Why not reload steel? Looking for some substantiated engineering thought. Not opinion

[dcmdon]

So I got back from a match recently and did my normal process of picking out the steel from the range pickup brass. It was much cleaner than normal range brass because it typically landed on a blue tarp and was then picked. Up.

Usually steel is easy to see because of the corrosion.
Occasionally a shiny piece of steel would slip through my QC bout would be caught when the berdan primer stopped me cold at the first stage with my Dillon 650.

So anyway I got nice fresh brass and decided to tumble it and reload this right away. I save once fired in my own gun for use for matches. I'm not doing anything anytime soon, so this would be a good way to turn unknown brass into known brass. Its my method, it may not be rational, I realize that.

So I crank out a couple of hundred rounds and give it a once over and find a round that has been reloaded with a steel case. Hmm. I got on a chair and looked into the hopper on my 650 and found a couple of unloaded, cleaned steel cases. A quick look confirmed they were boxer primed.

Well, to make a long story short, I picked the steel out and didn't use it. Then the next day when I was at the range I was collecting my brass and found that I had accidentally fired 2 or 3 pieces of steel reloads.
Inspection of the case showed no problems.

So . . . whats the problem with reloading steel. Its not like its necessary.

I'm not looking for "why bother there's plenty of brass". I know that. This is a question seeking answers to the physics and the metalurgy of why or why not to reload steel.

Thanks,

Don

 

[Bendad97]

I'm no engineer, but the first two non-opinion related thoughts that enter my mind are:

1. Steel is not as malleable of a metal as brass. It will not take the sustained sizing/firing/re-sizing cycles that brass will.

2. For the same reason listed above,(malleability), steel is going to be brutal on your dies, even carbides, shortening their service life.

Thoughts?

 

[EddieCoyle]

I know guys that reload it.

My experience is that the steel splits after a couple of loadings, and when reloaded and fired again, can expand to the point where it won't extract.

Back in the 80's, I got my first carbide sizer die (in .30 Carbine) and reloaded a bunch of steel cases. Three of the first 20 or so rounds I tried to shoot ended up stuck in the chamber with their rims ripped off. The third one broke the extractor.

Cartridge brass alloy is pretty consistent and predictable. On the other hand, there are 100s of different steels, with very different properties. The cases you picked up might work fine, and you may be able to reload them a dozen times without incident. The next ones might be a nightmare. Or maybe not. Mine didn't work all that well.

The world won't end if you get some steel mixed in and reload it (hello S&B Range-Safe 9mm), but I usually sort carefully enough to remove the steel.

ETA: I wouldn't worry about it wearing out a carbide sizing die because carbide is much harder than steel. The expander and crimp dies are a different story though. Again, a few here and there will probably be fine, but I'd be curious what a steady diet of steel would do to them.

 

[dcmdon]

I'm no engineer, but the first two non-opinion related thoughts that enter my mind are:

1. Steel is not as malleable of a metal as brass. It will not take the sustained sizing/firing/re-sizing cycles that brass will.

2. For the same reason listed above,(malleability), steel is going to be brutal on your dies, even carbides, shortening their service life.

Thoughts?

Item 1 makes no sense. So what if you get 4 reloads out of it before it splits vs 10. Its still 4 uses.

Item 2 makes a lot of sense and sounds like a decent reason to consider not reloading steel. Although I'd be more worried about the steel dies, not the carbide resizer.


Eddie - whats the working pressure of .30 Carbine? .45ACP is somewhere around 15,000 psi. I think I'm going to pull out the Tulamo .45s in my unsorted brass and see how they do. Thats what that nice looking steel case above has on its headstamp.

I've heard VERY good things about the hornady steel match. I'm guessing thats nice stuff also.

