Guns: A 9mm Ammunition

One of the advantages of shooting a 9mm as your primary defensive firearm is that 9mm costs a lot less than other pistol rounds. Since 9mm is the most widely used pistol cartridge in the world, it's basically a sure thing for ammo manufacturers (especially foreign manufacturers) to produce (somebody's gonna buy it) - classic economy of scale. A .45 ACP does not take twice the raw materials or even machinery to produce, but the fact that it's much less favored around the world serves to drive up the price to double that of 9mm.

Lately, though, ammo prices have been rising. Some of my go-to range ammo choices in the past - Winchester "White Box" USA 100-round value packs, Sellier & Bellot, Magtech, American, Blazer Brass, etc. - have become quite expensive. Whereas a year and a half ago you would be able to snag a case of quality ammo for maybe $110-$125, nowadays you might be paying $150-$170 for the exact same ammo. Ouch.

I took a chance on some new stuff - Sellier & Bellot copper-plated steel. The primary expense in a cartridge, of course, is the brass itself - copper is a valuable commodity, useful in many more applications than just ammo. By replacing it with steel or aluminum (or filling spent cases with new powder and bullets, AKA handloading), you stand to save a lot of money.

The problem is, though, that steel and aluminum act very differently from brass (different coefficient of friction, different hardness, etc.) and thus do not work consistently in some firearms. The copper-plating on my S&B ammo supposedly should serve to reduce those problems. I've shot about 400 rounds of the stuff so far, and aside from bright sparks issuing from the barrel (either copper flaking off, a quirk of the powder, or both), it seems to work well.