Magnetic or not - how do you tell?

[ar15barrels]

Everything is magnetic if you have the right magnet.

Please build me a brass magnet that does not attract steel.

[ke6guj]

Please build me a brass magnet that does not attract steel.

Heck, I'd take a man portable magnet that picked up brass and steel. I'd pick up everything and then go back with a regular magnet and separate the steel from the brass.

[ar15barrels]

Heck, I'd take a man portable magnet that picked up brass and steel. I'd pick up everything and then go back with a regular magnet and separate the steel from the brass.

I'm lazy.
I want to ride my unicorn to the range with my pet sasquatch carrying the brass magnet,
grab only the brass and get back home to have my supermodel wife reload it all for me.

[RELOAD243]

This is correct, FMJ means it has a copper jacket that fully coats the core. It is going to be either lead core(not magnetic) or steel core(magnetic).

FMJ is also the name of a great movie!

FMJ does mean full jacket almost, the rear end is open, and the jacket can be made of almost anything, some manufactures are using a nickel and copper mix in the jacket and it will stick to a magnet..

[somiskid]

The gold and black boxed 7.62x39mm Wolf ammo is non-magnetic. It'll say "Copper Jacketed" on the box. Everything else is bi-metal jacketed and magnetic.

yes because i bought the military classic box's and got kicked off the range last weekend because it was magnetic!!!

[More Juice]

im not sure about other parts of California, but a lot of ranges around LA are strict. Even indoor ranges say "no steel."

i agree that the manufactures and stores should be a bit more descriptive.

[rc50cal]

The gold and black boxed 7.62x39mm Wolf ammo is non-magnetic. It'll say "Copper Jacketed" on the box. Everything else is bi-metal jacketed and magnetic.

Do you mean the standard black box with "WOLF" in red and "7.62 x 39 mm" in gold? I took some Wolf to Angeles last week. It passed their magnet test, but I had loaded it onto stripper clips years ago and don't know which load it corresponds to. The Brown Bear I also took failed the magnet test.

Are our only other options corrosive Yugo or Winchester white box?

[five.five-six]

Let me know when the brass magnet is available.

LOL, yea, me too, i need one of those

[RELOAD243]

This is correct, FMJ means it has a copper jacket that fully coats the core. It is going to be either lead core(not magnetic) or steel core(magnetic).

FMJ is also the name of a great movie!

This is not correct, FMJ means a jacket of any material, ie. most of the wolf stuff that stick to a magnet has a lead core but the jacket is bi-metal, meaning it has mostly copper with nickel added, the nickel sticks to the magnet..

[Mssr. Eleganté]

...most of the wolf stuff that stick to a magnet has a lead core but the jacket is bi-metal, meaning it has mostly copper with nickel added, the nickel sticks to the magnet..

This is not correct. Wolf has "copper washed" steel jackets. They make it this way to save money. Steel is much cheaper than copper. It would be ridiculous for them to use nickel in the jackets nowadays, since nickel costs more than copper. Also, cupro-nickel hasn't been popular as a bullet jacket material for many decades since it leaves so much metal fouling in bores. If you really believe that cupro-nickel will stick to a magnet, try picking up a U.S. "nickel" 5 cent coin with a magnet.

[RELOAD243]

This is not correct. Wolf has "copper washed" steel jackets. They make it this way to save money. Steel is much cheaper than copper. It would be ridiculous for them to use nickel in the jackets nowadays, since nickel costs more than copper. Also, cupro-nickel hasn't been popular as a bullet jacket material for many decades since it leaves so much metal fouling in bores. If you really believe that cupro-nickel will stick to a magnet, try picking up a U.S. "nickel" 5 cent coin with a magnet.

Suggest reading http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=362 about nickel and its properties, same as iron (steel) and cobalt.

[Mssr. Eleganté]

Suggest reading http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=362 about nickel and its properties, same as iron (steel) and cobalt.

And I suggest you try picking up a U.S. "nickel" coin with a magnet. They are made with 75% copper and 25% nickel. You said a bullet jacket that was "mostly copper with nickel added" would stick to a magnet. You said nothing about 100% nickel bullet jackets.

Nickel has averaged about $6.50 per pound over the last year while copper has averaged about $2.50 per pound. What reason could the Russians have for using nickel in their bullet jackets when it costs more than twice as much as copper, and every other military in the world gave up cupro-nickel jackets decades ago because of the fouling problems?