tear off the case leaving the case stuck inside the chamber. Then they figured out the formula for Brass case which is elastic and expands (hence resizing during reloading). Steel has been used since WWI for cartridge cases and aluminum is usable to. There's plastic cases in development and caseless ammo even further back. Today there are two basic priming methods used for centerfire cartridges Boxer and Berdan. Boxer invented in Europe and reloadable easily. Berdan invented in the US but used by rest of the world and generally not reloadable. Berdan cases CAN be reloaded either brass, steel or aluminum. Just takes different process. There's then rimfire and electrically fired cases. Electrically fired usually military cannons.

Brass is the most expensive part of the cartridge, then bullet, primer and powder (last two depends on amount of propellent). That said that why steel and aluminum cases are a option to buy. Reloaders pay once for the case and then don't factor in during reloading. I also cast my own bullets so reloads only cost me pennies per shot. I think the reason for some ranges to ban steel cases is the fact that they pick up the brass and resale it. No market for steel and only few dollars per TON! Last time I was at the scrape yard it was $7 per lb for yellow brass for my scrape/unsafe brass. Copper jackets from the backstop get scrapped but all range lead goes into my casting pot.

CD
 
dmarbell said:
My $.02. I just looked at Target Sports for ammo pricing. 380 ACP is 24 cents per round for brass case, 20 cents for steel. If you are buying ammo in 1,000 round lots for practice, steel case saves you $40. If you are shooting 10,000 rounds for practice in the next, say, year you're saving $400.

If you're going to shoot a few hundred practice rounds (or even a thousand) in the next few months, buy the brass and don't fret about it.

You have to spend some extra $$ on the EDC ammo to make sure your gun will cycle it. Don't assume because your gun works fine with (just an example) Fiocchi 95 grain full metal jacket on the range that it will automatically work fine with Fiocchi 90 grain jacketed hollow point. The worst that could happen is you discover, should you ever have a need for a gun in self-defense, that you have a single shot pistol, or slightly better a pump-action pistol.

I haven't followed your threads much about your pistol buying decision, so this might have been covered. Many guns, perhaps including a Sig P238, require a break-in period of 500 shots or more to become reliable.
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I'm not buying in the 1000s of rounds yet. And I'm going to try out the ones I hope to carry all the time in the gun to see if it likes them. I'll make sure the jhp I choose are ones the Sig likes.
As far as break in, I have no idea how much it was shot before I got hold of it. (Should I have asked the gun store? Would the person who sold it to them have mentioned how much it was shot?)
Anyway, I'll be shooting it soon and finding out what it likes.
 
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Also, I'd look more at the brands than the materials.

As an example: Precision Cartridges use brass cases, but make terrible ammo. Dangerous ammo.

Hornady makes some ammo with steel cases, but makes some of the best ammo.

Remington's UMC uses brass cases, but is, frankly, unreliable.

 
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