Tula .223

[DougJ]

I've shot a bunch of this stuff without a single issue. The last 1K rounds I got from Cabelas is boxer primed and I've even reloaded 100 cases or so just to see how they worked. Again, no problems. Never had an issue with residue in the chamber, never a single malfunction.

I ran about 600 or 700 rounds of mixed ammo including Tula without any type of cleaning just to see if I could induce a problem... Nope.

[fullrearview]

I was thinking of getting some from CTD.

[captbilly]

Steel is much cheaper than brass

Is it because it's steel that makes it cheaper?

Ammo is generally a low profit business I think. When you get down to the lowest price ammo every penny counts. If they save a few pennies on raw materials then they can sell for a few pennies less. I don't see any inherent problem with steel case ammo, except corrosion obviously, but I do wonder about the polymer coated stuff. The issue with the coated ammo is that if you do some serious rapid fire the chamber will get hot enough to melt the plastic coating and it will gunk up the chamber. I assume that there is some solvent that will remove the plastic residue, but I don't know what solvent that is.

The only issue I have with cheap ammo in general, whether steel, aluminum or brass cased, is accuracy. For me the whole point of practicing is to improve my ability to put a bullet on the target. If the ammo is limiting your accuracy to 1 or 2 mil (milliradian, or about 4 MOA) then you can't know if you are improving or not. You can get some match grade ammo from places like HSM, Black Hills, Prvi Partizan, and sometimes even Federal, for anywhere from $0.50 to $1 per round in .223 or even .308. I realize that some of the really cheap stuff is even less than that, sometimes as low as $0.25 per round but unless you have tested it and found that it groups well then how can you know what it will do when you want to actually hit something. I suppose that if you are shooting a rifle from a standing position and you aren't very good anyway, and maybe the rifle isn't all that accurate as well, then the cheap stuff is useful.

[BKTJ]

I have shot the Wolf/Tula lacquer and polymer stuff for years and never had any problems. The lacquer stuff is pretty good with moisture, but the polymer coating rusts much quicker. You have to remember to clean the chamber of carbon (not lacquer). Plus the primers are really hard and the aftermarket triggers and light springs don't play well with each other. We have done 90 rd mag dumps and never had any of the coating melt. Heavy carbon blow by in the chamber, yes and its a real pain to remove. As a disclaimer I only shoot this stuff thru my beater ARs, not the good ones. The steel cases hitting the side of the receiver really beat the finish up.
Here is some accurate reading without the FUD:

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu18.htm

[rcschummers]

SHOT 100 ROUNDS OF 55 GRAIN ON SUNDAY, NO PROBLEMS. I BOUGHT 300 MORE ROUNDS MONDAY.

[donking]

Anybody out there had problems with the Tula steel case .223 ammo from Wally World? I fired one round from my AR and had a failure to extract. Didn't have a cleaning rod with me so that was the end of the day for the .223.

Bummer to hear about your FTE and the end of the day.

I had 3 FTF in a case of 500 Tula that I bought on-line. After the third one I added a couple drops of CLP to the bolt and had no problems the rest of the day.

There are some other threads about Tula, Wolf and Bears and buying on-line to get the cost down. Click here to see

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/search.php?searchid=10459602

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/search.php?searchid=10459621