A friend gifted me with a 2½ gal pail of brass he had been collecting knowing that I am a reloader. It was a mixture of 9mm, .38 spl, 40 S&W and some 45 ACP brass. About half of it was CCI’s aluminum cased empties. I was surprised to see that a lot of the aluminum cases were boxer primed. I had thought that CCI had made it all burdan primed so it would not be reloaded. In any event I have the aluminum cases heading to the recycle bin with the “beverage” cans. For grins though I loaded up a couple of dummy round and they went through the dies just fine. Can someone advise why aluminum cases cannot be reloaded, I don’t think I have ever heard an explanation. Thanks!

I tried some once, the sizing operation split the necks.

I have actually loaded one or two blaser 45ACP cases before by mistake. I was loading a 200gr cast SWC with a light load of powder behind it. These loaded & funtioned well but I made sure not to pick them & try again.
I am not sure why we are told not reload these cases but I am guessing that these probably couldn't be relaoded more than once or twice. The manufacturer probably can't afford to risk the liability of it.

Aluminum used in those cases isn't as ductile as brass and they give up the ghost pretty fast when reloading. Not worth the risk should one let go at a bad time. Steel cases have another problem. Since they definitely aren't as ductile as brass they don't shrink back as much from the chamber after the pressure of firing them obturated them to the chamber wall. After the first reloading you don't notice it too much, but after more reloading they start to exhibit this problem. Some say they are hard on your reloading dies too.

In a long run it's better to just start with brass cases and if taken care of they will last for many reloadings.

I've wonder why too that CCI quit using the berdan primed cases. Maybe it was a money factor.

I was told they stopped using the Berdan primers to avoid any mix-ups at the ammo factory and to standardize their production.

Aluminum work hardens and becomes brittle very quickly. It extrudes well but bend it back and forth a couple of times (like firing and resizing) and it loses all strength.

quote:

Originally posted by Blacktailer:
Aluminum work hardens and becomes brittle very quickly...............

work hardens much,much quicker than brass.
annealing is possible, but being a low melting point metal there is no colour change & the annealing temp is critical..........so classical neck annealing methods are unreliable & dangerous.

works fine as a factory load, for safety just use them as single-use disposables

I worked in a indoor pistor range in Torrance Ca in the early 60s and the guy that reloaded 38 and 45ACPs for the range also reloaded for the Torrance PD. He asked us if we ever found any of the WW2 steel 45acp cases to set them aside for him as he used them to reload for the Tompson SMG that the police had.

I have loaded the steel 45 ACP cases just for the leaning process. They were pretty crappy to load. They were left at the range when fired.

I remember reading something about burn through with aluminum cases.

So I am surprised they are using them at all.


This publication shows aluminum heat treatments and anneals. The whole process looks awfully complicated to me.

Heat Treatment of Aluminum Alloys


http://www.mlevel3.com/BCIT/heat%20treat.htm