Originally Posted by
Zhurdan
Would you say it's better to shoot less with better ammo?
Seriously, feeding a gun with enough ammo to become proficient isn't cheap. If all they're doing is shooting dirt clods on the weekends, and you want your gun to last 4 lifetimes, sure buy the good stuff, but if you're sending 3-4k rounds down range per year, the 0.20 cent differential can replace anything that goes wrong by shooting steel cased ammo. (not that I've seen any ill effects over the years) The plus side is, you actually can afford to shoot the rifle rather than worry about how expensive it is to do so.
Nowadays, I can afford to buy IMI when it's available, but back in the days of pinching pennies, I shot a metric shit ton of steel cased ammo thru all sorts of guns. It kept me shooting so I didn't lose any skill thru lack of use.
Guns have and always will contain "consumable" parts. We all know the basic ones... magazines, springs, etc. but barrels and uppers fall into that category as well, just on a longer time frame.
I'd rather someone shoot what they've got with steel cased ammo than let it sit in the safe because their wallet cries every time they shoot it.