 

[dnepro-mike]

during manufacture steel cases go through 3-steps of heat treatments. I don't remember exactly at which point those treatments are applied, but it's done to condition properties of the alloy throughout the manufacturing steps.
there is an low-res video floating around on runet that shows the process of making steel-cased 7.62 round. has no English subtitles or anything like that but process itself is pretty self-descriptive. i'll post it here IF i can find it. it was from those ye-oldy days before video-streaming became a common practice. you actually had to download it so you can then watch it on you Windows Media Player 1.0.

here is the torrent:http://torrents.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=327911
not sure if it's the same one but better than nothing.

here is another one. this is more modern one though:


google-tranaslate:
At the workshops for the production of ammunition is hard to talk - here is an incredible roar. Approach the presses is not recommended either. The temperature inside reaches 800 degrees Celsius. Then the "glass" - blanks for cartridges - get on a special line where acquire recognizable shape - with arms and dulcitol. After crimping Dultsev pruned. Then sleeve washed in sulfuric acid solution and send to "rest" in the oven to remove the strain of the metal.
Left sleeve equip capsule, powder fill and connect with a bullet. Over dosage of the following techniques. Each holder of about 3 grams of powder. Similarly, make ammunition for sniper rifles - enhanced accuracy and armor-piercing. The difference is in the pool. This armor-piercing bullets with tempered steel core, which can penetrate steel plate 6 millimeters. SWAT uses cartridges for the silencer. This is a piece-goods, which is done by hand.
Before heading to the store, products are subject to strict control. Each staff member examines a shift 40,000 rounds of ammunition. Then the part of the party sent to the testing laboratory. Here cartridges is first heated to 50 degrees, and then freeze - up to minus 40. After the bullets are shot in the dash. With the help of special computer checks sensors powder gas pressure in the pocket and velocity. Only then will send products to the customer. If multiple defects found , the whole batch is destroyed.

 

[EddieCoyle]

Eddie - whats the working pressure of .30 Carbine? .45ACP is somewhere around 15,000 psi.

Max pressure for the .30 Carbine is 38,500 PSI. I've also seen it happen to a member here with his .40 S&W (35,000 PSI).

 

[NickW85]

I'm no engineer, but the first two non-opinion related thoughts that enter my mind are:

1. Steel is not as malleable of a metal as brass. It will not take the sustained sizing/firing/re-sizing cycles that brass will.

2. For the same reason listed above,(malleability), steel is going to be brutal on your dies, even carbides, shortening their service life.

Thoughts?

From the engineer.

Brass is very ductile to start so when cold working it by resizing you gradually change the hardness and make it less ductile. You could say it's increasing the strength as well but that is negligible because the brass is chambered when fired. So back to hardening from cold working. As the brass gets harder the ability to recover from elastic deformation decreases. If you can imagine the brass being like your bed mattress and when you sit on your mattress it deforms then recovers when you get up, brass does something similar but on a very small scale. Like your mattress over time you end up with permanent deformation from use. Eventually the brass cracks because the final resizing or fired pushes it beyond recovery point.

Steel is much harder to begin with and the dies are designed with the elastic deformation of brass in mind so you won't necessarily size the steel case correctly which is why EddieCoyle had issues chambering steel case reloads. In terms of ware on the die lets scale this in simple terms. Lets give brass a hardness of 1. Crappy steel is a hardness of 2. That's 2 times harder than brass. Sounds like a lot. The hardness of your carbide die is 180.

Just my $0.02

 

[dcmdon]

Thanks Nick.

If brass has a hardness of 1 and steel engineered for ductility for case use is a 2. Where would the STEEL dies used for crimping fall?

 

[EddieCoyle]

Where would the STEEL dies used for crimping fall?

Don't forget the expanding die.

 

[dcmdon]

I'm more thinking of them getting scratched than actually getting worn out of spec.

 

[EddieCoyle]

Scratches on the inside don't count?

 

[Fixxah]

Just do it, you know you are going to. Let us know how it works out.

 

[highscore]

Aside from thinking why even bother with steel when there is such a large amount brass cases left everywhere.... The hardness of steel makes it much harder to size and actually retract out of the die. Yes you can do it, but without lube you WILL be taking out the die from your press and removing a stuck case once in a while, probably more than once in a while. Do you want to lube straight walled pistol cases? Steel cases will load the radius of the die at the initial contact point, then all loaded cases will be scratched. Works the same way as brass does but loading will happen quickly with the steel cases and will be harder to remove from the die. Load up the die a few times, get a few cases stuck, throw in a broken expander, and you will see that it probably isn't worth the bother. Truthfully you probably won't wear out the carbide after many thousands of cases, as long as whoever is taking the load out doesn't get carried away. How many times can you load steel, never got that far.

