Is steel case ammo going to mess the gun up or is it just going to wear the parts out faster and if so how much faster? (I am not planning on reloading the rounds)
Look at it this way, steel ammo is what about 20 cents per round if you buy it at a gun show by the box of 500. Brass ammo costs like 45 cents per round at my local Academy Sports Outdoors. Now, the life of an AK with military steel case ammo is 25,000 rounds.... lets assume you can get an extra 10,000 by using brass ammo. If you have saved all that money by buying steel cased ammunition, you could buy 3 replacement AK's with the money you saved by the time you wear one out. The AK was made to use steel cased ammunition. All Russian designed weaponry is designed for steel cased stuff, I have heard they actually function better with steel. Something to do with the hardness of the metal.
The ak was designed with the steel cased ammo in mind. The only real wear is going to be the chamber area, and even at that, it is going to take many thousands of rounds to wear it out. be more concerned with the corroive ammo, and clean the firearm well with warm soapy water or military bore cleaner after each shooting session.
True, brass ammo is hard to find. Your only real options in brass is Remington, Winchester, American Eagle, UMC, PMC, Fiocchi, and a sometimes a few various imports. Most of these can be difficult to find in large quantites and are costly. There was surplus from South Africa, Yugoslavia, Egypt and possibly Iran that was brass but almost all of it is difficult to find. The AK was designed around steel cased ammo. I shoot plenty of it through my guns and have little worry about any parts damage or accelerated wear. Other than the option of reloading, brass doesn't offer much that steel can't provide.
First it is almost impossible to reload steel case ammo. It has Berdan primers, which are twice as hard to find re-prime with than regular 'Boxer' type primers. Steel case ammo, which is almost always laquer coated, will not be any more of a wear factor than brass cases, just don't leave a laquered round in a hot chamber, as the laquer will melt cause a jam when the round sticks in the chamber. Even with the price of components on the rise, I'd look into stocking up now! My reloads, including 7,62x39R's, are FAR superior to the surplus on the market, especially the steel-case, which I wouldn't shoot, myself. Once you have the brass cases, reloads are far cheaper than any surplus, to boot.
