Ever seen .223 brass that part plastic?

[xrMike]

I was up in Arnold, CA all last week. I took my pistolas and went out past White Pines Lake and found a nice safe spot a couple miles down a dirt road that meandered past the lake. This spot had obviously been used by many others for that purpose, due to the high number of spent brass and shotgun shell hulls lying around.

One case that caught my eye was weird. It was brass/metal on the bottom half inch only. The upper 2/3 of the case was a hard plastic that would actually cave in if you pinched it between your thumb and forefinger.

I looked at the headstamp and it was some kind of .223 made my Remington.

Anybody ever seen .223 with a partial plastic case before? What kind of ammo was that?

[sargenv]

Yeah, I bought some of this stuff In AZ when I went to a match down that way a few years ago. It was thought of as a possible inexpensive way to make ammo. Polymers were thought to be cheaper than all brass ammunition. I think the name of the company was like PCA or something similar. They had different colors of plastic for different bullet weights. 55 fmj's were grey, 62 gr was like yellow, etc. Kind of a neat idea that apparently didn't work out in the real world. I think they had some issues with the ability of the polymer to hold up to specific conditions. The 4 or 5 boxes of the stuff I had worked fine in my accurized Mini-14, but since they are unreloadable, it would only be good for those people who want to shoot it and leave it. As I recall, I think they were $4/20 about 3-4 years ago. At the time, Wolf was going for $3/20. I think I still have a box left over for my oddball collection.

[jkasandiego]

I saw this at Turners last week.Didn't bother buying it.

[JPglee1]

Yes... RSSSLVR and myself shot some out of his Robinson M96... It works out at moderate shooting speeds and heat. BUT start running it full auto or fast successive double taps and the tail can rip out of the body leaving a stuck PLASTIC cartridge to deal with (with no RIM??!) I was scared of it "double stuffing" where one body is sitting in chamber and then another on top slides intside it, locking the gun up.

They are made by NATEC

Reducing the weight of ammo was the driving force behind Natec’s polymer-cased cartridges. A Natec spokesman said the company’s ammo weighs about 24% less than standard brass-cased cartridges; additionally, because of polymer’s insulating characteristics – less heat transfer results in more efficient energy utilization -- bullets can be loaded with 15% less propellant and still deliver ballistic performance similar to conventional ammo. The reduced flash resulting from the polymer-cased bullets, he said, was an unanticipated benefit.

http://www.natec-us.com/products.php

Argh..its good to be back.

[xrMike]

That's the stuff! Thanks you guys, I'd never seen it before and didn't know anything about it.

[JPglee1]

Yer welcome....man I miss Calguns... The withdrawls are lightening up already hhahaha


J

[xrMike]

Glad your back and hanging around again, and things are going better for you.

[rssslvr]

Yeah I'm not too fond of that ammo.As JP said when you are rapid firing it doesn't work so great,I wanted to bump fire my M96 but was too worried about the ammo after seeing how it was working out just rapid firinig it

[virulosity]

These seem ideal for a bolt gun (Unless you reload of course) if they are cheaper and maintain the same accuracy.