About $7 per 50 rounds cheaper than Remington at local wally world. Worth it for range ammo? I'm thinking about using it because it's russian-made, so by definition that makes Obama it's *****.

shoots fine

The Tula 45acp ammo I have seen is a steel jacketed bullet, copper washed to make it pretty (and not rust). If steel down your bore is okay, why has not a single US ammo maker switched?

Read the article from Lucky gunner about steel and rifle bores. It's fine if you don't mind shooting a smooth bore after a few thousand rounds.

Here is the link to the thread I'm talking about...

http://mobile.texags.com/Forums/34/Topics/2423213

[This message has been edited by EastTexasAg1994 (edited 4/24/2014 9:56p).]

Insightful for a rifle, but how does that translate to a 1911 with a far shorter barrel?

Your .45 acp barrel is going to have rifling in it just like a rifle barrel. That rifling will get worn down just the same. Every time you put a steel core round down the pipe it is going to be a little less accurate. The Tula ammo is the worst by far so I would keep that in mind.

When you clean your rifle or handgun do you want to scrape the steel rod in the barrel? You'll be doing worse than that every time you pull the trigger with steel core ammo with a cheap copper wash on it.

[This message has been edited by EastTexasAg1994 (edited 4/25/2014 7:02a).]

ACTUALLY........

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The steel cases themselves don’t have any effect on the condition of the bore. The difference lies with the projectile – the soft copper jacket of the Federal ammunition simply doesn’t cause the same amount of wear as the bimetal (copper and steel) jacket of the Russian ammunition.

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Also important to remember is...

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An important factor to consider is that in the real world, barrels are wear items. They will eventually become unserviceable if shot enough. If you plan on shooting a lot, don’t get too attached to your barrel – think of it as a thing that does a job for a certain period of time at a certain cost. When that time is up, change the barrel.

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http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/brass-vs-steel-cased-ammo/

Steel cased ammo is fine. Dirtier though. If all ranges allowed it, that's all I would shoot.

Steel cased ammo has nothing to do with it. It is steel core ammo with a cheap copper wash that is the issue. Maybe read the article? If you don't mind 1/2 the barrel life and degrading your barrel with every shot then go right ahead.

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As indicated by accuracy testing, the steel cased/bimetal jacketed ammunition caused accelerated wear to the inside of their respective bores. While the barrel of the Federal carbine had plenty of life left, even after 10,000 rounds at extremely high rates of fire, the Wolf and Brown Bear barrels were subjected to the same rates of fire and were completely “shot out” by 6,000 rounds.

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The bottom line is that for both Brown Bear and Wolf, the lands had been completely ground down to the diameter of the grooves. What’s still visible is the differences in material, for the grooves have some chrome lining left. Longitudinal scratches are visible inside the bore, and it is believed that they were caused by the projectiles meandering their way down the bore in a casual manner before exiting and tumbling in a fairly random direction.

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[This message has been edited by EastTexasAg1994 (edited 4/25/2014 9:47p).]

Basically if you want the super fancy scientific version of why cheap crap ammo ruins your rifling then here you go...

http://www.uspsa.org/front-sight-magazine-article.php?Should-I-Buy-BiMetal-Ammo-8

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Before you stop reading I want to let you know that this is not an article about the 9x18mm round. Our subject today is bimetal jackets. The 9x18mm makes a good example because so much 9x18 ammunition imported into the United States today is bimetal, and "bimetal" is often confused with "steel core". Also, before I get too far and someone has a meltdown, I want to make it clear that we are talking about steel in bullets and NOT about steel cases. That is a different issue altogether.

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Discovering these simple facts makes the whole thing come together for me. If you wanted to make a regular copper-jacketed lead bullet cheaper, you would look first at eliminating or at least diminishing the more expensive of your two materials, in this case copper. One of the ways some manufacturers achieve this today is by using a brass jacket instead of a pure copper one. For example, Sellier & Bellot makes most of their jackets out of "cartridge brass" which is 70% copper / 30% zinc. It's still mostly copper, but less copper means cheaper bullets. BUT, let's say you really wanted to put your bullets on a copper crash diet. Steel is an attractive alternative…at first glance. It's cheap, plentiful and easy to work with. The obvious problem with using steel as a jacket material is that it would in all likelihood wear a barrel's rifling at a much faster rate than copper or brass. Besides, who on earth would buy ammo labeled as "Steel-Jacketed?" I'll tell you who: A crazy person who wants to destroy the rifling in their gun! So, if you're going to make steel-jacketed ammo, you need to place a cushion between the steels of the jacket and the barrel. Something like copper, perhaps. Fortuitously, a thin copper coating would also work double duty by helping to protect the steel from corrosion.

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Now, the rifling was not penetrating the steel jacket as deep as I thought it might, but that's not important. What is important is that it IS happening. The problem we're left with is: How bad is it for your gun to fire a piece of steel out of it? Unfortunately I have no way quantifying how bad it might or might not be at this time. However, we do know that copper is a soft material, which is why it's used as a jacket material. Brass is a bit less soft than copper, which is why we use it for cleaning brushes. On the other hand, carbon steel is very difficult to describe as soft, and stainless steel cleaning brushes come with warnings. The hardness of different steels vary quite a bit, but given a choice between something made from copper or brass and something steel, I can tell you which I would prefer to have scraping along the rifling of my gun's barrel at 1,000 feet per second. (I'll give you a hint, it's not the steel.)

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You are getting what you pay for with the cheap Russian ammo. A cheaper, dirtier, less accurate round that will wear out your barrel faster.

[This message has been edited by EastTexasAg1994 (edited 4/25/2014 9:59p).]

[This message has been edited by EastTexasAg1994 (edited 4/25/2014 10:00p).]

[This message has been edited by EastTexasAg1994 (edited 4/25/2014 10:01p).]