As a former Hornady employee I can indeed confirm that the steel cased practice ammunition has had a checkered history.
All of the powers that be there know this. It is a recurring issue. They are quick to pay damages and replace equipment when these types of things happen. When I first started working there I was exited/hopeful to buy large quantities of this steel cased ammo at a deep employee discount. It turned out that this was never an option. I was quickly warned away by more than one employee from using ANY at all. (I will not mention their names/positions for fear of retaliation against them.) I even bought an older Bushmaster upper (sans bolt/carrier) from one of these guys there that had a “kaboom” from this ammo. The ejection port door would not close because of the bend/bulge/warp that was put into the ejection port area of the upper from the incident.
Now, in the 2 weeks that I spent in their loading area on assignment (I was a press operator), I saw what I suspected to be the cause for the majority of “kabooms” as related to the steel cased practice fodder. When talking to other employees that were in manning the loading stations (Specifically the steel cased training stuff), they themselves said that they felt that the Russian ammo (Wolf - etc) must have been produced in a different manner than how we were doing it in our facility- as we had great difficulty maintaining a consistent steel cased product. I agreed and watched/helped them load. I even was asked to assist in the QC process of a lot or two. What I found was in the case of the steel casings there was a tenancy to under crimp when first starting/testing the initial run for production. (Steel springs back in a different manner given the same force used than brass does - even when comparably soft). Then once the loadings were approved by downstairs on the test range, the production would commence…
Now it was mentioned repeatedly while I was there, the loading machines that were/are being used were frankly old as dirt, and had a habit of falling out of adjustment rather frequently. The machines that I saw being used (All of them minus the shot shell stuff –new production type machine, and large African game stuff- modified Hornady hand /progressive presses or the hated “Blue” Dillon hand operated progressive presses) were/are being used were of early WWII-Late WWI vintage - with modern day production alterations/updates done to them. Most ran remarkably well, but the complaint was that they still fell out of adjustment too often.
Back to the steel cased practice ammo…
Earlier I mentioned that the steel cases seemed to be under crimped at first. I personally helped re-crimp by hand, on a small “O” or “C” press, some 5000 steel cased training .223 rounds. After helping do this I asked if this was a common occurrence. The answer was yes. I asked if the training ammo had any specifications regarding bullet push and pull. The answer was “as long as it is crimped hard enough to keep the bullet in position” – this was worrisome to me. I even mentioned outright that steel stretches/crimps and has different elastic properties as compared to brass that seems similarly “Soft” or ductile. The chilling responding comment was – “it is just training stuff anyway, no big deal.”… - Ah yeah ok………
In the case of loading / high end re-loading there are Bullet “Push” / “Pull” specifications that manufacturers use (How much pressure, in pounds it takes to push the projectile from where it is crimped into the case mouth down into the case body itself), and Bullet pull which is the same except opposite. All military ammunition has specific push/pull requirements as part of their caliber/use specific TDP. Most if not all ammunition manufactures that care about quality, accuracy and consistency have ideal/target push/pull values established for their products – especially those that are intended for, or are likely to cycle through various types of self loading actions. Even some dangerous game loads have these specs due to their heavy recoil (to avoid “Bullet set back”).
Now let’s take into account the manufacturing consistency of the steel cases themselves. Now going from memory before Hornady had them change it, the cases were marked PPU on the bottom. The lacquer coated cases were and are manufactured overseas and shipped in to Hornady already primed. They are brought in by the “Barrel” (Large cardboard drum like containers similar to those that commercial/industrial powdered detergents come in) and stored at an off-site warehouse prior to their loading.
Taking into account the level of pay and incentive given to eastern bloc countries laborers to do their individual jobs well, and to maintain whatever their level of “Quality Control” that may or may not exist I can confidently say that there most likely exists a vastly higher level of inconsistencies in their finished products than compared to identical things produced here. In this case most likely varying thicknesses of the case walls of the cartridges, as somebody else mentioned undrilled flash holes in primer pockets, inadequately deep or completely uncut extractor grooves, inadequate / botched tempering of the work hardened casings , inconsistent thickness of the lacquer coating on said cases – etc. For all intents and purposes these specific steel casings “Could” be their seconds (I am not saying they are but who really knows without eyes on site.)
Honestly these are throw away items and are cheap and inexpensive for a reason – not only due to the material investment cost but workmanship and quality control.
Keeping workmanship in mind as both produced and seen by myself , the projectiles used in these practice cartridges are not of first quality. They are bullets culled from regular batch production runs that have disfigurements, inconsistent weights, improper materials used in their construction, improper lengths, accuracy issues, a combination of all of the above, etc, etc.
Now (I know it has been a long read) my professional assertion / belief is this: Once the press operator finds their machine has “Once again” fallen out of adjustment and the projectiles are not seated and crimped into place tight enough, that the operator adjusts the crimp die down too far and crimps the ever living piss out of the steel case neck, or does the same when hand crimping the unsatisfactory seated and crimped lot of cartridges that QC caught post machine assembly. Now it is basic science that the tighter you crimp the case neck the more pressure it takes to dislodge the projectile to release the pressure, in essence everything is staying bottled up longer before the crimp releases. This alone may be adequate enough to cause a “Kaboom”. But – add to it the higher possibility of a poorly manufactured case being thrown into the mix and things get more and more dangerous.
As was mentioned before, the reason that this training ammo is such a “Bargain” that it is made from imported steel cases and topped with second quality projectiles. At last I was informed there was markedly less hard specifications set for the actual production of these training rounds. Most (If not all) here understand “The Chart” in regards to quality, I would hold these “Bargain” training rounds as suspect as an “imported Oly carbine”…
—> APB