 

[mac1911]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBAh_8usXBI theres a discussion over on the cmp forums about this also. Funny thing about steel is I have seen some friends now shooting the hornady steel case ammo in their "Only Brass Ammo through my AR" because its made better to be safe in ARs??????
Any how reloading steel is comeing eventually even if its just one or 2 loadings. steel and aluminum cases are getting more and more common at our club also. The brass recyclers are getting more and more of it too

 

[NickW85]

Thanks Nick.

If brass has a hardness of 1 and steel engineered for ductility for case use is a 2. Where would the STEEL dies used for crimping fall?

Good point. I would bet over time you would ware a ring in the tool where the case touches. Another reason to not size steel cases. I don't know the manufacturing process of the crimping die but I would consider it similar to the hardness of the steel case or harder. Nowhere near the hardness of carbide though.

 

[PEW]

As an engineer-in-training, I felt the need to try instead of believing unsubstantiated hype. I wanted to know if it could be done in an 'emergency.' It takes significantly more force to put a case through the (carbide) sizing die. My solution was to lube the steel cases; it makes them pass through the die much like brass. They fed/fired/ejected without issue.

I do not reload steel on a regular basis because of the availability of brass. I have also come to the conclusion that it can be done safely in 45 acp.

 

[NickW85]

As an engineer-in-training, I felt the need to try instead of believing unsubstantiated hype. I wanted to know if it could be done in an 'emergency.' It takes significantly more force to put a case through the (carbide) sizing die. My solution was to lube the steel cases; it makes them pass through the die much like brass. They fed/fired/ejected without issue.

I do not reload steel on a regular basis because of the availability of brass. I have also come to the conclusion that it can be done safely in 45 acp.

In a pinch I have seen steel cases work for reloading, but I wouldn't reload steel cases for a high end gun as tolerances tend to be tighter and your more likely to run into feed issues. Experiment first by sizing a steel case and fitting the case in the chamber to verify tolerance.

 

[dcmdon]

As an engineer-in-training, I felt the need to try instead of believing unsubstantiated hype. I wanted to know if it could be done in an 'emergency.' It takes significantly more force to put a case through the (carbide) sizing die. My solution was to lube the steel cases; it makes them pass through the die much like brass. They fed/fired/ejected without issue.

I do not reload steel on a regular basis because of the availability of brass. I have also come to the conclusion that it can be done safely in 45 acp.

Exactly my experience. I'm more interested in it from a perspective of a few sneaking through by accident. At this point I'm not going to worry about it.

for what its worth, I lube ALL cases. Even though you don't need to do it, it makes things easier. Just a second burst of one-shot then shake the around before I dump the brass into the hopper of my 650.

 

[dcmdon]

In a pinch I have seen steel cases work for reloading, but I wouldn't reload steel cases for a high end gun as tolerances tend to be tighter and your more likely to run into feed issues. Experiment first by sizing a steel case and fitting the case in the chamber to verify tolerance.

I have a lee factory crimp die that I use to essentially full length resize cases after they've been loaded. (I have the actual crimp adjustment backed out, so its really just another sizer)
I've found the half dozen or so steel cases I've accidentally reloaded to if anything be SMALLER then brass cased rounds. I'm guessing that the dies are sized assuming a certain amount or elasticity in brass before plastic deformation.
(a bone for you engineers)

I'm guessing that the steel used in these cases is less elastic than the brass and therefore takes a set closer to the actual size of the die.

Remember, this is not hard, spring steel. Its cheap steel that is soft intentionally so that it does not damage the chambers of the guns its used in.

Don

 

[EddieCoyle]

I have a lee factory crimp die that I use to essentially full length resize cases after they've been loaded. (I have the actual crimp adjustment backed out, so its really just another sizer)
I've found the half dozen or so steel cases I've accidentally reloaded to if anything be SMALLER then brass cased rounds.

This will also happen if the steel is thinner than the brass.

 

[dcmdon]

Just to give you a quick idea of how I reload. Its a D 650 with dillon dies, then I run it through a FCD if I'm going to be using it in any kind of competitive event.

Eddie - I disagree with you re case thickness. Think of it this way. The press works the OD of the case. The full length resizer resizes to the same OD regardless of thickness. Then the crimp die applies a taper crimp to a given OD. If the steel cases are thinner, this will result in a larger ID.

Either way, the case is dimensioned based on outer dimensions, not inner.

