Hornady Steel Match Ammo

Anyone tried this stuff yet? Supposedly the same powder/primer/bullet combination as their brass cased match ammo but with a polymer coated steel case to help keep the cost down. Have 500rds of their .223 with 75gr BTHP bullet coming in later this week along with another 100rds of their SuperPerformance Match 5.56 Nato 75gr HPBT ammo to try out in the AR.

The steel match stuff is actually cheaper than I can reload .223 for at $210 per 500rds so I'm really hoping my AR likes it. That's about the same as what most surplus M-885 is selling for these days.

I have shot the 75gr HPBT and the 55gr HPBT through a Daniel Defence AR-15. This rifle is a little finicky and will not feed with most imported steel case ammo(Tulu and Wolf). The Hornandy feed great with no malfunctions and the accuracy was very good. It did seem hot, the recoil impulse was much greater than standard Lake city 55gr ball ammo.

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...16656740_n.jpg

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...09727340_n.jpg

Had no problem repeatedly connecting on 8" steel @ 650yd.

I was very impressed...especially for $21-25/50rds.

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Originally Posted by Admin

The steel match stuff is actually cheaper than I can reload .223 for at $210 per 500rds so I'm really hoping my AR likes it. That's about the same as what most surplus M-885 is selling for these days.

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Really? That's $0.42 / round, not even including shipping/sales tax. What components (besides the Hrndy 75 gr BTHP) would you use for reloading? Without even buying primers in bulk, the per-round cost for my reloads (using the same bullet, and conservatively assuming only 8 reloads per new brass case, and a whole 25 gr of Varget / load...though I only use 24.6) breaks down like this (using current pricing from Grafs and rounded to the nearest 1/1000 cent per round):

Item	Purchase Qty	Purchase Cost	Cost / Rd
Hornady 75 gr BTHP Match	600	$98.99	$0.16498
Varget	8 lbs (56K gr)	$161.99	$0.07232
CCI Small Rifle Primers	1,000	$27.99	$0.02799
Hornady Brass	50 (used 8 times each)	$25.99	$0.06498
Shipping from Grafs		$5.95	$0.01488
Total cost / rd =			$0.34515

Note that the shipping cost is only spread across the 400 rounds I'm conservatively estimating you'd get from the brass, rather than the total number you'd get on average from all of these components, so the per/rd cost would actually be lower in reality...and all cost rounding was done UP. And I used Hornady's pricier brass here, but I use Prvi, which is less expensive by about $0.032/rd...and you could lower the cost even more by just scrounging brass from firing store-bought ammo.

Even with all of the conservative estimating we still have a reloaded per round cost of just over $0.34515 vs $0.42 per round for the steel cased Hornady ammo. So you're paying a > 21.7% per round premium for commercial loaded ammo that you can't even scrounge brass from after you've fired it. Of course, this doesn't factor in the value of your time, but if reloading is a hobby anyway then I don't attach a cost to that.

Nice range report! I was wondering about this "stuff" myself. Now I'll order a box of the 55gr without the concern of buying a box of "shot-shells."

I wonder where all the anti-polycoated steel ammo folks are? I would like to know how it works in an AR with a hot chamber myself. I would think tolerances are held a little tighter than the wolf/tula ammo.