Barnaul Brown Bear .223 ammo?

Has anyone had any experience with this ammo? I understand it's lacquer-coated steel case, Berdan-primed, non-corrosive 62-grain hollow-point, and I'm thinking it would be good everyday plinking/practice ammo. And cheap.

I have went through about 1000 rds of the Barnaul Silver Bear which is a steel cased with zinc coating and 62 grn Hollow points. Very accurate and great for plinking. I would buy more and recommend it to anyone.

I do not know about the .223 Brown Bear but the 9mm Brown Bear is low powered and does not run well in a variety of my 9mm's. Their 9mm Mak works fine in my Makarovs so it is kinda 50/50 in my book.

I have a friend that ran it thru his Armellite ar15 and it jammed. Others run it thru their RRA and colt AR's with no problem. That steel case concerns me along with the laquer coating. Their 762x39 runs fine in my Russian SKS and is hands down more accurate than wolf.

As a Colt Armorer, we were advised during the Armorer School that Colt would definitely void your warranty for using Russian/steel cased ammo, and that some Police Departments had returned ARs that were damaged from using it. This was several years ago, and the Russians may have improved somewhat - but I don't like putting it in anything I own. I'd rather support my US suppliers, also.

The steel cases do work better in the Combloc weapons with their more tapered cases. The laquer (sp) coated stuff is an absolute no no, but even the newer polymer coated steel case is going to be harder on your weapon than brass cased ammo.

Almost as bad, the Russian powder is by and large terribly dirty, and the AR gets dirty enough with "clean" ammo. Remember the problems in Vietnam with ball powder and too much calcium carbonate? Each to his own - it's your weapon and your pocketbook - personally, I'd pay quite a bit more for US spec ammo - and do, or go to a .22RF conversion. CC

Well - my questions will receive a definitive answer this w/e - just got a case yesterday, so range time is definitely on the schedule. If it matters, I will be running it though a Mini-14, not an AR...

And, yes, I certainly do remember the problems with the early powder - hated it that it took the deaths of troopers to get it the proper attention. I still run across articles where the writer is still convinced the problem was inadequate cleaning, not the ammo.