Don

 

[EddieCoyle]

Eddie - I disagree with you re case thickness. Think of it this way. The press works the OD of the case. The full length resizer resizes to the same OD regardless of thickness. Then the crimp die applies a taper crimp to a given OD. If the steel cases are thinner, this will result in a larger ID.

Either way, the case is dimensioned based on outer dimensions, not inner.

Don

I'm not wrong. What do you think the expander die does?

 

[EddieCoyle]

Cases have different thicknesses. If you only worked the brass from the outside, the OD would always be the same; but the important part from an accuracy standpoint (the ID) would be different whenever the case thickness changed.

For this reason, sizing dies intentionally make the cases a bit undersized. The expander die then expands the case mouth from the inside to the correct ID for the bullet. The expander die also bells the mouth of the case to make it easier to seat the bullet.

A lot of reloaders think the expander die is there just to bell the case. If that was true, why bother making them caliber specific?

Try this... Get a bunch of mixed headstamp brass, size it, then pull apart your expander die and try (by hand) to push each case onto the mandrel. See how some go on really hard (or not at all by hand)? Those are the ones that are thicker, and will be opened up when they go into the expander die. Mark the ones that you can't easily fit onto the expander mandrel, load them, and note how they feel when you run them through your factory crimp die. You'll find the ones that were hard to put onto the expander will require more force with the factory crimp die because they're the ones with thicker cases.

Therefore, if your steel cases are thinner, they will go through the factory crimp die easier.

 

[dcmdon]

I get what you mean. I generally considered the expander die to only bell the case. And did wonder why something with a nice constant taper wasn't used as a universal expander. I guess I learned something.

Also, the bullet tension based on the ID set by the expander die would be less if the case wall was thinner. Then the taper crimp die would crimp based on OD and the resulting ID would be bigger. Again, reaulting in less tension.

OK, time to go measure.

thanks for th thought provoking discussion.

 

[NavelOfficer]

Again, not from an engineer, but from a reloader of some steel cases...
.45 ACP Wolfs are a piece of cake. Boxer primed and they use the basic large pistol primers. I've had no issues with die damage or split cases. I don't work them excessively, of course, and it's a relatively low-pressure cartridge. I usually loose the cases in the tall grass before they fail. Preferably, I reload the polymer coated cases over the lacquered. It looks like you have a piece of the US .45 ACP training ammo that was made in steel cases.
Same with the 7.62x39 cases. Again, I usually gather up the recently fired polymer-coated cases, but I've reloaded Silver Bear, Norinco and others. I no longer have an SKS, but they functioned just fine as long as the cases passed the case gage check. You might have a minor flaw along the rim that gives you a bad fit, but reverse the case and see if that's where it binds and clean the burr and usually it's gtg. As long as you can find the LRB berdan primers (.217") you can usually decap the cases with water and the Lee .30 caliber decapper (sans pin). Run them through a neck-sizer die if they are too loose or use a little plastic wrap over the case mouth. The ones that don't decap readily or fail in the case gage, you may elect to toss before wasting too much effort on them. It's almost worth the trouble because boxer-primed 39 is not very common once-fired.
Romanian 8mm is about the only other steel I've reloaded. I don't reload to maximums and I've had good results reloading this and shooting them in my gas-operated Hakim. Again, I usually loose the cases before they have ever failed. Thjis stuff has the single flash hole, I believe. Berdan can be single, double or triple in my experience.
This is not a recommendation to reload steel, but it is possible to do it. If you have a strong cattle magnet, it makes picking up your fired cases a snap. If you shoot a match where it's impractical to police your brass, it's not a tragic loss to abandon the reloaded steel.

 

[Bendad97]

F**k it. Reload the steel cases. Why do I give a f**k ? I wish I was the guy who sold you reloading dies.........

 

[NickW85]

This

 

[MisterHappy]

This

dude. that's what the interwebs are for!

 

[NickW85]

dude. that's what the interwebs are for!

I know. I felt better though because I posted it.

 

[mac1911]

I cant see how this soft shit steel could wear on quality dies. Or a rifle for that matter.
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_42/367880_.html

I think steel case ammo reloads have their place.
I for one willload up some of the pulled 55gn fmj that I have with 844 surplus powder and wolf primers for range blasting with my FrankenARstein
Which has been fed a constant diet of all brands of steel case fodder.
these bullets have proven themselves shifty for anything else.