I’ve been shooting xm193 and other high quality brass cased ammunition without a hiccup in my Armalite 16" midlength, and wolf 55gr hp more or less reliably.
Today I took it out shot some black hills 60gr sp no problem, followed by 100 rounds of 55gr hp Wolf ammunition of more often then not short strokes, failing to feed out of four different magazines that otherwise function(until I used the situation to drill double feeds and ftf liberally, anyways). I use slip 2000 for lube and don’t have these problems even colder with better ammunition. It was about 10F.
Is this stuff just garbage or do I have a problem with my gun. Thanks.:rolleyes:
steel casings don’t transfer heat as well as brass. i’ve read that this can cause them not to shrink quickly enough for a smooth extraction(casings expand to fit the walls of the bore when fired). however, this has never been the case when i’ve used wolf. i probably have around 500 rounds of wolf down the barrel with zero failures. wolf ammo has a bad rep because they used to use coat their casings with lacquer – this caused a sticky residue to build up inside the chamber that caused FTEs and other failures. they have since stopped coating their casings with lacquer.
i have had short-stroking symptoms occur before but it was do to the lube i was using… it was a grease… basically caused my AR to become a single shot rifle. switched to clp and haven’t had any issues since. hope this helps.
I had problems with silverbear when ussing the H, just wondered if that was you problem. I switched to the standard 2.9 like yours and no problems since except a GI mag that became a target.
I’ve seen many Wolf ammo failed to fire and you’re probably not saving any money especially if you plan to do any training courses. You’re better off sticking with USA manufactured ammo and there are issues associated with foreign made ammo because of materials used and quality control (lack of) IMO. You actually answered your own question when your used different ammo to trouble shoot the problem you’ve had.
The lacquer coating issue is not accurate. This has been a common misconception on the internet for some time. Yes, steel cased ammo does contribute to FTE, however this is not due to lacquer melt-off. You can take a blow torch to a lacquer casing and it will not melt off or become sticky. Wolf switched to a polymer coating for the US market simply because they got such a bad rap with lacquer. Laquer coating is still quite popular in Europe and most of the maintenance schedules mention chamber cleaning as a regular regime.
Steel cases are harder than brass, but MUCH softer than a chrome lined chamber. So, the steel does not swell as much as brass after ignition and some of the gases seep into the chamber. These gases foul up the chamber with additional carbon deposits and after a while, the chamber is carbon fouled and needs to be cleaned. Wolf is a particularly dirty brand of ammo…just about every aspect of it is made cheaply. Using Wolf causes more rapid carbon fouling of the chamber. When quality primers and powders are used, steel cased ammo runs fairly clean and reliably. Hornady for example makes steel cased .223 ammo that many users have reported firing thousands of rounds inbetween cleanings and have had zero malfunctions.
I’ve seen more problems with XM193 than I’ve seen with Wolf in carbine courses, popped primers, in all incidents. I run Wolf and Lacquered Barnaul, exclusively for personal range use and at carbine courses with ZERO malfunctions with the ammo. I’m talking 20K+ of Wolf and 10K+ of Barnaul fired. A number of issues can be the cause. A bad lot of ammo can happen to any brand. How it was stored (environmental), especially when buying ammo at gun shows. A 223 chamber, despite being marked 5.56MM on the barrel. It is underpowered compared to first rate brass 5.56MM, but given that typical 5.56MM 55gr runs around 3250FPS and Wolf around 3100 to 3150, is it really that underpowered to not cycle reliably? Look closely at PMC Bronze (which some people also complain about it being underpowered), and you will find it pretty much matches Wolf’s velocity. For me it is an economical means to conduct my training. I’d consider a weapon substandard if it won’t run with Wolf.
I understand your point and agree for the most part. But that said I have also seen some pretty nice rifles have trouble with them. So much so in fact that personally I never shoot Wolf but rather boxed Federal XM193 for general practice. I know some here have had issues with them as well, but personally I see more with the Wolf.
And remember, some guys shoot XM193pd at the range but may not know the difference. They can be all messed up, which I have also seen firsthand.
I hate the “I have a friend whos cousing knows a guy that has had Wolf malfuntions…” and hope this thread does not go that direction.
Like RogerinTPA, I too use Wolf and Barnul for carbine courses and recently, have used them exclusively and have not had a problem. I have fired Wolf for years. This is for years now.
This gets brought up time and time again. No more malfuntions than anything else…I do believe it is underpowered compared to its military cousins.
Getting that magic buffer weight that will work with all loads seems to be the path to take.
Wolf is, generally speaking, underpowered compared to ammo that tries to mimmic mil-spec. Some guns struggle with weak commercial ammo like Wolf because they are tuned for function and service life using the military spec ammo. Bushmaster, for instance, uses a larger gas port than the Colt 6920 to compensate for this ammo difference. The Bushmaster’s larger gas port lets more gas through which helps to power the function of the weapon with weak ammo, but leaves the gun a bit “over gassed” with mil-spec stuff.
I don’t know off-hand what size your Armalite uses. If it’s military spec, then the Wolf ammo might not have enough “oomph” to make the weapon function every now and then. You can try tweaking the gun’s springs and buffer to accommodate the Wolf ammo or you can leave it alone and stick with different ammo if the occasional short stroke causes you intolerable frustration.
This makes a bunch of sense to me. I’ve come to the conclusion wolf ammunition is garbage. You can see, smell, feel, hear, and most importantly shoot the difference.
I suspect from this and other documents that armalite has this rifle set up to fire nato spec rounds, and wolf ain’t it. Congrats if yours shoots it, you can have it
Originally Posted by RogerinTPA View Post
I’d consider a weapon substandard if it won’t run with Wolf.
This.
Armalite’s response to my query:
Your 15A4CBA2K works with 52 - 69 grain ammo but you’ll need to try a
box at a time to see what works best in your particular rifle. Don’t
use Wolf ammo as it’s inferior and if its steel cased will scratch your
chamber and if it has a lacquered finish it will foul your barrel
severely causing hours of cleaning time. Stick with good quality
5.56X45 or .308 Remington ammo.
I’m happy my rifle isn’t tuned for this garbage and there is no problem Thanks for the input everyone. Could an oversized gas port may be causing some rifles to function Wolf well result in the anecdotes of popped primers in xm193 that were noted above?
Your 15A4CBA2K works with 52 - 69 grain ammo but you’ll need to try a
box at a time to see what works best in your particular rifle. Don’t
use Wolf ammo as it’s inferior and if its steel cased will scratch your
chamber and if it has a lacquered finish it will foul your barrel
severely causing hours of cleaning time. Stick with good quality
5.56X45 or .308 Remington ammo.
ugh… this is what we call “bullshit.”
i bet your chamber is tight, and ballooning it full of steel when dirty just slows extraction enough to SS on you.
i bet if you scrub your chamber out the same batch of wolf will run fine for 200-300 rounds, then start hiccuping again.
a tight chamber will cause problems with a wide variety of ammo- not just wolf. i’d have the chamber reamed.
Quality USA manufactured ammunition has always functioned as it should. Before and after this wolf incident. There is no problem with the chamber, dimensionally or otherwise.
It’s all in the report - Wolf sounds like a popped brown paper bag, wanna-be ammo on an ar15. FWIW Wolf functions great in my com bloc rifles!
Thanks for the input everyone. Could an oversized gas port may be causing some rifles to function Wolf well result in the anecdotes of popped primers in xm193 that were noted above?