Barnaul Ammo

[flenna]

Anyone shoot this? I have stayed away from steel cased ammo so this would be the first I have used. I wanted to boost my plinking ammo stash but in actuality I didn't mean to buy this- a long work day, then stayed up late while browsing ammo sites. Don't ask.... Anyway, anything in particular I need to watch for?

[NickySantoro]

Had some years ago. It was loaded a bit light and was dirty.

[Arik]

For which caliber?

I use tons of steel case in handgun and AK calibers. Tend to avoid it for ARs.

Yesterday I ran around 350 - 400 rounds of Brown Bear 9mm and had two light primer strikes in a G17.5. for the price I paid for them I ok with that

Most Russian commercial western ammo is loaded on the lighter side. Whomever wolf buys their steel case from is probably the most inconsistent

[NickySantoro]

5.56/.223. I don't recall how it was marked.

[Arik]

All Russian ammo will be dirty. It just is!

[turnburglar]

I have shot cases of wolf, Tula, and Red Army standard all in .223. The only one that ever gave me a issue was one stuck casing with tula. For training drills in the desert I can't find a reason not to use it. Only thing you gotta pay attention too is cleaning the chamber before switching back to brass ammo. Nothing crazy; just like some oil on a 9mm brush and scrub a little to make sure any of the polymer isn't left over.

[SA80Dan]

Barnaul is OK, Vympel also not bad in my experience. Dirty yes, but functionable as a rule. Steer clear of anything from the Tula factory though, I've found it more inconsistently loaded and problematic.

[flenna]

Thanks for the information. So it sounds like it is good to go and I’ll just need to clean my rifle more often.

[Aries144]

If it has bi-metal jacketed bullets, I'd avoid using it in with any barrel that you can't replace cheaply and easily. Bi-metal jackets cause a different type of wear that degrades accuracy much faster than copper jacketed bullets.

I'll refer you to this post and the luckygunner steel case ammo report.

Lysander places emphasis on the powder for barrel life, but look at the failure criteria: bi-metal jackets always caused failure due to accuracy loss/keyholing, barrels shot with copper jackets failed due to velocity loss, suggesting they were still sufficiently accurate.

TLDR:

Rifles can be expected to stay accurate shooting copper jacketed ammo for tens of thousands of rounds, though you may see significant velocity loss after 7-15k rounds.

Rifles can be expected to show significantly degraded accuracy after around 5-18k rounds of steel jacketed ammo, and begin to keyhole shortly thereafter.

My 5.56 Arsenal AK went from 2.5 MOA to 6+ over the course of 6-7k rounds of Wolf and Barnaul .223. No mag dumps, but it was used primarily for 2-gun and 3-gun competition.

[Bret]

Copper jacketed Wolf and Tula steel cased ammo is available.