TexasCHLforum.com

I have an Ak on order expected by the end of the month. I see tons of steel cased ammo for sale in 7.62x39. I have heard russian ammo works fine in russian guns. Not so much in an AR though. I realize the steel case might be harder on the AR style rifle...but what makes the Ak style rifles immune or tougher than the AR and are there any downfalls to shooting the less expensive steel cased ammo other than not being able to reload the case. Also why or why would you not want to shoot corrosive or mildly corrosive ammo? I assume its bad and thats why its so cheap...

I have been through a few hundred rounds of wolf in my SKS without a problem. The stuff is messy, but that's my only complaint and at it's price I can live with that.

Wolf is non-corrosive. If you were to find corrosive ammo in 7.62x39 (I haven't been seeing surplus available for some time) it would mean more work to clean, and really probably isn't worth it. I shoot corrosive ammo in my Mosin, but that's way easier to clean than my SKS.

a. The inherent slop in the AK is what allows it to shoot steel case ammo, and eat em and eat em and eat em!
b. The chambers in AK usually have less accurate tolerances (yet still safe) so the steel case is a non issue.
c. Until several hundred to thousands of rounds are put thru very tight tolerance AR's the steel case will probably bind up and have difficulty extracting

Has anyone run into a type of ammo their Ak will not eat? I am interested in ordering a 1000rd case and all I can find is steel cased ammo. Like Wolf classic, Golden Tiger, Romanian surplus, or brown bear stuff. All about the same price...are any of those better than others and would anyone want to piggyback my bulk order with more of whatever I choose?

RECIT wrote:Has anyone run into a type of ammo their Ak will not eat? I am interested in ordering a 1000rd case and all I can find is steel cased ammo. Like Wolf classic, Golden Tiger, Romanian surplus, or brown bear stuff. All about the same price...are any of those better than others and would anyone want to piggyback my bulk order with more of whatever I choose?

I have quite a variety of different brands of 7.62x39 and if you are ever in the Jacksonville area I'll be happy to sell you a box of each kind that I have if you'd like to try them out.

Golden Tiger seems to work the best for me, followed by Wolf. I have been pretty unhappy with Brown Bear (had feeding issues with that, both in SKS and AK47 rifles).

RECIT wrote:Has anyone run into a type of ammo their Ak will not eat? I am interested in ordering a 1000rd case and all I can find is steel cased ammo. Like Wolf classic, Golden Tiger, Romanian surplus, or brown bear stuff. All about the same price...are any of those better than others and would anyone want to piggyback my bulk order with more of whatever I choose?

ammoman has come up 50 dollars in the last 2-3 weeks on the 7.62x39 ammo, but you can get most of the bulk stuff for 250 shipped. Golden Tiger, Wolf, Surplus.

I ordered a 1000rd case of the Golden Tiger so i will let you know how it does...

If your AK has issues with any ammo, you should have a gunsmith look at it.

I recently attended an AK-only class and none of the 24 shooters had any issues with their semi-auto weapons over 4 days. NONE.

austin wrote:I recently attended an AK-only class and none of the 24 shooters had any issues with their semi-auto weapons over 4 days. NONE.

Was that a Suarez class? Just wondering...

I've shot Russian ammo through my AR, didn't have any problems with it at all, I think it was steel cased too (probably wolf but I can't remember for sure) I had only shot about 20 decent rounds before that before, it's basically brand new, so I don't see any problems, though I have heard of people reporting light firing wolf ammo.

Recently, Academy had the stuff on sale for 2.99/20 round box, so I bought up a couple thousand rounds. They look and shoot like Wolf, but they have laquer on the steel case. I shot up 500 rounds at the range without cleaning my Romanian, and had no problems. My dad had just bought a Romanian WASR same as mine, and it continually failed to feed. Tried some different ammo and had the same problems. I took the rifle apart and discovered that dear old dad had forgotten to completely field strip it to clean out all the Cosmoline gunk out of the works. Taught him how to break it down and clean it right there at the range. Once the stuff was cleaned out of it, he fired around 250 rounds through it no problem. In short, if your AK has problems feeding, its probably full of gunk! Seriously, AKs are a very durable platform that while being gas operated, lack the fouling problems with the gas feed that ARs use due to the use of a gas piston. They will eat anything you can feed them. I dont recommend not cleaning your rifle afterward, but it shouldnt have any problems. If it does, and its not due to being very dirty, take it to a gunsmith and find out why.

Steel case is fine with the AKs due to their inherant 'slop'. The close tolerances that cause problems in some ARs do not exist with them until you start getting into the really expensive ones, and even those rarely have problems.

Buy up some Russian stuff to have fun plinking with. You probably wont regret it.

Lots of words to say so little, right?

Thanx for the learnin and advice.

I've owned 3 different AK's , have fired thousands of rounds of all kinds of 7.62 x 39. Some of it rusty and dirty. I have never had a jam of any type with my AK's or any of my 3 dozen mags. I have opened hundreds of beer bottles with the feed lips of one of my ak mags, and have never damaged it, try doing than with just about any other magazine. All that being said, I'll take my AR in a pinch, but the AK's are trouble free.

I have never had issues with using any AK ammo either. However, corrosive AK ammo is corrosive. If you don't clean your rifle, you WILL see corrosion in the barrel and the gas tube area. Don't ask me how I know.

On the comment about steel case in AR's, I have used steel case in brand new AR's before with no issues (after breaking in with brass). From what I have heard, the ammo don't work so well in rifles chambered for 223 only so you have to look at what you rifle is chambered for. Also, the steel case doesn't seal the chamber as well so you get more crap fouling your chamber. I have seen tests/accounts that said brass cases can have a tendency to "stick" in the dirty chambers after using steel case. I think the test had issues with south african surplus .223. I have heard the steel case is hard on extractors also. IMO, buy a box to try it out. If it works, use it for plinking and playing around. You might buy a spare bolt/extractor just in case.

Just stay away from wolf.


Monarch has a pretty good deal once in a while.


I remember at a gun show, there were couple stands with the same deal. 500 rounds of 7.62x39 monarch ammo for $100 walk out.


check out gun-deals.com

you'll find awesome deals from time to time